Customer Experience: Does it End with a Bang?

HBS Working Knowledge reports on interesting new research from Professor Julian De Freitas. He has studied customer journeys, and he finds that a strong memorable moment at the end of a customer journey can help shape a very positive longlasting impression.   As I read about the research, I was reminded about an article I read some years ago regarding Ritz Carlton's legendary customer service.  At the hotel firm, employees are allowed, and even encouraged, to spend up to $2,000 to address a customer's problem.  That holds even when the issue is not the hotel chain's fault, but instead involves  a customer error.   Now, not every firm can empower its employees to spend that much money.  Most firms don't have the margins that Ritz Carlton has, nor do they have the customer lifetime value that the luxury hotel chain generates.  Thus, firms might have a much lower limit.  Still, the concept is fascinating, because it often means that a customer's experience can end with a very memorable positive moment, rather than a frustrating memory.  

Consider a family that enjoyed a terrific stay at the hotel, but then managed to lose their son's favorite toy.   No matter how great the customer service was during the visit, the family will have a negative memory associated with that vacation.  It's not the Ritz Carlton's fault, but it still is a disappointing memory that tarnishes the entire experience.  Interestingly, the $2,000 rule enabled employees to transform that disappointment into a "big bang" positive moment which left a longlasting impression.  Micah Solomon explains in this Forbes article: 

The Rescue Of Thomas The Tank Engine (And Creation Of A Customer For Life)

This summer, a family with a two year old son spent a weekend at the Ritz-Carlton’s Dove Mountain Resort outside of Tucson. As the guests were packing up to leave for the airport the mom realized her son had lost his favorite Thomas The Tank Engine toy.

She found two Ritz employees, Jessy Long and Nathan Cliff, and explained what was at stake: that this Thomas toy was her little boy’s favorite and the loss would be heartbreaking for him. Jessy and Nathan couldn’t locate the lost Thomas train anywhere, but realizing how much this mattered to the guests agreed together that something must be done. After the guests left the property for their flight home, Jessy and Nathan drove to a toy store and purchased an absolute dead ringer of the original train for the little boy.

Then, they composed a note in longhand to the boy–in the voice of Thomas The Tank Engine himself –telling a sweet tale about the extended vacation Thomas had taken after being accidentally left behind. The account included adorable pictures (see above) of Thomas exploring the property, cooking in the Ritz-Carlton kitchen, and more. Four days after the disappearance of Thomas, he arrived by mail to a family that was, understandably, blown away, and that has shared the story at every chance they can find on Facebook and elsewhere, proclaiming that “The Ritz has earned our business for years to come!

Your Brain on Zoom: Not Good?

Fortune's Orianna Rosa Royle reported this week on a new study by Nan Zhao, Xian Zhang, J. Adam Noah, Mark Tiede, and Joy Hirsch, published in Imaging Neuroscience.  The research examined the brain activity of people engaged in Zoom meetings vs. in-person meetings.  The scholars discovered that face-to-face interactions led to enhanced brain activity.    They wrote that,  "the exchange of social cues is greater for the in-person condition."  Specifically, the scholars reported:

Findings from this investigation suggest that differences occur at the visual sensing level (mean and standard variation of eye contact duration); the behavioral level (coherence and diameters of pupils); the electrocortical level (theta oscillations); the neuroimaging level (contrast between in-person and on-line faces); and the dyadic neural coupling level (coherence between neural signals in the dorsal parietal regions).   

Co-author Joy Hirsch told Fortune, “Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person conditions. Overall, the dynamic and natural social interactions that occur spontaneously during in-person interactions appear to be less apparent or absent during Zoom encounters.”  She concluded, "“Online representations of faces, at least with current technology, do not have the same ‘privileged access’ to social neural circuitry in the brain that is typical of the real thing."

What does it mean for those of us who do engage in hybrid work?  We have to think carefully about the type of work being done virtually vs. in-person, and we have to focus on the intensity of the collaboration required during meetings.  Some types of collaboration may be more suited to in-person interaction.  Moreover, we must consider how virtual engagement with others may affect our ability to read social cues and ultimately how the ability to read those cues impacts our ability to build effective working relationships.     

