Category: Training & Development

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Engagement Training & Development

Blog-Inspired Nonprofit More Than a Relative Success

Shane Burcaw and Sarah Burcaw, Laughing at My Nightmare (LAMN]

It all began with a popular blog.

Cousins Shane Burcaw and Sarah Burcaw Yunusov had the idea to start a nonprofit while in college.  Their dream was inspired by Shane’s “Laughing at My Nightmare” blog where he posted his “funny, absurd, and at times, gut-wrenching” experience living with a severe form of muscular dystrophy.” His message was “no matter what life throws our way, there is always a reason to laugh.”

Sarah describes their family’s experience:

“Shane and I grew up in a family that was always laughing [and] we learned how incredibly powerful humor was when dealing with adversity … His blog was basically just an extension of the mindset instilled in us by our family. It’s about the hilarious and crazy experiences Shane has had living with muscular dystrophy, but more than that, it teaches readers that a positive attitude can help them effectively cope with stress and adversity.”

Bolstered by the positive response to his blog, Shane and Sarah’s nonprofit, Laughing at My Nightmare, Inc. (LAMN), was officially launched ten years ago with a dual mission to “teach children that all people deserve kindness and respect, regardless of their differences, while also providing free equipment to people living with muscular dystrophy.”

I was first drawn to LAMN because I had a cousin with muscular dystrophy. Getting to know Sarah and Shane and seeing their passion and commitment in action, I became a strong advocate, supporter, and mentor.

Besides promoting understanding and acceptance of diversity to students in hundreds of schools, Laughing at My Nightmare, Inc., has given more than $500K in adaptive equipment/assistive technology to those in need. It also launched a COVID-19 Resource Relief program to help members of the disability community deal with the extra burdens imposed by the pandemic.

In honor of Laughing at My Nightmare, Inc.’s 10th Anniversary, this post is dedicated to Shane, Sarah, their families, and all LAMN supporters. Congratulations!

To learn more, check out Shane Burcaw’s books:

 

 

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

“Hands down, face-to-face is the best” (pun intentional)

Confession: I have as much fun talking about LEGO® bricks as I do working with them.

I actually use these colorful plastic building blocks in team development as a Certified Facilitator in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) – a novel approach that enables participants to “think with their hands and listen with their eyes.”

I had a special opportunity to share why I find this hands-on method so powerful with fellow LSP facilitator, Peter Tonge, host of “LSP – Face-to-Face,” a podcast produced primarily for the global LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator community. Peter is a member of the Brickstorming team whose founder, the brilliant Kristen Klassen, trained me in LSP.

In our conversation we discuss some of my favorite early participant LSP models (shown here in this post) to illustrate the power of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in people’s hands. I’m amazed how deeply participants engage in individual and collective discovery as they create and share their models with each other. That’s why this hands-on approach must be held in-person — LSP’s potent immersive experience cannot be duplicated in a virtual setting.

One of my takeaways from our discussion was this insightful quote from Peter, “The [LSP] Method doesn’t require it to be complicated. The Method requires it to be thoughtful.” This quote ties in with why I cite the single grey brick as one of my favorites. Take a listen to learn more, including what the models included in this post mean.

A special thank you to Peter for allowing me to post our conversation here.

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

What I Enjoy about My “Work” as a Facilitator

How many people do you know who truly love what they do? Well, you can count me as one of them.

Combining multiple roles of “catalyst, conductor, and coach,” my work as a facilitator is complex, challenging, and gratifying. Projects may appear to be similar, yet each facilitated session is unique.

I enjoy my work on two parallel levels.

Working with people to ensure a meaningful experience:

  • helping clients create the appropriate space (i.e., opportunity) for groups of employees, customers, partners, volunteers, board members, and other stakeholders to purposefully be together
  • developing and applying the appropriate questions and flow that safely enable individual and collective discovery, shared understanding, focused discussion, problem-solving, planning, ideation, etc.
  • sharing outcomes and observed insights with clients + keeping in touch with them about their progress.

Working on myself for ongoing professional and personal development:

When it comes to my work, I’m fortunate to enjoy both what I do and how I do it.

“People don’t choose their careers; they are engulfed by them.” John Dos Passos

[Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay]
Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Boss’s Day 2020 – Appreciating the Best and Worst Bosses

Seeing the selection of Boss’s Day cards for October 16th reminded me of the bosses I previously worked for who ranged from great to toxic. [See my suggestion below for observing Boss’s Day this year.]

I had the privilege of working for a few executives I highly respected. I also worked for execs who were inept, inconsistent, immature, and egotistical to the point of being intolerable.

Along my journey in the workplace, I did my best to practice the positive traits of the best bosses and avoid the negative behaviors of the bad ones. They all taught me how much influence those in charge have on engaging employees to do their best or causing them to disengage over time.

The Best Bosses taught me the value of working effectively with employees. Through their attitudes and actions they demonstrated:

  • honesty, transparency, and clarity in communicating what was happening in the organization and how it impacted people’s work
  • fairness in their dealings with employees by showing no favoritism
  • support for employees by providing the tools, training, and trust to do their jobs.

