Server Not Servant

Overserved

By: Patrick Maguire

Book Chapter: Human-to-Human Service

Posted: 5/26/2010

It’s so refreshing to be blown away by great service that exceeds our own expectations. Those businesses that understand how critical hospitality and great service are stand in a class of their own. Hospitality and service are a mindset and a culture.

My brother Paul called recently from his RV on his way home to Alaska from D&D Automotive in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Paul has logged tens of thousands of miles between Boston and the Land of the Midnight Sun, and he’s often been at the mercy of sketchy auto mechanics in some very remote locations. During one trip he had to wait four and a half days in Fort Nelson, British Columbia for a part to be delivered by Greyhound bus because a mechanic broke the old part when “taking a look” to furnish an estimate. In short, Paul has suffered some very anxious moments when receiving, reviewing, and re-negotiating repair bills with mechanics throughout North America.

So when Paul told me he wanted to nominate D&D for the Automotive Service Hall of Fame, I was all ears. Here are the bullets from Paul’s story:

• Found D&D Automotive after Googling the dreaded words, “transmission repair.”
• Initial phone call very professional inviting him in for an immediate assessment.
• First impression very positive – clean yard and shop, everyone in uniform.
• Warm greeting from Tony at desk that included a firm handshake followed by, Hello Paul, we’ve been expecting you.
• Dave promptly rolled under the rig and after a few minutes exclaimed, I got it.
• Paul’s wary comment to Dave; I’ve been in lots of shops. I just want to pay a fair price for quality work.
• On-the-spot verbal estimate of less than $500 and an invitation to bring the rig in first thing the next day.
• Early morning greeting from Tony, followed by a written estimate of parts and labor not to exceed $350, with a promise to call and seek authorization for any costs over $350.
• Free loaner car and an estimate that the rig would be finished early afternoon.
• Call from the garage at 1:00PM, The rig is ready.
• Detailed explanation of the work completed, with a breakdown of all parts and labor totaling $265. (Yes, less than the estimate!)
• A note in the rig with a roll of peppermints attached to it stating, We really appreciate you and your business, along with incentives for future visits. (Paul will be returning to the area in a few months.)
• An overwhelming sense of relief…

There’s nothing like the feeling of having a trusted auto mechanic or any service professional. While shaking hands with Tony and Dave, Paul fervently repeated, Thank you for keeping your word. He took some business cards on the way out and couldn’t wait to tell everyone about the service he received. I could feel Paul’s enthusiasm and gratitude as he shared his story with me.

D&D Automotive in Stevens Point, WI converted Paul Maguire from a customer to one of their ambassadors. Now that’s marketing.

Please share your stories when you’ve experienced service that exceeded your own expectations. Have you ever been overserved?

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Server Not Servant Question #1

By: Patrick Maguire

Book Chapter: Manners / Gratitude

Posted: 5/15/2010

Shortly after deciding to write a book, I circulated a questionnaire to everyone I knew and everyone I met to solicit their insights, opinions, and stories about customers , servers, hospitality and human interactions. I am still accepting completed questionnaires for my research. The questionnaires have been invaluable because of the broad range of experiences and perspectives included in the responses. Workers have been sharing what they were thinking but couldn’t say while dealing with impossible customers, and customers have been dishing on servers and fellow customers alike.  I’ll continue to include responses to the questionnaires in future blog posts to ensure that “The Voices of Service Industry Workers Everywhere” are heard, along with the voices of thoughtful customers.

I’ve decided to intermittently post each of the questions in individual blog posts to encourage participation from readers who would  would rather not complete the entire questionnaire. I welcome responses from your perspective as a current or former customer service industry worker, and from your experiences as an observant customer. Please feel free to elaborate, in addition to assigning numbers in response to each item below. Thank you for joining the discussion.

In your experiences, what percentage of customers are:

A. Very polite, respectful and courteous?

B. Indifferent, but decent?

C. Impolite/disrespectful?

D. Downright rude?

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Leaders and Bystanders

By: Patrick Maguire

Book Chapter: Human-to-Human Service

Posted: 5/11/2010

I’ve had several conversations and exchanged emails with many people in response to my latest post about the homeless good Samaritan who died of bystander apathy. Thank you to everyone who contacted me. We have a serious problem in our culture, and I’m not going to let this issue die.

One of the conversations I had was with a friend and teacher of more than 35 years who told me that courses geared towards teaching life lessons are rare. I asked him, Aren’t learning leadership, speaking up, getting involved and doing the right thing more important than the Pythagorean theorem? When was the last time you used the Pythagorean theorem? Isn’t learning civility or saving a life more important?

