Customer Service — How Much Is Enough?

Seth Godin challenges me on a regular basis with his leadership and communicating advice. His simple piece, Spare No Expense!, actually is a piece challenging folks to consider sparing some expense on customer service. Consider the following graph:

costs -vs- # customers served
costs -vs- # customers served

Seth describes the graph this way:

    In the chart, for example, (a) represents the cost of good signage at the airport, or clearly written directions on the prescription bottle or a bit of training for your staff. It pays off. Pay a little bit and you help a lot of people to avoid hassles. The utility per person isn’t huge, but you can help a lot of people at once.
    (b) is the higher cost of a bit of direct intervention. This is the cost of a call center or a toll free number or an information desk. You’re paying more, you’re helping fewer people, but you’re helping them a lot.
    (c) is where it gets nuts. (c) is where we are expected to spare no expense, where the CEO has to get involved because it’s a journalist who’s upset, or where we’re busy airlifting a new unit out to a super angry customer. The cost is very high, the systems fall apart and only one person benefits.

Here is where it gets tricky. The “spare no expense” desperate attempt to satisfy one can kill the whole enterprise. We often think that if we “spare no expense” we can make a problem or a problem customer go away. And here’s the killer, once we have done this for one person we have set a standard that now must be met for all customers. Organizations need to think this one through. Seth suggests we learn to say internally, “we need to be disciplined and help more people, even if that means that some special cases will fall through the cracks.” It hurts when some people walk away disappointed, but “spare no expense” may ultimately mean destruction.

Does Your Mindset Reflect the World’s Real Dataset?

Hans Rosling has developed with his son an intriguing website and the software tools to change the way we examine data. He shows us how the worldview of our teachers reflects the reality at their births rather than what is the contemporary reality. As I watched this piece I found my self thinking about the community we live in, the companies work for, the churches we serve, etc.. Does our worldview reflect the data? Watch this video and then reflect on this question with me.


If you want to explore more, check out Rosling’s website www.gapminder.org.

Leadership Is Exercised in a Context

Norman Wolfe, over at Fast Company, commented today on a colleague’s blog about the context of leadership. His colleague, Paul Walker, looking on the current situation in the USA observed that our nation needs a giant team-building exercise. Wolfe counters that while the intent seems good, we need to pay attention to the context of our life together as a nation state. We exist in a system of checks and balances that create a different game than often happens in successful companies. The following fleshes out his point:

Our government was set up to achieve certain ends; it was designed primarily for control of power. Our three divisions, executive, legislative and judiciary were purposely designed to ensure no one function could gain complete control of our nation. Checks and Balances was the designing objective.

And as for organizations who “explore ideas to find the best way instead of playing win/lose games” I have to remind you that our whole society is based on the adversarial principle (a win/lose game). Our founding fathers recognized that we were unlikely to find A Solomon the Wise to discern the truth or the best solution so they set up our system based on the idea that the truth can best be is discovered by opposing views being voiced and through the “jury of one’s peers” truth would emerge. This is the basis of our legal system and it is also the foundation of our Two Party System. It was once said that the political extremes define the issues and the moderates pass the laws. We need a return of the moderates to act as “jury of one’s peers.”

The problem we have is not one of team building but organization design. We designed it to have opposing positions compete with the belief that the best solution would emerge from the conflict. We could of course redesign our system and create one that relied on the same principles of business. However business is governed as much by market forces as they are by leadership team dynamics.
Government was never designed to run efficiently, it was designed to control misuse of power and given that we are dealing with humans playing with immense powers, I am not sure I want to change the design.

As I read his post, I pondered the intricacies of most church structures and find myself asking “do we have clarity about what our decision making structures will produce? Do the rules of the game allow us to align ourselves with God’s kingdom purposes? Where can we learn (and unlearn) from business and government organizations?” More importantly to me, what questions am I not asking?