The Bad Bosses taught me the behaviors that frustrate employees and lead to a toxic work environment:

  • treating employees as minions whose function was to bolster the boss’s ego
  • assuming employees have no life outside of work and are available to be called upon 24/7. (The mantra of one boss could have been “Lack of planning on my part will constitute a constant emergency on your part.”)
  • assigning employees projects without all the proper information and/or support needed to accomplish them.  (I experienced this situation because one boss was into power trips. Another couldn’t make up his mind on what he wanted and waited until the project was near-completion. Then he’d shift gears so my team would have to start over – wasting precious resources in the process.)

I don’t know if anyone is ever fortunate to work with only the best bosses or cursed to work with only nightmare bosses; most likely it’s some combination. Regardless, each has something to teach us about what works and what doesn’t in managing and leading people.

How to Observe Boss’s Day 2020

COVID-19 restrictions and working remotely may preclude the usual celebration of taking the boss to lunch. If you’re fortunate to work for someone worth acknowledging on Oct. 16th, let that person know you appreciate working with her/him/them and offer specific feedback that compliments and reinforces why you like being part of that person’s team.

If you work for a bad boss, consider observing Boss’s Day discretely by updating your resume. It might turn out to be the best gift you give yourself.

[Photo by Ben White on Unsplash]

 

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Customer service Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Building Connections and Engagement in “Smart Women Conversations”

Connecting and engaging people in the workplace with LEGO® … just one of many fascinating topics shared in my video discussion with Smart Women Conversations’ host Yvonne DiVita, respected blogger, serial entrepreneur, and my former publisher who remains a dear friend.

Yvonne launched Smart Women Conversations to “inform, educate, create laughter and share stories of reinvention” as part of her passion to “inspire and educate smart, talented women eager for business success today.”

I’m honored and humbled to be among the impressive women interviewed in this special series and invite you to read Yvonne’s introduction or just watch and listen to our conversation below.

To learn more, please visit Nurturing Big Ideas and check out these other Smart Women Conversations.

 

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Customer service Engagement Training & Development

What’s Reflected in Your Brand Mirror?

To hold on to your customers amid strong competition, it’s important to provide a positive customer experience. But where do you begin?

You start from the inside out with the employee experience because the way employees feel is the way customers will feel – and if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers. 

Picture the relationship between the two as a mirror. If employees are frustrated by company policy or internal politics, their attitudes can be reflected in their dealings with customers. Who wants to be served by employees who feel hassled or ready to disengage? It takes only one or two such encounters before a customer goes elsewhere. And who knows how many other customers will hear of their experience?

What do you see when looking into your company’s employee-customer brand mirror?

  • a shiny reflection of positive experiences with your internal and external brand?
  • a blurred image that needs polishing to be more employee- and customer-focused? or
  • a cracked image opening up opportunities for your competitors?

Three keys to creating a positive and polished brand reflection:

  • Proactively pay attention and listen to employees to better understand their experience in your workplace; e.g., employee surveys, management by wandering around, engagement discussions, exit interviews, etc. Do your employees have the tools, resources, and information they need to effectively serve customers?
  • Based on what you learn from listening to them, involve employees in improving business operations to better care for customers and each other.
  • If your organization is in transition or stressed with limited resources, positively acknowledge those who rally the energy and enthusiasm to serve customers and co-workers despite the situation.

If you need a reminder :

“There is no way to deliver a great customer experience with miserable employees.”  Steve Cannon

“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”  Stephen R. Covey

[Image credit: Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash]

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

An Accidental Facilitator’s Simple Tool for Improvement

An admitted “accidental facilitator,” I love what I do. Here’s why.

I find my role in guiding the process of discovery among groups to be:

  • challenging – because it requires a high level of customization to meet a client’s specific needs while being unable to predict the outcome
  • intense and exhausting – because it involves being fully present to listen and observe what’s happening as well as being focused yet flexible to adapt on the fly as needed
  • exhilarating – because participants find their active engagement in the experience to be worthwhile, and so do I.

Facilitation is also rewarding in that it provides an incredible opportunity to learn and grow. That’s why I keep a special journal that helps me continually improve my skills.

In it, I briefly review each experience using a simple outline that includes:

  • Project name and date 
  • What worked that may prove to be useful in other projects, if applicable
  • What didn’t work that I should avoid doing again
  • Lessons learned from the experience that is also based on feedback compiled from participant evaluation forms.

Each journal page contains just enough info to refresh my memory about the experience. Viewing the pages individually and collectively yields valuable insights and ideas to consider with each successive facilitation project.

[“Ideas” image by Juan Marin on Unsplash. Photo at left is my facilitator’s journal.]

 

 

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Training & Development

Why Read About Reading?

Because it’s good for your health.

That’s the key message in Read ‘Em & Reap: 6 Science-Backed Ways Reading Puts You on the Road to Achieving More and Living Longer by Tom Collins. [Disclaimer: I was fortunate to review an early draft of the book.]