A sales manager who was part of the discussion chimed in, I have new sales people who don’t even know how to shake hands and introduce themselves to clients, never mind carry on a meaningful conversation.

“Dr. Hank” responded to my last post with the following comment:

As a father of ten, my dad acted when needed. No hesitation. He’d ‘do the right thing’ (Spike Lee), even when it looked awkward or un-cool to others when he spoke up to defend someone or to correct an injustice. It takes a sense of community and “brother’s keeper” thinking. Assessing a situation and formulating an immediate, appropriate response are learned behaviors. Families must teach their children to be good citizens as demonstrated by thoughtful action.

Teachers, civic leaders, etc., need to have young people role-play scenarios. This strategy provides some familiarity and comfort for the bystander to take action, and wires neurological pathways that fire from the brain and call for response when stimulated – demanding action when a wrong needs to be righted.

Of course there’s a fine line between what children should be learning at home or in school. A major part of the problem is that many children are not learning valuable lessons at home about morals, character, leadership, awareness and empathy because their parents, relatives and siblings are poor role models.

On March 3, 2009, ABC News, Primetime: What Would You Do? ran a program in which 88 people walked right by a man who looked like a street person sprawled out, lifeless, on his back, in the middle of the sidewalk. Twenty-six more people walked by the same man and ignored the pleas of a homeless woman asking them to help the man or to call an ambulance. If 114 adults walked by a lifeless body on a sidewalk without getting involved, what do you think those same adults are modeling in terms of values, empathy and leadership for their children at home? Adults and students alike need to rehearse and train in order to be prepared to do the right thing.

Kim M., another reader of this blog commented after watching a video linked to the last post: The psychologist (Michael Bradley) in the video said some pretty poignant things. Parents must teach their kids empathy and participation should be modeled. “You have to be what you want to see,” is what he said. A sound bite, but a good one.

Shortly after I published the last post, I happened upon a program called, About Health TV, hosted by Jeanne Blake. Jeanne was interviewing Gene Beresin, MD, about the bullying issue and the bystander effect. Beresin stated that very few schools provide effective programs for teaching interpersonal skills to children. Dr. Beresin is the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

I contacted Dr. Beresin and asked him to elaborate on the notion of including interpersonal skills training in the curriculum:

In school, younger children and adolescents have curricula in core academic areas which are geared toward passing standardized examinations and preparing for college. However, success in life – in the workplace and in relationships – often has far less to do with academic achievement than with social interactions. While formal education is important for knowledge, skills and problem solving, virtually nowhere are kids taught interpersonal skills and communication. We don’t teach conflict resolution in schools. In my view, it’s probably one of the most important skills that individuals can learn from childhood to adulthood, and it’s not being addressed. Children should learn how you stand up for your own rights, and what words you use when there is a conflict. Most individuals lose their jobs not because of lack of knowledge, but because of interpersonal conflict; moreover, with such a high divorce rate, it seems adults (and their children) require training in getting along with others.

A few schools around the country focus on teaching our kids about conflict resolution in Kindergarten through 12^th grade. Such curricula involve education and training in self-awareness, empathy, and ways of communicating with peers and authorities. Kids need to learn how to deal with emotions that arise in the context of everyday life – how to manage feelings of jealousy, competition, rejection, betrayal, anger and sadness. They need to appreciate the consequences of their words and actions, and realize that they can have powerful positive, as well as negative, impact on others. Kids should be taught how they can serve as loyal friends, resist peer pressure that may harm themselves or others, and stand up for what they believe in. While much of this is ideally learned at home, it is also crucial for our schools to teach these important lessons. Parents, too, should learn how to understand and resolve conflict peacefully and graciously; it’s as important as learning the “three Rs.”

My brother, Paul Maguire, PhD, wrote a book called, Celebrating Human Diversity: Health, Development and Learning (2000 UAAPress), in which he discusses healthy human relations using his own “three R’s,” Recognition, Respect and Relating.

I asked Paul to comment:

There are curricula that address interpersonal skill development.  The problem is that most schools minimize the importance of the lessons and the required follow-up. The Montana Model of Comprehensive School Health Enhancement (CSHE) addresses Interpersonal Health as one of about ten health concepts.  They are broken up into developmentally appropriate content and lessons (K-12).  Very few states give this topic the attention and weight needed to change behavior or, minimally, enhance awareness.

There are significant parallels to be drawn between the people who are indifferent to bullying and the people who stand by when fellow human beings need help.