Does Your Personality Shape Your Investment Strategy?

Source: www.towardsdatascience.com

Kellogg Professor Zhengyang Jiang, LSE Professor Cameron Peng, and DePaul Professor Hongjun Yan have written an interesting new paper titled, "Personality Differences and Investment Decision-Making."  They found several significant links between personality characteristics and the strategies individuals employed when making financial investment choices.  

First, they found a link between neuroticism and investment decisions. Neuroticism refers to a "tendency toward emotional instability and psychological distress including anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings." Jiang explains to Kellogg Insight that, “People with high neuroticism tend to be the ones who invest less in the stock market, even after we control for the other types of individual differences. People with lower neuroticism tend to take more risks and buy more stocks rather than safer bond assets."  

Second, the scholars discovered that openness is another personality trait that matters. In other words are people "intellectually curious, willing to try new things, and aware of their feelings?"  People who rate high on openness tend to invest more in equities and less in fixed income assets.   

Third, the examined whether certain traits make people more likely to follow the crowd with regard to investment choices.  The scholars discovered that, 

"Personality traits also shape how investors react to the behavior of people in their social circles. The study revealed that both neurotics and extroverts are more likely to adopt a certain investment when it becomes popular among the people around them, but their path to this decision is likely different.

'An extravert derives utility (and pleasure) from interacting with others and tends to copy their investment decisions after such social interactions,' the authors write. Neurotics may also copy their friends, but 'one possible explanation is that more neurotic investors have more fear of missing out (FOMO), and therefore tend to follow the crowd.'”

What does it mean for us as individual investors, as well as for the investment firms and financial advisers interacting with us?   The scholars conclude that we need to look beyond demographic attributes such as age or wealth, or typical questions about people's aversion to risk.  Understanding our personality can help us determine whether we might be making suboptimal decisions at times.  

Chrysler's Brand Strategy

The title of this post may be a bit misleading. After all, these days, one really has to wonder whether Chrysler even has something that resembles a brand strategy. Several weeks ago, we heard from David Kiley at Business Week that the company was considering creating a new brand, Ram, which would cover its line of trucks (currently sold as Dodge Ram trucks). You would think the firm needs fewer brands, not more. Now, we hear again from Kiley that they are working with ad agencies on a concept whereby they would try to position Chrysler as an upscale brand, up there with the likes of Cadillac. Really? How will Chrysler achieve this, particularly given its poor reputation for quality and the dearth of exciting new products in its pipeline?

Clearly, Chrysler understands that it has a need to distinctly position its brands. For years, the firm sold Dodge, Chrysler, and Plymouth cars that were nearly identical. The brands had no distinct meaning. The firm killed off Plymouth, an understandable move given the brand confusion. Now, it's trying to position Chrysler as something quite different than Dodge. Again, conceptually, this makes sense. However, you have to have the product to support the positioning. You can't just use marketing and advertising to create a new brand positioning in smoke and mirrors like fashion.

Here's a thought... if Fiat wants to come up with distinct positioning for its various brands, why not make Dodge the truck brand, and Chrysler the car and minivan brand? That fits more closely with the product portfolio as it currently exists, and it doesn't stretch either brand to be something completely foreign to how it is currently perceived by consumers. Moreover, you wouldn't be worrying about selling cars under both brands that are essentially identical automobiles.

Risks of Using AI in Human Resources

Source: https://inc42.com/

Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the way much work is done in the human resources divisions of companies. For example, Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM's chief human resources officer, told Fortune, “We’ve got over 280 different A.I. automations running inside HR right now. That’s what is different here. It’s making HR more human because we’re spending time on things that matter.” Fortune reports that IBM saved 12,000 hours in 18 months by applying artificial intelligence to a series of human resource tasks.  However, Paige McGlaufin has written an excellent article for Fortune highlighting several critical risks that may emerge as artificial intelligence transforms the way human resources departments do their work.

1.  The potential for bias:  Several companies have learned that artificial intelligence tools exhibit a bias against certain groups of employees or job candidates.  

2. The potential for data leaks:  Firms will have to be highly vigilant to be sure private information about employees and job candidates does not get leaked and misused by others.  

