The struggle: How to keep all stakeholders involved and engaged?

Are you tracking to a date or a destination?

The typical answer: the status meeting.

On a recent flight, I happened to be sitting next to a woman who was painstakingly drafting meeting minutes from a recent status meeting.

I wasn’t deliberately peering into my seatmate’s laptop, yet I happened to steal a glance as I looked out the window. When I saw the meeting title: Status Meeting I did a double take? Did people conduct status meetings anymore? Was this a concept that people still believed in for true team accountability and transparency?

For the past 5 years, I’ve been fully engrossed in the world of agile, and I hope to never go back.

In agile, there are no status meetings. They’d be considered a waste of valuable time and resources.

A major upgrade from the dull, dry status meeting is the daily standup, a daily, short, focused meeting that centers the team to answer 3 questions:

• What have you completed since yesterday?
• What do you plan on completing today?
• Is there anything that’s impeding your work?

Who wants to sit in a room and get status with 10 other colleagues? Conversations drift; people stare at watches; (when will this end?)  Disengagement lingers; morale plummets.

Stop the status meetings. Look into agile. It’s not a scary, scientific concept. Bottom line: it drives results for you, your team, and your business.

Until next time,

Dan Naden

I’ve noticed some ‘heavy’ smartphone zones: airports, stoplights, doctor’s waiting rooms.

In one of these zones, you only notice the people who aren’t on a smartphone.

When your product's 'switch' is flipped, does it just click for the customer?

The use of these phones/devices has become invisible. When people seek the pivotal (departure time of a flight or directions when lost on a dark, deserted street) or the mundane (score of a football game or the real name of Seinfeld’s Kramer) they have a method to get an answer quickly, painlessly. Events, situations, scenarios that used to take hours, now take seconds.

Not all products can achieve such luxury or esteemed status, yet your product or service can inch closer towards being invisible. When a product’s invisible, it just works. No hassle. No fuss. No confusion. When you have a need to be filled or a problem to be solved, you turn to a product, and the product meets your need.

So what can other industries learn from the smartphone to make their products closer to invisibility?

• Can a customer service line detect your personal information from the phone number where you dialed? It’s frustrating to have to re-enter a phone number when you’re tired, frustrated or angry.
• Can your car rental company know your preferred XM satellite stations and have them preset upon your arrival? If you’re late to a meeting, and want to relax, the last thing you want to do is scan the dial while you navigate unfamiliar roads.
• Can a fast food restaurant with a huge in-store line shift the order of the foods even though they’re out of sequence? For example, I recently ordered a yogurt from McDonald’s, which I could see from the counter in a fridge, yet I had to wait 10 minutes until all the other people received their time-intensive pancakes and sausage?

These micro-improvements, which can yield substantial gains, are sometime overlooked when product or business owners look to improve. The big wins are appreciated, yet they are few and far between. Seeking to make small wins on a frequent cadence will pave your path to product invisibility.

Until next time,

Dan Naden

When's the last time you were blown away by a restaurant experience?

A stack full of pancakes…

A heaping portion of hash browns…

A delectable blueberry muffin that crumbles perfectly…

Millions don’t take a second to consider these ideal breakfast choices.

My Mom, however, can’t even go near these delicious concoctions.

A few years ago, she was diagnosed with Celiac disease. Within days, she had to dramatically affect her eating habits – and her life.

Mom’s kept an indefatigable spirit throughout this change in her life. She’s connected with peers in the same situation and adjusted to this new way of eating and drinking. I can’t speak for her, but, I know it hasn’t been easy to undergo such a forced transformation.

Thankfully, there are a growing number of restaurants that are catering to people with these restrictions. Outback Steakhouse, Panera Bread, Carrabbas, Chili’s, PF Chang’s are some locales that present options for those with dietary restrictions.

When I dine with my Mom, here’s a typical conversation between us and the waitstaff:

Waiter: “Can I take your order?”

