Mike Hohnen

Coaching for personal growth, change and development

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A hard question for you as a leader

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The name Barbara Kellerman showed up on my screen on a number of occasions this week.

The reason for this is her most recent book The end of Leadership in which she takes the whole leadership development industry (of which I am also part) to task for selling and promoting what at the end of the day turns out to be snake oil.

Leadership crisis

Her point is, that despite more than 50 years of countless leadership development courses, conferences and God knows how many books there is not much to be proud of when you look at the big picture. According to Kellerman only 7% of employees trust their employers, their leaders and managers and the vast majority of them do not consider their superiors to be either honest or competent.

Not impressive statistics by any yardstick.

But what struck me the most was this:

“Clearly one of the problems plaguing the leadership industry is its fixation on developing good leaders, while ignoring completely the problem of stopping or at least slowing bad leaders.”

Why is it that so many organisations are doing such an incredibly lousy job and weeding out the rotten apples?

Because Kellermann has a point. Time and again we see groups of managers being sent off on development courses/training but ‘Joe the terror’ is left to do what he has always done despite the fact that everybody recognises that there is a problem.

But not dealing with Joe the terror sends a very strong signal to the organisation.

One of the things that we know undermines trust dramatically is when leaders says one thing and do something completely different. They could just as well have created a huge poster and on it written: yes we send good boys and girls to leadership development courses because we know it keeps them happy and it’s the right thing to do – but the truth be told we don’t actually give a toss.
All we are looking for is results. So as long as someone is getting the numbers right they can forget about coaching, appreciative Inquiry and feed back and behave any way they like.

But getting the numbers is just one aspect.

The other part of being a good leader is relational. ( I like to call it Results vs Relations Kellerman calls it Effective and Ethical – Either way – to be a great leader you can’t have one without the other)

This point was brought home to me many years ago when I read Chip Conley’s The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business ( still a favourite book of mine) . In the book he has a chapter on performance management and gives an example of how they at Joie de Vivre Hotels evaluate their management teams on a 5 x 5 point grid with results on one axis and relations on the other axis. Conley makes the point that managers who do well on the results scale but badly on relationships need to be coached and made aware that they need to improve on this aspect – and ultimately, if they don’t get it right they will have to leave the organisation despite the fact that they are getting the numbers right. Anything else is shortsighted. (Obviously this also applies the other way round. If we have the nicest person on earth on our management team but who isn’t producing what needs to get done that person too must either shape up or ship out – being ethical but ineffective is also bad leadership)

The cost of bad leaders


If we’re trying to build a better service business following the principles of the service profit chain we also know that the number 1 factor affecting job satisfaction and loyalty of our best front-line people is their relationship with their immediate supervisor.
So some supervisors may be able to drive results short-term but the price they ( we ) pay is always that long-term they lose their best people. ( and we all know that losing our best people eventually leads to losing your best clients)

Furthermore by not dealing with the bad apples we send a strong signal to the other managers on the team that under performing behaviour is okay. As a result over time we develop a toxic leadership culture, with zero trust

Focusing only on bottom line results is a classic misconception. What many leaders in the service industry forget is that financials are lagging indicators – you will have had employee dissatisfaction and/or client dissatisfaction for a while before it actually shows up in your financials and by then it may be way to late to do anything much about it.

So now’s a good time to ask yourself the hard question: are you a good or a bad leader? In the sense do you deal effectively and ethically with your non-performing managers? Because if we want to rout out bad leadership and re-establish trust this is where it all begins.

It takes more than a click from your friends.

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“The more people trust you, the more they buy from you.’’?–David Ogilvy


I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but recently has been a stream of new books on the subject of trust and how trusts is an all-important factor in any customer relationship.

Why now?

Well you don’t need to spend much time web surfing the news to realise that trust and business aren’t having the best of relationships at the moment.

A big bank is caught out laundering drug money, another one for fixing the Libor rate. One of the world’s largest newspaper corporations was caught hacking mobile phones and what was supposed to be one of the worlds most reputable security firms drops the ball with only 8 days left before the Olympics.