3.  The potential for relationship breakdowns:  Efficiency clearly can be enhanced using artificial intelligence.   However, one has to ask:  Will that efficiency have a detrimental impact on the social connections that are crucial to getting work done and retaining employees?  McGlaufin writes, 

"But that efficiency could come at the cost of interpersonal connections. Imagine a scenario where A.I. tools fully administer the hiring and onboarding process: “If I’m a new employee and A.I. is getting my materials and my laptop, onboarding, and online tutorials, I don’t feel connected to the organization,” says Dustin York, a communications professor at Maryville University. That could spell trouble for retention. “I can easily leave and go somewhere else.”

4. The potential for employee  pushback regarding AI tools:  Many employees exhibit an aversion to the use of artificial intelligence tools for certain tasks.  Julia Dhar, director and managing partner at Boston Consulting Group, told Fortune:   “Change doesn’t come super comfortably to human beings. And if executives and leaders are consistently out there only saying that this change is exciting and energizing, you’re unlikely to bring people with you."  

Low Quality Feedback Harms Employee Retention Efforts

Source: Thrive Global

Kieran Snyder, CEO of Textio, and Mallun Yen, CEO of the Operator Collective, have published some fascinating results of a study they conducted regarding employee feedback. You can read about their findings in this article they have written for Fortune, and you can examine their complete report here.  Synder and Yen describe how they studied feedback at one large organization in depth:

To explore this, we looked at the performance reviews of a large, international enterprise organization across a variety of roles. The data set contains performance reviews for more than 13,000 employees across two annual review cycles. Because we have two years of data, we can see whether an employee in the Year 1 data set is also included in the Year 2 data set. In other words, for each employee, we can see the quality of their written performance feedback, as well as their retention or attrition outcome the following year.

People who received low-quality feedback were more likely to leave the organization than people who received more actionable feedback. What’s more, this impact is causal, not just correlational: Our analysis controlled for potentially confounding factors such as numerical performance rating and employee tenure. People who received low-quality feedback were 63% more likely to leave their organizations than everyone else. This held true whether they were high, middling, or low performers.

Snyder and Yen go on to make a crucial point about some managers' unwillingness to provide direct feedback.  Trying to avoid a confrontation can be problematic. Some managers try to "soften" their feedback in ways that are detrimental to long-term employee retention.  They write: 

Shying away from giving direct feedback also causes employees to quit. Even when feedback is provided, it may be provided in conflict-avoidant and indirect ways. The practice of hedging, where the feedback provider couches their intended feedback in less direct language, is common... “I think” was by far the most common phrase used in hedging feedback. By introducing feedback with an “I think” statement, the manager is communicating that their point of view might just be a matter of opinion and that they might not be fully committed to it. This is problematic even in positive feedback, as the manager inadvertently communicates doubt about the praise they’re giving. For example, by saying “I think you did a good job on that presentation” rather than just stating that the report did a good job.

It matters. People who get performance reviews containing “I think” hedging statements were 29% more likely to leave the company within a year than everyone else.

So much attention has been placed on whether to eliminate annual performance reviews, or to alter various employee ranking systems. In some ways, we might be missing the most important point about developing our people - namely, the quality of the feedback (and the language we use in offering that feedback) matters a great deal regardless of the timing or the format in which we provide that feedback.  We have to overcome the tendency for conflict avoidance and train our managers to provide actionable, constructive feedback even when those conversations might be difficult.  

Is Office Chitchat an Unproductive Activity?

Source: NBC

Several weeks ago, Rachel Feintzeig wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal addressing the issue of productivity and distractions at home versus in the office. I found the end of the article quite interesting. One interviewee notes that she "remembers walking into her office complex every day at 9 a.m. to face the long warm-up: colleagues exchanging hellos, putting away their lunches, filling up coffee cups. 'Nothing really got done that first hour,' she said. 'That was our work-life balance, right there.'” The interviewee continued her commentary by talking about the value of just getting right to work:

Same thing at the end of the day, as people wound down, she said. If she wrapped her work early, she felt unable to leave even though the job was done. Starting a remote job last year, she found the idea of working, and breaking, on her own time thrilling. “You don’t have to go up to everyone and go, ‘How was your weekend?’ ” she said. “You can just get to work.”