Ed Stetzer on Equipping for Success

Ed has been at the work of supporting new church plants in the Southern Baptist church for years. When I met Ed several years ago I was impressed by his self-deprecating humor and passion for the hard places in ministry. Surely, like in the business world, one of those hard places is launching a new venture. In his piece Equipping Church Planters for Success he identifies the following components of a support system:

1. Use of a Behavioral Assessment to measure 13 key qualities developed by Charles Ridley helps suggest who has the potential to succeed in this task.
2. Boot camps to teach the skills and energize the candidate make a significant difference.
3. It seems obvious that church planters need mentors and supervisors, but we have failed with some of my colleagues to provide this support.
4. Each planter needs to be in a support group. Friends whatever you are doing, find a posse. My team has been meeting for 15 years and they have seen me through the my ministry successes and failures.

Check out Ed’s article for all the details.

Seth Godin on why there are not more leaders

In Seth Godin’s recent book Tribes (2008) he notes the following reasons that there seem to be few leaders in the workplace. Read this snippet:

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.

The scarcity makes leadership valuable. If everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. It’s discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile.

In other words, if everyone could do it, they would, and it wouldn’t be worth much.

It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers.
It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail.
It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo.
It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.

When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed.

If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

Some of this sounds like Adam Hamilton’s recent description of “leadership by nausea.” That is, if the decision you are making as a leader makes you ill, you are probably on the right track!

Better late than never …

At the United Methodist Church’s School of Congregational Development someone thought to have a conversation about what characteristics are required for a new church’s second pastor. They offered the following insights (after confessing that while they thought to have the conversation, they forgot to invite anybody who had walked that walk. I have been a new church’s second pastor and I could point you to others):

# A Maximizer Strength- Gallup would define it this way, “people strong in the maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.” (Rath and Conchile, Strengths Based Leadership Gallup Press, 2008. p. 203)
# Systems Thinking- is able to build systems that will keep the church on the growing edge of ministry and moving toward multiplication.
# Self-awareness- knows their own unique gifts and strengths for ministry and is not intimidated by the success and popularity of the founding pastor.
# Stick-to-itiveness- understands the dynamics of change a congregation experiences transitioning away from the founding pastor and hangs in there when the waters become choppy (as they will!)
# Better than average administrative skills- helps the church move toward better organization and administrative practices.
# Entrepreneurial traits- is able to help the church think creatively about new venues for ministry. Keeps the congregation from becoming “settlers”.
# Affinity with the Congregation and Mission Field- is a good fit.
# An understanding of the dynamics of new church development- needs to have a thorough understanding of the process or church planting and the uniqueness of this type of ministry.
# Experience in “turn-around” churches- as someone has said, “It is far more difficult to raise the dead than it is to give birth.” The skills gained from helping to resurrect a dead or dying church can prove invaluable to the ongoing development of a newer community of faith.
# Proven fruitfulness in growing ministry- you don’t want a “maintainer” as a second pastor.
# Good Pastoral Care skills- knowing enough about the importance of this to develop systems for pastoral care AND for being someone who has good caring skills.

The item they missed on this list is possibly buried in their fourth point. To be a second pastor in a new church requires first that you have thick skin. After you have checked for their thick skin, check it again, and then check it one more time. It is the first three requirements for a new church’s second pastor. Here’s why. The founding pastor does an incredible work of launching a new church. From inception to crawling, to walking, even running they use their unique gifts to establish a community of faith. Along the way, their congregation comes to see their unique set of gifts, strengths, and even weaknesses as THE qualifications for being a pastor. The judicatory body may be looking at the above list, but the second church pastor will be judged by the congregation by the standard of the founding pastor’s gifts, strengths, and even weaknesses.

I feel pretty confident that I did a good work as a second pastor for the new church plant to which I was appointed. I even embody much of the list above, but consistently I was measured by whether or not I functioned as the founding pastor did. Its unfortunate, but true. It may be the best work of a second pastor to be an interim. Help the congregation deal with the loss of their founding pastor and then transition them to someone with the gifts lifted above. The above list reflects good intents, but it lacks the boots on the ground reality of those of us who have walked as a second pastor in a new church.