So it is not not surprising that consumers are skeptical – in fact I guess most of us have a very clear sense that what we see in the media is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

So naturally to many consumers the question remains: Who can we trust who is it safe to do business with?

Many businesses still believe rather naively that it’s all about quality. But being able to deliver a service or product in a decent quality is just the entry ticket – it’s the bare minimum. At the end of the day what is really going to make a difference and ensure that you get the order ( or the promotion) has to do with whether you are ‘likeable’.

That, at least is the point in a new book Likeonomics that has caught my attention.

So is this a book about maximising your friend clicks on Facebook? No, not at all the author Rohit Bhargava makes it very clear that it is about something much more complex and deeper than that.

As he points out there is substantial evidence indicating that relations and not logic drive most of our decisions. Yes – we do take our decisions based on what is convincing and what we believe … But we tend to believe people we like.

So in order to be successful all we need to do is be nice?

No it’s a lot more complex than that – in the book Rohit Bhargava – in great detail and very convincingly argues that there are 5 principles that drive our total likeability score in relation to other people:

Truth – not honesty – but truth in the sense of calling it as it is. It may not always be enjoyable but some of our best friends are in fact that because they are not afraid of telling it the way they see it. In the same way we also tend to admire companies who have the guts to tell us the truth.

Relevance – how does what we do make sense or become meaningful to the receiver. In order to answer that we need to pay attention to what is going on outside of our own world. It also begs the question: relevant to whom? What is relevant to me is not necessarily relevant to you.

Unselfish – to act in such a way that benefits the other or a larger whole but not necessarily getting something in return. Think of a person that you truly appreciate. Has that person ever done something that you would characterise as unselfish? You see… now you know what is meant by that.

Simplicity – here we are talking about the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity. Think Steve Jobs. Taking what at the time was hopelessly complicated computer operating system called DOS and deciding to make it simple and beautiful.

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Timing – Great musicians, actors and players on sports teams all have this in common they are masters at timing. And you only achieved good timing when your maximum aware of what goes on around you. In that way timing is also connected to relevance. Bad timing can easily convert something that was obviously relevant to something that is now totally irrelevant.

I find this whole book fascinating. It inspired me to think about my own approach to life and business but I think more than anything else it has given me inspiration to see this as the ultimate customer service training philosophy.

If we can find a way to get frontline employees and their managers to understand and operate along these 5 principles it will result in world-class service.

I’m going to spend some more time thinking about how to do just that.

Social Media management …

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is just like Service Management

In a recent article in S+B “Brand Transformation on the Internet” Aaron Shapiro, CEO of the digital agency Huge explains the shift from customers to users – also the title of his new book – Users, Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business.

A key point he makes is that most business will need to see themselves as two business. Their original core product / service and then the online version of that same business – which is an interesting thought – makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

But what really caught my attention was this :

To be effective in social media, you have to empower junior people to be brand ambassadors, to communicate online rapidly. That seemingly tactical, small move can lead to massive organizational shifts. Somebody 20 levels down in the hierarchy who’s responding to a tweet has to know and understand the whole company’s strategy around things like pricing and social responsibility. There has to be a tremendous amount of training and a very big cultural shift.

This is no doubt true – but it is also the essence of what it takes to run a great service company.

Only when front line staff see themselves as brand ambassadors in everything they do, do we get that very special customer experience.

At the heart of a great customer experience is the sensation that the person who is looking after you has the knowledge, skills and authority to do what ever it takes to provide a great experience.

But that requires leadership who understand what it takes to put that in place

Copenhagen Food Safari

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You must be joking!

At one time it was considered a bad joke that the best restaurant in the world – The Fat Duck at the time – was located in the UK, a country not exactly known for its culinary tradition. The joke is still the same, it has just moved geographically.

The basic culinary tradition in Denmark was never much better than what you would find in the UK. It is a meat and potatoes kitchen – possibly with the one exception that did gain international notoriety, the Danish open-face sandwich.