Whatever we think about the remote work debate, this story suggests that some people are misunderstanding the value of informal non-work-related talk at the office. Catching up about others' lives, children, or weekend activities over a quick cup of coffee is not "unproductive" chatter. It's an important part of how we build relationships with others, and those relationships can be crucial foundations for getting real work done.

Recent research examined the impact of "office chitchat." Scholars Jessica R. Methot, Emily H. Rosado-Solomon, Patrick E. Downes, and Allison S. Gabriel have found that office chitchat can certainly be distracting. However, they also found that, "Small talk enhanced employees’ daily positive social emotions at work, which heightened organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and enhanced well-being at the end of the workday." For more on this topic, see Lindsay Mannering's article for the New York Times titled, "The Awkward But Essential Art of Office Chitchat."

The Relationship Between Leader Tenure and Organizational Performance

Source: https://fs.blog/open-closed-minded/

Can CEOs stay in office too long?  Do lengthy tenures often lead to poor performance?  In an influential paper published in the 1990s, Donald Hambrick and Gregory Fukutomi argued that CEOs experience "seasons" of their tenure.  Performance increases as they learn during the early years.  In those initial years, they are more open to experimentation and alternative viewpoints.  If they stay too long, leaders become entrenched in their views, closed-minded, and less open to dissent.   They begin to believe their own press clippings if they have been quite successful.  They tend to overly attribute the organization's success to their own prowess, rather than recognizing the positive impact of other members of the organization, favorable industry dynamics, or even good fortune.   Perhaps most alarmingly, long-tenured leaders may be more likely to engage in unethical conduct because they are not subject to adequate oversight, monitoring, and control by ineffective boards of directors. Boards may be so impressed by performance during the early part of a CEO's tenure that they grow more lax in their oversight.  They engage in excess deference to these long-tenured leaders. Hambrick and Fukutomi wrote:

At some point, the positive effects of a CEO's continuing tenure (primarily in increasing task knowledge) are outweighed by the negative effects. Job mastery gives way to boredom; exhilaration to fatigue; strategizing to habituation. Outwardly, such executives may show few signs of this malaise because they may have been well socialized in the importance of keeping up executive impressions and appearances. However, inwardly the spark is dim; openness and responsiveness to stimuli are diminished. The continuing incumbency of these executives is dysfunctional for the organization. 

Recently, Markus Schmid, Francois Brochet, Peter Limbach, and Meik Scholz-Daneshgari published an empirical paper in The Accounting Review examining this hypothesis.  They concluded that the average S&P 1500 firm experiences a positive relatiohship between CEO tenure and firm value for the first 14 years of a leader's tenure.  Then, performance begins to decline.   In short, they confirm the main hypothesis proposed by Hambrick and Fukutomi.   

Schmid and his colleagues offer some important qualifiers though. They find that the decline in performance occurs mostly in highly dynamic industry environments.  In those situations, the decrease in performance starts around Year 11.   In stable environments, performance may plateau, but it doesn't experience this dropoff.  The scholars also discovered another interesting point of variability. They wrote:

"Our results show that firm value peaks earlier during a CEO’s tenure for leaders who are less adaptable to change, namely specialist CEOs with relatively low general managerial skills, relatively older CEOs, and those who were appointed internally, while it peaks later for generalist CEOs and increases over tenure if they are younger or were appointed from outside the firm."

Newest Published Case Studies!

My newest case study and teaching note is now available in the Ivey Case Collection. The case focuses on Viking Cruises and examines their entry into the expedition cruise segment. Great case about the power of making strategic tradeoffs.

This publication comes in addition to several other recent case studies that I have published. You may wish to take a look, particularly if you are teaching courses in strategy or leadership/organizational behavior.

