April 15, 2017 - C-Suite Network™

3 Steps to Fearless Communication learned from the United Airlines Story

While the details of the removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight are still being uncovered, there are many things to learn from this unacceptable outcome.

In all likelihood there were people who could have stopped this from escalating to what it became. There were people who had the skills to move through the conflict with calm and produce an ending that would have been quite different. There were people with courage and high ethical standards, right there, watching and feeling paralyzed by fear.

The situation got this bad because too many people thought they were powerless to suggest a change of course or break some rules.

As members of organizations, families and communities what do we need to learn from this episode?

We can’t stop bad things from happening. We CAN remind the people in our lives how simple it is to communicate without fear.

We CAN increase the number of times we feel confident and powerful and connected to others. When we feel connected to others we have less fear.

These are three ways I know to stave off fear.

Kindness is KING

Treat people well. Smile and say hello. Thank people for a job well done from the people who pack your groceries to the lobby attendant who hands you a pass to enter a building. Your positive energy actually increases when you are kind to people. It sets the stage for you to feel good and for the people around you to feel good too. Communicate kindness and you will feel more connected to people and situations.

Listen to LEARN

I can’t say this enough. People want to be heard. In even the smallest conversations, if you practice listening to people to learn something – other than listening for your moment to speak – you will feel lighter when you communicate and you will learn something that will take you out of your head. You’ll routinely learn more about people and how much you have in common.

GET COMFORTABLE Being Uncomfortable

We are suffering from a lack of confidence in conflict because people avoid conflict at all costs. Conflict is not fun but if we are regularly kind and know how to listen to people (because we do it so often) then conflict doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

If something is wrong we need to be able to say it is so. Take time to go over what this means with the people in your life. If you’re a manager and/or a parent, talk about speaking up and ask if there was something you could have done better. Encourage feedback that may be uncomfortable. When you do this, you too get to practice getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

I tell my teenage sons before they head out to a party or a large gathering of their peers, “Right before something bad happens there is no neon sign saying, ‘SOMETHING BAD IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.’”

I remind them they’ve got to rely on their ability to see right from wrong. They must be able to stand up for themselves and/or remove themselves from a situation that’s escalating. Yes, I tell them I trust them even when there is a string of terror running through my body with memories of times when they got into trouble.

Fearless communication comes from within. It’s developed over time. It needs to start somewhere and be nurtured.

We are suffering from a lack of confidence in conflict. We can turn this around.

Imagine how much better this would have turned out if one or more people at United could say what they needed to say without fear.

Don’t Let Common Sense Go Down with the Ship

Do you have policies or rules that are so strict that makes it nearly impossible for your employees to deliver the kind of customer service you actually want them to deliver?
In situations like these, common sense needs to prevail – especially when it comes to customer service – but following common sense is not always common, as evidenced by the following example.

Recently, I was sitting on an airplane next to somebody who was headed for a cruise ship vacation. The two of us started a discussion about how some employees are so set in their ways that they can’t think of creative ways to solve a customer’s problem. These kinds of people are so tied to their “systems” and the way they have always done things that they can negatively impact the relationships they have with their customers, even when common sense should prevail.

My fellow passenger has been on numerous cruises – and as good the customer service is on most cruises, he said you can always find a few of the ship’s employees that are more focused following the system or the process rather than on satisfying their customer. He then shared a few stories from his past trip about how some crew members lacked common sense. For some reason, I began to think of the Titanic and the story of how the eight-member band on the ship continued to play, even after the ship started sinking.

I wasn’t sure if the story of the band playing while the ship was going down was actually true, so I did a little research. Well, I found out that the reason the band kept playing was that Wallace Hartley, the band’s leader, had asked the band to continue to play because he thought it would help to calm the chaos that was ensuing all around them.
Maybe that was true, but to create a customer service lesson, I’d like to take some creative license and bend this story a bit. My fictitious version of the story has nothing to do with keeping the passengers calm. In my version, Mr. Hartley says, “Keep playing. We still have two hours to go in our set.” Meanwhile, the other passengers had already vacated the ship to save themselves, so the only sounds on that could be heard on the ship were coming from the band’s instruments. Yet the band played on … as they went down with the ship.

The point to the story is that, if common sense had prevailed, Mr. Hartley’s band would have stopped playing immediately and tried to save themselves. Like the rest of the passengers, the band should have headed for the life rafts. But, sometimes people are trapped in a rut caused by following processes and systems for so long that they disregard common sense … even when the ship is going down.

So, what does this have to do with customer service? The best companies hire people who follow the rules, but who are also smart, adaptive, problem-solving, customer-focused people. When it comes to preserving relationships with customers, they look for ways to work around having to say NO and come up with ways to say YES. They don’t get stuck on company policy. Yes, they work within the rules, but they also understand flexibility. They will do what’s right for both the company and the customer. In short, they use common sense, especially when the ship is going down – or when a customer is angry.

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