Now Denmark does not only host the world’s best restaurant, Noma and the world’s best chef, Rasmus Kofoed (Bocuse d’Or 2011) – it also has more Michelin stars (11) than any of the other Scandinavian capitals, with Stockholm is second with (8), Oslo (6) and Helsinki (5).

But Noma and the other high profile establishments are just the top of the iceberg. Copenhagen now also offers a multitude of creative and inspiring food service venues in every imaginable category. This has clearly also caught the attention of the international foodie establishment. The New York Times wrote: Eating in Copenhagen? Lucky you!. And the Guardian wrote “Copenhagen is truly in the foodie spotlight”

So how does a small country that has a population that is smaller than Hamburg’s and a ‘village’ of a capital that would fit within two Parisian arrondissements, pull that off?

For more on that as well as my very personal guide to the Copenhagen Restaurant Scene please download the file Copenhagen Food Safari

You will find it in two versions

Copenhagen Food Safari – Pdf version

Copenhagnen Food Safari – Epub Version
( works great on iPad or iPhone if you want something mobile)

The article was first published in Food Service Europe in a shorter version – you will find that version here

The Social Nature of Brands

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Great article in B+S

Some might attribute this trend — the increasing use of social engagement by marketers — to the rise of online social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, fan sites, and social marketing websites (also known as private-label media) created by companies themselves. But the trend represents a more fundamental change in marketing practice, linked to insights from social psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience and brain research. Every form of interaction between companies and consumers — taking place online and offline, in stores and over mobile devices, in branded content and by word of mouth, and indeed through all direct consumer experience — is now understood to be shaped by the social nature of brands.

Read it all here : The Social Life of Brands

In my book Best! i also argue the point of the Ambassador effect and how it affects the Service industry – you can find the book here

Culture. The intangible competitive advantage

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Great article in Fast Company

Although cultivating a great culture demands a lot of emotional investment, leadership wisdom, and a genuine care for people, it is a financially low-cost investment with a high economic return. This is why great leaders pay attention to it. An authentic culture, at the very soul of a business, is something competitors cannot imitate. Like soul, culture is intangible. Yet given a little inspiration, this intangible commodity can be converted into untold wealth. Incredibly, the next big wave of growth will come from businesses whose leaders know how to convert low-cost intangibles like culture into high bottom-line value.

Dogs Dinner Strategy – is that you?

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Richard Rumelt is the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy–The Difference and Why It Matters

It is a real gem of a book

In the book, Rumelt identifies two kinds of objectives: ‘dog’s dinner objectives’; and ‘blue sky objectives’.

Dog’s dinner objectives

“A long list of “things to do”, often mislabeled as “strategies” or “objectives”, is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do. Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders make suggestions as to things they would like to see done. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into a “strategic plan”. Then, in recognition that it is a dog’s dinner, the label “long term” is added so that none of them need be done today.“

Blue sky objectives

“The second form of bad strategic objectives is one that is “blue sky”. A good strategy defines the critical challenge. What is more, it builds a bridge between that challenge and action, between desire and immediate objectives that lie within grasp. Thus, the objectives a good strategy sets should stand a good chance of being accomplished, given existing resources and competence.…… By contrast, a blue-sky objective is usually a simple restatement of the desired state of affairs or of the challenge. It skips over the annoying fact that no one has a clue as to how to get there.

The purpose of a good strategy is to offer a potentially achievable way of surmounting a key challenge. If the leader’s strategic objectives are just as difficult to accomplish as the original challenge, there has been little value added by the strategy.”

So how does your strategy match up with either of these two kinds of ‘Bad Strategy”

So what is good strategy?

“A strategy is a way through a difficulty, an approach to overcoming an obstacle, a response to a challenge. If the challenge is not defined, it is difficult or impossible to assess the quality of the strategy. And if you cannot assess a strategy’s quality, you cannot reject a bad strategy or improve a good one.”

Simple hey !