• Tractor Supply Co.  (co-authored with David Ager) 
• Executive Decision Making At Zola (co-authored with Amy Edmondson)
• Boeing 737 MAX: Company Culture and Product Failure
• Case Companion (an online tutorial regarding how to analyze a case study)

Coddling Employees vs. Fostering Learning & Improvement

Source: https://sabrinabakare.com/zone-of-discomfort

Alexandra Buell and Lindsay Ellis have written a startling Wall Street Journal article that is sure to receive a great deal of discussion this week.  I'm grateful that they have written this piece. The article is titled, "‘Feedback’ Is Now Too Harsh. The New Word Is Feedforward." The subtitle is: "More companies are ditching anxiety-inducing corporate lingo for what they see as gentler terms. Reviews become ‘connect’ sessions.'" Buell and Ellis write:

Employers around the country have good news for workers who dread chats about their performance: Feedback is on the way out.  Many companies, executive coaches and HR professionals are looking to erase the anxiety-inducing word from the corporate lexicon, and some are urging it be replaced by what they see as a gentler, more constructive word: “feedforward.”  Feedback too often leaves workers feeling defeated, weighed down by past actions instead of considering the next steps ahead, but “feedforward” encourages improvement and development, its proponents say... Companies are also banishing another negatively charged term: “review,” which they are replacing with “connect” sessions, coaching, self-reflection and opportunity discussions."

My initial reaction:  Are you kidding me?!?!?!   I certainly understand how employee reviews can be counterproductive at times.  Many managers struggle to provide evaluations and improvement recommendations effectively.  Employees sometimes become defensive, fail to acknowledge their own weaknesses, and do not heed the advice of their managers.  Yes, we have to improve the way we provide recognition, praise, and constructive criticism to employees.  There is no doubt about that.  I commend those experts in human resources and executive coaching who are working on these critical challenges.  However, there's a fine line between getting better at these important managerial processes and simply coddling employees.  It sure seems as though we might be crossing the line in some organizations.  Moreover, many employees may simply look at these changes in terminology as window dressing.  If they perceive the wording change as such, they may grow more cynical and skeptical about their leaders.  Trust and employee engagement may actually erode in those organizations.  In short, we may be doing more harm than good when we use terms such as "feedforward"or "opportunity sessions."  

Giving and receiving feedback induces anxiety and stress in many individuals.   We have all experienced it. However, our goal should not be to eliminate all discomfort in these difficult conversations. Some level of discomfort is critical to the self-reflection and learning process. We have to confront the truth, not run from it. Avoiding all discomfort should not be the goal.

I'm reminded of something my dissertation adviser and mentor, David Garvin, used to say to me as I worked on my thesis, developed my first case studies, and learned how to teach. He would quote Dr. Peter Carruthers of the Los Alamos National Laboratory:

“There’s a special tension to people who are constantly in the position of making new knowledge. You’re always out of equilibrium. When I was young, I was deeply troubled by this. Finally, I realized that if I understood too clearly what I was doing, where I was going, then I probably wasn’t working on anything very interesting.”

In short, David would remind me that discomfort was natural when receiving feedback. Being asked to make countless revisions in my work was frustrating at times. David would remind me of how far I had come thanks to the suggestions and recommendations of others. I'm thankful for all that constructive criticism early in my career. I benefited greatly from it.  I'm glad others strove to maximize my learning, rather than striving to minimize my discomfort.  

Lies, Lies, Lies: Hiring Managers and Job Candidates

Fortune's Paige McGlaufin and Joseph Abrams reported this week on some rather shocking survey results.  Resume Builder polled 1,600 hiring managers, and 36% of those individuals acknowledged they had lied to job candidates. McGlaufin and Abrams write, "Of hiring managers who admit to lying, around 75% say they lie during the interview, 52% in the job description, and 24% in the offer letter."  Moreover, many of these respondents indicated that they deceived candidates quite often.  Why do so many hiring managers lie?  The authors write,

"Some reasons hiring managers gave for lying include protecting sensitive company information, covering up negative company information, exaggerating benefits to attract job seekers, and generally making the job sound more attractive to find better candidates. What these managers falsify also varies—the most common lies are about the job’s responsibilities, growth and career development opportunities at the company, and company culture."

We have heard so much lately about the lack of trust and engagement among employees in many companies.  We've attributed these poor outcomes to a variety of leadership failures, but I've rarely read about how the problem may begin BEFORE the employee actually starts the job.  If someone is lied to during the hiring process, and then discovers the deception while on the job, they are highly likely to become disenchanted.  Many will simply quit.   In fact, the survey respondents indicated that roughly half of the employees who were deceived eventually quit the organization when they discovered the lies.