Collins draws on research from neurology, psychology, cognition, education, and other fields of science to affirm reading’s benefits that positively impact both physical and mental health. Chapter titles include:

    • Reading Reduces Stress
    • Helps You Sleep
    • Improves Your Decision-Making Capacity
    • Makes You a Better Leader

A quick and enjoyable read, this powerful little book offers insight on “deep reading” to find answers and/or explore problems to generate meaning. Its readers will also find an interesting discussion in the print vs. digital debate.

Why I recommend Read ‘Em & Reap

If you’re a hesitant reader, you’ll get the encouragement you need to read more with help on how to develop a proactive reading plan.

If you’re an avid reader, you’ll appreciate the book’s “tips on adding more reading to your life.”

I enjoyed this book because it affirms the benefits of reading on so many levels. I read nonfiction for work to learn more, and I read fiction for pleasure to escape. Now I’m encouraged to go beyond reading just for work and play. Read ‘Em & Reap was the jump-start I needed to expand my reading even more.

 

Categories
Customer service Training & Development

3 Simple Ways to Engage Employees in a Better Customer Experience

Photo by Headway on Unsplash

Need to have your employees better understand and improve the customer experience?

Here are three simple approaches designed to do just that. Each one can be applied to engage employees in sharing their experiences and building on their ideas to take care of customers.

1. Consider the customer perspective 

“Smart people walk in the shoes of their customers. But wise people remove their own shoes first.”

Because empathy is critical to improving the customer experience, it’s valuable for employees to consider and discuss their own experience as consumers. You can engage them in discussing one or more of the following questions, such as:

  • Thinking about a recent experience you had as a customer, how would you describe the quality of that experience? What stood out for you that made it that way? … Based on that experience, would you recommend that company to a friend? Why or why not?
  • As a consumer, how can you tell whether a company is customer-centric?
  • How do you see who you are and what you offer through the customer’s eyes?
  • [Based on the responses to these questions:] What does this say about how we serve our customers? … How can we do better?

2. Consider employee impact 

Use notable quotes from the business press that will work well as discussion-starters to elicit employee reactions and ideas. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • “The easiest way to turn a service into an experience is to provide poor service – thus creating an memorable encounter of the unpleasant kind.” B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy
  • “Customers care about the degree to which you respect and value their business … If you provide customers with clues that you don’t value their business, then all the customer satisfaction in the world won’t help you.” David C. Lineweber
  • “If you respect the customer as a human being, and truly honor their right to be treated fairly and honestly, everything else is much easier.” Doug Smith
  • “Brands are built from within … [they] have very little to do with promises made through advertising. They’re all about promises met by employees.” Ian Buckingham

3. Consider combining both of the above approaches

Depending on how much time you have for discussion, you can start with the empathetic perspective and close with an applicable quote that supports delivering a positive customer experience. Or you can start with a quote and segue to discussing the customer’s perspective. As for selecting quotes, you can even invite employees to share a favorite or create their own.

Helpful tips

When you engage employees in these special discussions — whether as part of orientation, customer service training, staff meetings or retreats — you can elicit their understanding and ideas to better serve customers as well as co-workers who are “internal customers.”

Regardless of which of setting or approach(es) you use, it’s essential to conduct such discussions in a positive, non-threatening, and respectful setting. Your objective is twofold: 

  1. to encourage employees to comfortably share stories and actionable ideas that enable them to better serve customers, and
  2. avoid getting mired in a spiraling critique of complaints.

The key is to not dwell on negative barriers but focus on ways to overcome them.

And don’t forget the food (e.g., appropriate amounts of caffeine, water, sugar, healthy snacks, etc.) that can fuel the thinking and ideation process.

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Let Employees Out of the Bubble for Better Collaboration

Whether getting together in person for problem-solving, planning, or idea-sharing, many employees are thrilled with the opportunity to engage in active discussion when management is truly interested in their input.

I’ve seen the positive impact of these employee gatherings first-hand in my work as a facilitator and trainer. Individual, team, and organizational benefits of effective in-person working sessions include:

  • expanded internal resources through networking and relationship-building with co-workers
  • reduced silos via interdepartmental communication and teamwork
  • enhanced organizational capacity through shared learning, idea-exchange, and renewed focus around a common purpose.

Bringing together employees from different areas of a large organization may incur travel costs compared with lower-cost alternatives of webinars and teleconferences. But the benefits and overall value of connecting employees make a well planned face-to-face gathering a worthwhile investment.

Employee feedback

Here’s what employees say about their experience in these sessions from actual meeting evaluations:

  • It’s good to get out of our bubble and look at the big picture.
  • It was an excellent open forum to bounce ideas off of other employees.
  • Brings together what we’ve been trying to accomplish and articulate in a cohesive, common platform.
  • It provided a sense of team and togetherness.
  • Excellent opportunity to exchange ideas. We’re all in the same boat with common goals.

Want better collaboration and engagement?

“Regardless of how tech-savvy you may be, face-to-face meetings are still the most effective way to capture the attention of participants, engage them in the conversation, and drive productive collaboration.” – Michael Massari