Neil Swidey researched bullying and bystanders in a recent Boston Globe Magazine article, The Secret to Stopping a Bully? The sub-title reads; After decades of research, no one has yet found a way to reduce bullying in US schools. But in the shadows, you just might find the solution. Mr. Swidey asks, Could anti-bullying programs be more successful if they dropped their primary focus on bullies and victims and instead took aim directly at the sidekicks and other key members of the bully’s posse? After all, if a supportive audience is what fuels the bully, wouldn’t the sidekicks be the most logical place to try to choke off that oxygen supply?

There’s been lots of talk lately about anti-bullying programs. How could there not be, after all the horrifying details that emerged following the suicide of South Hadley teenager Phoebe Prince. And there will be lots more talk now that the Massachusetts legislature has approved a bullying bill requiring schools to implement prevention and intervention programs. The available programs vary widely, as do the people behind them, who range from self-promoting, self-proclaimed experts, offering little more than buzzwords, bromides, and books for sale, to thoughtful, committed educators determined to do the hard work to protect other kids like Phoebe. But here’s what has gotten lost amid all the legislation and finger-pointing: None of the current anti-bullying programs, despite their fanfare, have been successful in reducing actual bullying among American students in any meaningful way.

We’re very good at identifying, labeling and quantifying problems, but we lack effective strategies for solving them. A lot of adults aren’t modeling intervention and empathy and many children aren’t learning awareness and leadership skills. With training and practice we can bridge the gap between knowing what’s right and wrong, and actually doing the right thing when the opportunity presents itself.

NS: So we need to think a lot more creatively and rigorously about how to combat bullying. One strategy gaining a good deal of traction involves bystander training. The thinking is that we can reduce bullying by encouraging uninvolved students to step in to protest when they see it happening.

One promising initiative discussed in Swidey’s article was launched by Steven Tower, the Youth Sports Health Coordinator at Massachusetts General Hospital. Steven is part of a pilot, anti-bullying curriculum launched this year in Charlestown, MA. The program involves dividing the students into four groups, handing them a photo of an 11-year-old boy, and asking them to write down as many things that they observe and imagine about the boy in the photo.

NS: Knowing a fast pace is the way to keep the attention of 11-year-olds, Tower quickly shifts to a discussion about how leadership means making smart choices…Just by their sheer numbers, he says, the bystanders hold the key to stopping bullying, if they do the right thing…

The program includes interactive role-playing where students must think about how and why they would respond to hypothetical scenarios involving verbal, physical or cyber bullying.

NS: As the minutes wind down, Tower tells the students, “Remember that picture I gave you in the beginning?” He holds up the photo of the 11-year-old boy in the football uniform and begins rattling off the many descriptions of him that the kids had come up with. “He likes pizza, dogs, loves birds,…he loves outdoors, he’s strong…, he’s a cool kid.” “All of these things are very true. This is Carl Walker-Hoover. He’s actually from Springfield, Mass. He’s a great kid.”

Then Tower holds up a different photo, one that causes several of the fifth-graders to gasp. “This is him.” The photo shows a silver casket.

“He’s dead?” one of the boys asks.

“Yes.”

“How’d he die?” asks a girl.

“He was bullied,” Towers says, explaining that some boys accused Carl of being gay, even though he wasn’t, and then mercilessly taunted him. “And no one, no one, did anything. There were no leaders in that bystander group. And because no one did anything, this great kid hung himself.”

More gasps. “All of you are bystanders,” he says, “All of you can be leaders.”

I had a nice talk with Steven Tower last week, and I’ll be attending one of his programs in the near future. According to Steven, his program is based on a model developed by Ronald G. Slaby, PhD, a distinguished developmental psychologist.

I asked Steven: What is the most important lesson you hope children will learn from your program on bullying?

I would like them to recognize the consequences and importance of their actions, words and reactions…. If they can see that what they do has a direct effect on other kids’ lives, then we can build from there. It’s an awareness of the problem coupled with a responsibility to do something, either passive or aggressive, that I hope they learn after the initial training.

Steven noted that these programs require diligent follow-up to be successful. Parents, teachers, administrators, and everyone involved in students’ lives need to support these initiatives to make them effective. Stepping up and getting involved are learned behaviors that can save lives. Responsibility, Empathy, Awareness and Leadership might not boost SAT scores, but they sure are vital in the REAL world.

June 15, 2010 update: Please read the article in the Boston Globe by Kevin Cullen; Tough act too hollow, about the new bullying law in Massachusetts. Great insight into how the legislative leaders dropped the ball, again. 

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Walk On By: Good Samaritan Dies of Apathy

By: Patrick Maguire

Book Chapter: Human-to-Human Service

Posted: 4/29/2010

The excuses and rationalization are infuriating. The systemic problems within our narcissistic, indifferent culture are appalling.