This article caused me to consider the incentive structure that these hiring managers likely face.  How are they measured and rewarded?  How does their ability to fill positions quickly affect their compensation and promotions?  By focusing on incentives, I'm not suggesting that we should excuse the unethical behavior.  However, we cannot simply hope to hire more trustworthy recruiters. The problem is not simply the ethics of certain individuals.  Given the widespread deception, we have to think systemically about the causes of the problem.  If we don't change the incentives, and the broader culture around recruiting, then the lies will likely continue.  

Tractor Supply Podcast and Case Study

Thank you to Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway for having me on the Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast to talk about my latest HBS case study co-authored with David Ager.  The podcast episode is titled, "Why Tractor Supply is One of the Most Interesting Retailers on the Planet"

Will Rao's Thrive After Acquisition by Campbell's?

This week, Campbell's announced the $2.7 billion acquisition of Sovos Brands, a firm whose most famous and successful brand is Rao's.  If you aren't familiar with the brand, you should be.  It's simply the very best tomato sauce sold in the United States, and frankly, there shouldn't even be a moment of debate.  I should know.  As the son of Italian immigrants, I grew up never eating tomato sauce from a jar. We had a huge vegetable garden, and my parents grew tomatoes and made their own sauce. Still today, I grow my own tomatoes and store sauce for the winter, though I don't jar enough to last the entire year. When I have to purchase sauce, there's only one brand that I will purchase in a jar - Rao's marinara sauce. As a fan of the brand, I'm hardly alone. Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal writes, "Rao’s deliciousness is undeniable. Bon Appétit magazine called it “the best jarred pasta sauce there ever was.” When the Washington Post convened a panel of taste-testers, the judges tried a dozen brands and declared Rao’s their favorite."   Rao's is hardly a bargain though.  It's a premium brand.  A 32 ounce jar of Rao's currently sells for $10.29 at Stop & Shop.  You can purchase a 24 ounce jar of Ragu for $1.99.   Now you might think that I'm crazy to pay that kind of a premium for tomato sauce, but you would be wrong.  It's absolutely worth it! 

The Campbell's acquisition may be beneficial, but it understandably generates some concern.  Campbell's is known for selling a very affordable line of soups.  How will the premium brand Rao's fare within the Campbell's portfolio?  The company's track record of acquisitions is decidedly mixed.  In the late 1960s, it acquired Godiva's chocolates.  That brand thrived under Campbell's ownership for many years, but ultimately, the company divested Godiva because it didn't fit very well with the other products in the portfolio.  More recently, the company divested Bolthouse Farms at a steep discount to the price they had acquired the brand for just seven years earlier.  

The question remains whether valuable synergies exist between Campbell's and Rao's.  Why are these firms more valuable together than apart?  Can Campbell's manage the brand more successfully than it has already been managed?  That seems unlikely, given the parent company's lack of recent familiarity and success with super premium brands.  Moreover, they aren't buying a brand in distress; they are purchasing a brand that is already performing at a very high level.

Any attempt to drive synergies must be taken with caution as it may dilute the quality of the premium tomato sauce brand. For now, Campbell's has assured customers and investors that it won't change the taste and quality of the popular tomato sauce. Still,  we should expect some pressure to justify the acquisition premium by creating synergies.  That pressure can be counterproductive at times when mainstream companies acquire much more premium brands.  

Why Too Many Goals Can Be Counterproductive

Increasingly, organizations face pressure to achieve a range of goals, extending well beyond profitability and shareholder value maximization.  Many people note the benefits of this broader perspective.   Interestingly, though, Dartmouth Professor Pino Audia's work highlights one potential negative effect of defining too many goals as an organization.  Here's an excerpt from Kirk Kardashian's feature on the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business website regarding Audia's research:

Conventional wisdom says setting goals is a good practice, because it helps people and organizations accomplish their priorities. But it’s not that simple.  “Ironically,” says Pino Audia, Professor of Management and Organizations at Tuck, “having too many goals can make corporations less accountable.”   Audia has come to this perspective after 15 years of researching when organizations learn from failure, including writing a new book on the topic: Organizational Learning from Performance Feedback: A Behavioral Perspective on Multiple Goals (Cambridge University Press, 2021). One of his main contributions to the field of organizational behavior is his discovery that people show a tendency to form self-enhancing assessments of their performance. This tendency thrives in situations where performance metrics are ambiguous, giving people the latitude to see their own performance in a good light, even if others might assess it more harshly. “The proliferation of corporate goals creates greater ambiguity,” Audia explains, “and that creates greater latitude for self-enhancing assessments of performance.”

