Conversation, the Control Point for Communication

Remember in Chapter 5 how we described control points as measuring the desired outcome that you want to achieve? If you use a measure of “the strategy has been communicated to everyone,” that is a bad measure because it is a measure of an activity, not an outcome—so it's not a control point. Control points are called “control points” because if you can achieve the control point measure, you have achieved the desired outcome, and you can be assured that a bunch of the right things happened to deliver that outcome.

So, why not instead use the following as your control point for measuring the effectiveness of your communication: The communication can be declared as successful only when the audience is talking about it amongst themselves.

It's a good control point because if you see that outcome happening, that means that your audience has internalized your message well enough to talk about it, they are engaged enough to talk about it, and they are spending time and energy focused on it. It works as a control point because many good things are happening, and you don't need to measure them all individually.

For your transformation to work, the change must be part of the social fabric of the whole organization in a very real way—and that happens through conversation.

For example, when you can approach an employee at any level at random and ask, “What is the most important thing for us to be doing right now, and why?” and get the same answer most of the time, then you can say that your communication has been successful.

When I led the strategic transformation in the HP OpenView software business, I knew it was working when six months in a customer described our new strategy to an editor, and it was quoted accurately in the press, and a sales engineer in a remote part of Europe presented the strategy to a visiting colleague of mine who relayed it back to me.

Success: The conversation about my strategy was happening whether or not I was there. People in the business (and customers!) were thinking and communicating about the new strategy. We had created the right conversation, and people at all levels across the world were talking about it.

Example: Utopia Village Transforming Customer Service

Recently I had the opportunity to visit a resort on the island of Utila in Honduras called Utopia Village (www.UtopiaVillage.com). This is a beautiful place with a world-class level of service that I have not experienced in this part of the world before. It was so remarkable that I decided to talk to the owners about how they accomplished it.

The owners, Paul and Chrisna, are strongly community minded, and in an effort to support and develop the local community, they try to employ only local people at their resort instead of recruiting service-experienced staff from five-star resorts from other places in the world.

So the business transformation challenge was this: How do we educate and inspire local people who have never been outside Honduras, who have never stayed in high-end resorts or hotels, with little or no service experience at all, to deliver a world-class level of customer service?

They told me that that they focused on and emphasized just four simple rules for how to treat guests. They communicated these (initially top down) often and frequently.

1. We try to always say yes (be flexible, find a way to make it happen).
2. We pay attention to the details (notice what people like and don't like and modify the service for each person accordingly).
3. We try to exceed expectations (anticipate, do things without being asked, think of special things).
4. We are always there to greet guests (no guest ever leaves the resort or arrives back on the resort without a staff member being there to greet them).

Paul and Chrisna:

In the beginning the staff didn't fully understand what really was being asked of them, or in some cases why it was important or why it mattered.

They never openly resisted it. In the beginning they would nod their heads and say they understood what was expected when we discussed the rules. But in practice we just did not see the follow-through on the execution side. In the beginning we had to re-emphasize the rules many times, and we had to constantly give lots of examples and feedback. Eventually they started to do the small things we were asking more consistently—enough that guests started noticing.

Then, the staff started to experience the conversation.

The staff started to see guest comments on TripAdvisor and the guest survey forms, as well as receive direct feedback from guests. They were proud when guests noticed and said something!

By now our #1 Trip Advisor rating was a great source of pride for them. They love it when guests comment on the “exceptional service.” Once this conversation was happening, we began to see them really try (without being told anymore by us) to DELIGHT guests and surprise them with small things, wonderful things that even surprised us!

To take advantage of this initial momentum the owners created another new opportunity for conversation among the staff. Using the online messaging platform WhatsApp, they created a WhatsApp Group that the staff could own called Utopia Stars. It includes every member of the staff.

Paul and Chrisna continued:

Whenever someone sees something special or fun (e.g., a colleague doing something great, a team working hard, staff waiting for the guests to arrive back on site…), another staff member posts a message on WhatsApp that everyone can see.

This Chat Group had an amazing impact—much more than we ever could have dreamed when it was created. Everyone follows it. Everyone can post in it. Because it is typically a photo with some basic emojis (smiley face, thumbs up, hands clapping, etc.), it breaks down all barriers. Even if you don't speak English or Spanish, the pictures and the emojis tell the story. It has created a wonderful sense of community. It also helps make people feel connected. It was a channel our young staff was familiar and comfortable with. It breaks down barriers while building a sense of community and “being part of something bigger.” And it is fun.

This moved the critical conversation that motivated the right actions exactly to where it needed to be—to the staff themselves, in an application they already used to communicate.

An important part about creating conversation among the people doing the work is that you need to create the conversation where the communication of your group is already happening. If they had to employ a new communication mechanism, for example, fill out a physical form or send an email, it would not have taken hold in such a strong way. You need to be willing to initiate and join the conversation on their terms, where they are naturally active and feel comfortable, not where you feel comfortable (on email, in your office, through scrubbed employee communication memos, etc.).

This really worked! Not only is the service truly excellent and virtually flawless, the people who care most about delivering this service are the staff themselves.

Paul and Chrisna:

When we hire new people now, we still share with them our values and the four things, but what they have learned is that the current staff shares it on their own and tells the new staff members about it. We now have minimal effort (nothing like initially) to educate and convince the new staff of what is expected and why it is important. The current staff members are the advocates and bring the new staff on board.

Now that is a successful transformation! Not only is the staff not asking “Are we still doing this?” they are the ones sharing the strategy with new staff.

It is an excellent example of moving the conversation necessary to drive the change into the right place in the organization. The conversation has taken a strong hold among the people doing the work. That's always your goal.