According to a story by Courtney Hutchinson of ABC News:

Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, 31, collapsed on a Queens, N.Y., sidewalk after he was stabbed several times by a mugger, but his motionless form didn’t inspire a single passerby to help or to alert the police – until he had been lying there bleeding to death for more than an hour.

The incident, captured on a surveillance camera, began around 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 18^th, when the homeless man sprang into action to thwart a man attempting to mug a woman on the street.

Please take a moment to read Courtney Hutchinson’s entire story, and to watch all of the related video before you comment on this post.

I understand all of the explanations and theories of the “human behavior experts.” What I won’t accept is the fact that several people have the “It’s not my problem” attitude until it is their problem. Make the phone call.

Before anyone comments about urban living and homelessness, I’ve lived in the city for a long time. I get it. I’ve walked by thousands of homeless people who look perfectly comfortable sleeping in doorways. I’ve also called 911 on many occasions when homeless people were sprawled out as if they had fallen and couldn’t take care of themselves. Every situation is a judgment call, and we all need to be sure we’re not walking by someone who needs help.

One of the questions I keep asking over and over is, How do we move each other from complacency to action? The people in the video are adults, and if adults aren’t modeling inclusive, empathetic behavior, their children aren’t going to learn it.

Will this be a “teachable moment,” or will this just be another video that explains the bystander effect and diffusive indifference? There is not enough discussion in homes and schools about critical issues like indifference. Education is critical. Real-life scenarios like this poor soul left to die are not being examined and discussed. Why isn’t there a curriculum in schools addressing these issues and role-playing?

Parents and Teachers: Please print the ABC News article and share the video with your children. Talk about it. Ask if they’ve encountered situations where they’ve vacillated about “getting involved.” Talk about the best ways to respond to a wide variety of situations so they will not be indifferent to human neglect and suffering. 

This story epitomizes what Human-to-Human Service is all about. I can’t stop thinking about it.

May 1 update: More on this story by Adam Alter.

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Petulant Patron Meets Plainclothes Police

By: Patrick Maguire

Book Chapter: Customer Hall of Shame

Posted: 4/27/2010

Where are the cops when you need them? I’ve asked myself that question several times over the years, especially watching cars racing by me on the highway, dangerously weaving in and out of traffic. Well, the cops were exactly where Anthony Caturano, chef-owner of Prezza wanted them on Friday night.

I had a chance to sit down with Anthony on Sunday afternoon just a few hours before a party he was hosting to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of his highly-acclaimed Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End. Here’s his story:

AC: On Friday night at about 9 o’clock a customer was having dinner and watching the game at the end of the bar with his girlfriend. After a waitress dropped a bottle of wine, the guy whistled so loudly that the entire restaurant stopped and looked at him. He whistled at the waitress and yelled, “Hey, quiet down.” The way some people act in restaurants today is just different. We try to address these situations immediately. If we don’t, the behavior will continue.

Our General Manager approached the customer and told him that his behavior wasn’t acceptable, and asked him to refrain from whistling and clapping and to lower his volume. A few moments later after the GM walked away, the customer approached him and told him he didn’t like the way he had spoken with him. He swore at him and demanded to speak with the owner. When I came out, the customer started swearing at me and telling me he’s spending good money, and that the customer is always right. I told him, Not when you whistle in my dining room. He said, “I should just take my business down the street.” I told him that was a good idea, considering how rude he was being. He told me, “The only way you’re getting me out of here is to call the cops.” So I headed to the phone.

Unbeknownst to Anthony or the whistling customer, two undercover Boston Police officers were standing right behind the couple and saw and heard everything. The officers just happened to be patrolling the North End doing random restaurant permit inspections. When Anthony picked up the phone the police officer introduced himself and said, “We’re already here,” and offered to remove the patron.

AC: When the cops approached the guy, he started giving them a hard time and stated that he was just trying to enjoy his dinner. The officer told him he heard the whole exchange and that it was time to go. His girlfriend was embarrassed because she knew he was acting like an idiot. After being threatened with arrest, the guy finally paid his bill and left. His girlfriend was very apologetic. The other customers were relieved to see him go. I’m all for a good time, but it’s just amazing how some people act in restaurants today like they’re in their own living room. We’re very fortunate that most of our customers are great, but there’s always a few…

Anthony is also fortunate that his permits are up-to-date and that the plainclothes officers were on the scene…

Please click on the “Submit Your Stories” tab at the top of the post to contact me, or feel free to leave your comments below. Please join my facebook group supporting the mission of  this blog and my book project. Thank you-PM

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