Mom: “Yes, hello. I can’t eat anything that contains gluten. Do you have a menu that lists gluten-free options?

Waiter: “Hmm. I think we have a menu somewhere. Hold on.”

The waiter usually returns with a menu that looks as if it’s been unearthed from an ancient tomb. Yellowed and crumpled; it’s barely legible.

Yet, sometimes, establishments go to extraordinary levels to make people with special dietary needs feel welcome.

On my parents’ recent visit to Walt Disney World, they dined out 4 times. Each time, when my Mom posed the question about gluten-free foods, the wait staff member responded: “Yes, we do. Let me go get the chef. He can recommend a few options for you.” The chef arrived eager to please and grateful for the opportunity to serve.

Which option would you prefer?

1. You get handed a dusty, moldy menu with faded writing by an inattentive, clueless member of the wait staff.
2. You get a personal visit from the head chef with recommendations that meet your specific needs.

Every marketer should spend a few days at Walt Disney World and just listen. Listen to how the employees treat the customers. Listen to how staffers treat and WOW people with special needs. Listen to how accommodating the workers are when a customer poses a problem.

This is true service. What is your business doing to meet the customer at his problem with a solution at the ready?

Until next time,

Dan Naden

The speaker made points with authority. He was confident and the audience took an emotional joyride through the many stories, anecdotes, experiences. The audience quickly jotted down key points to remember. The nearly indecipherable pen on paper scribbles happened so fast because the next magnificent great idea was seconds away.

What's there to do when your audience moves from you to the small screen?

No one looked at his/her watch, cell phones, iPads. Time froze. The audience didn’t want this journey to end.

A presenter’s dream, right? A noble, yet challenging goal to shoot for in today’s world.

Sadly, this scene is a rarity today.

Presenters compete with technology and waning attention spans when faced with communicating a message.

Recently, I attended a presentation with about 100 people in the audience. 20 out of the 100 people were ‘zoned’ into their smartphone instead of listening to the presentation. This wasn’t a one second glance at a device, but a committed engagement to ignore the speaker and the message.

So, Naden’s Corner readers?

We can’t force audience members to turn in and/or shut off all digital devices; there might be a revolt.

• But what can we do when you are speaking to get the focus off the device and onto you and the message?
• How do you command the audience when speaking?
• Can you incorporate new technology challenges into the presentation? (if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em)

I want to hear from you. Use the comment box below and speak your mind.

Until next time,

Dan Naden

I was ultra-concerned about what everyone else would think.

If it wasn’t the type of jeans I wore, it was my shirt or shoes. If the jeans didn’t say, “Levis”, there was no way I could go to school; it just wasn’t possible.

Learning sometimes took a back seat to 'trying to fit in"

My Dad sensed my angst, sat me down and said: “Daniel, Mark Sheehan is not going to laugh at you; who cares what anyone else thinks? You are your own person.” (Mark Sheehan was a neighborhood friend.)

Being 12 and naïve, I dismissed his parental counsel as rubbish: just your typical stuff that goes into one ear and out the other.

Now, with a number of years under my expanding belt, life comes full circle.

I now coach my children when a classmate teases about a new hairstyle, the way someone runs, or why a child thinks peanut butter and jelly should NEVER be eaten every day for lunch.

Today, there’s incredible pressure to belong. With more transparency, or less privacy (you decide?), the websites we visit, the people we follow online, the information we deem as valuable is right there in the open (for everyone to see).

As my children take their digital training wheels off, I’ll teach them about the digital consequences about posting an inappropriate photo or saying something in a forum, Facebook, Twitter that does not inspire, lift or engage.

Some sage said: “Act your best when no one’s watching.”

How about: “Tweet, post or comment with your best self in mind.”

Use the power of opening up your likes, favorites, photos with caution. It’s powerful to know what others deem as popular, yet let’s raise the next generation with the confidence to make their own decisions, not just follow the herd. Thinking independently need not be a forgotten art.

Until next time,

Dan Naden