Reflections on the Economy

I tend to left of center on many things politically, but remain a conservative when it comes to economics. Imagine my surprise when I read this piece from Bruce Bartlett, self-described developer of supply-side economics during his tenure on the staff of Jack Kemp, at The Daily Beast. His post, “The GOP’s Misplaced Rage,” includes the following comparisons of the Bush (43) and Clinton presidencies:

• Between the fourth quarter of 1992 and the fourth quarter of 2000, real GDP grew 34.7 percent. Between the fourth quarter of 2000 and the fourth quarter of 2008, it grew 15.9 percent, less than half as much.
• Between the fourth quarter of 1992 and the fourth quarter of 2000, real gross private domestic investment almost doubled. By the fourth quarter of 2008, real investment was 6.5 percent lower than it was when Bush was elected.
• Between December 1992 and December 2000, payroll employment increased by more than 23 million jobs, an increase of 21.1 percent. Between December 2000 and December 2008, it rose by a little more than 2.5 million, an increase of 1.9 percent. In short, about 10 percent as many jobs were created on Bush’s watch as were created on Clinton’s.
• During the Bush years, conservative economists often dismissed the dismal performance of the economy by pointing to a rising stock market. But the stock market was lackluster during the Bush years, especially compared to the previous eight. Between December 1992 and December 2000, the S&P 500 Index more than doubled. Between December 2000 and December 2008, it fell 34 percent. People would have been better off putting all their investments into cash under a mattress the day Bush took office.
• Finally, conservatives have an absurdly unjustified view that Republicans have a better record on federal finances. It is well-known that Clinton left office with a budget surplus and Bush left with the largest deficit in history. Less well-known is Clinton’s cutting of spending on his watch, reducing federal outlays from 22.1 percent of GDP to 18.4 percent of GDP. Bush, by contrast, increased spending to 20.9 percent of GDP. Clinton abolished a federal entitlement program, Welfare, for the first time in American history, while Bush established a new one for prescription drugs.

I guess all I add is OUCH! I am sure that someone will come out quickly with an attack on Bartlett’s numbers and analysis. You may also want to check out Bartlett’s broadside against “Obama’s Clueless Liberal Critics.”

George Barna on How Faith Varies by Congregational Size

A new report from The Barna Group, based on interviews with more than 3,000 adults, shows that congregational size is related to the nature of a congregation’s religious beliefs, religious behavior and demographic profile. There are clearly significant differences between the smallest and largest of Protestant churches in terms of the theological beliefs of adherents. The survey results discovered the following:

* On all 9 of the belief statements tested, attenders of large churches were more likely than those engaged in a small or mid-sized congregation to give an orthodox biblical response – e.g., the Bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches, Satan is not merely symbolic but exists, Jesus led a sinless life, God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe, etc.

* On seven of the eight behavioral measures, attenders of large churches were substantially more likely than those of small churches to be active. (These included behaviors such as attending church in the past week, reading the Bible in the past week, volunteering at their church in the past week, etc.) The average difference related to these seven behaviors was 17 percentage points.

* There were significant differences on six of the ten demographic attributes examined. Specifically, larger churches were more likely to have college graduates (a 22 percentage point difference between those who attend churches of 100 adults or less and those who attend congregations with 1000 or more adults), affluent attenders, and children under 18 living in their home. Adults attending Protestant mega-churches were also more likely to be registered to vote and to be registered as a Republican (a 16-point gap compared to adults attending churches of up to 100 adults). Those who attend small churches were more likely to home-school their children.

Barna adds that the significant transition barrier is found at around 200 persons in worship. The variations from congregations with 50-100 and over 1000 in worship were significantly different from those congregations that averaged about 200 in worship. As Barna points out, congregations with less than 200 in worship are where about 65% worship with larger congregations serving about 35% of a typical Sunday’s worshipers. Barna closes with a disclaimer that is unclear whether or not the beliefs and practices were taught in the churches currently being attended or formed at an earlier stage in one’s spiritual formation.