What does Audia mean by self-enhancement?  He argues that many business leaders don't learn effectively from failure because they find ways to convince themselves that they did not fail.  They try desperately to maintain their positive self-image in the face of disappointing results.  The establishment of a diverse range of objectives facilitates this self-delusion!  If many goals have been defined, they might point to the strong performance on a few of those goals, while trying to ignore or downplay poor performance on a range of other objectives.  Kardashian writes that, "a key feature of self-enhancing decision makers is that they are cognitively agile in the sense that they change the parameters used to assess performance to reach more favorable assessments."   Sadly, this "cognitive agility" means that leaders and organizations don't learn from failure as effectively as they should.  

Do Leaders Know What Employees Really, Really Want?

Source: www.lovetoknow.com

Fortune's Phil Wahba has written an intriguing article titled, "Too many CEOs don’t know what their workers need. Employee ‘engagement’ surveys can make the problem even worse." Wahba starts by giving an interesting example from Starbucks. He points out that former CEO Howard Schultz often took great pride in the tuition assistance program offered to company employees. Wahba writes:

It turns out that for many Starbucks “partners,” as the company calls its employees, tuition help at an online university wasn’t that crucial. They’ve proven to be far more interested in prosaic matters such as flexible scheduling, work conditions, and more predictable hours—the kinds of issues that have a much greater short-term impact on their income and quality of life.

Wahba goes on to critique employee engagement surveys administered annually by many organizations.  He notes that many questions are fuzzy and unclear.  The responses do not necessarily provide clear direction as to how leaders should change policies or behaviors.  At times, companies present the data in ways that make things appear better than they actually are.  He gives the example of firms that sometimes lump "4" and "5" responses together when reporting the data.  Of course, a "4" might be quite different than a "5" response.  Moreover, while the overall mean might look good on a particular question, certain subsets of the employee population might be responding much more negatively.  Finally, leaders don't always close the loop by communicating clearly to employees how they are making changes based on the survey results.  Employees think to themselves, "Why are we doing this? Are they actually taking our views into consideration? Is it just a waste of time?"  

Wharton's Peter Capelli offers a simple suggestion: ask managers to talk to their reports! He tells Wahba, "You could have supervisors actually go talk to people. Employees are usually not shy about telling their direct boss what’s going on."  In short, there's no substitute for one-on-one communication in which managers listen to employee concerns and then circle back to address them.  No survey can replace those valuable conversations.  

Will Disney Sell ABC, Other TV Networks?

Source: NBC News

In an interview with CNBC yesterday, Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged that Disney may divest its struggling legacy TV businesses. It may also seek a "strategic partner" for ESPN.  Reporting for CNBC, Lillian Rizzo and Alex Sherman wrote:

Disney is going to be “expansive” in its thinking about the traditional TV business, leaving the door open to a possible sale of the networks. “They may not be core to Disney,” Iger said, adding the creativity that has come from those networks has been key for Disney.

The press coverage regarding Iger's statement has focused on the decline in the traditional television business, particularly as more and more people "cut the cord" regarding cable television.   I think that's only part of the story though.  One can ask whether the legacy TV networks, such as ABC, ever belonged in the Disney portfolio.  

I've been teaching case studies about the Disney corporate strategy for two decades.  For the most part, Disney has always been a positive example of an effective diversification strategy with powerful synergies among the various divisions.  However,  the ABC acquisition (mid-1990s) has always been a more contentious issue.  What is the argument for Disney owning ABC?  Does Disney have a more powerful competitive advantage because it owns ABC?  It's not easy to see why it would.  If you examine Disney's stock performance during Michael Eisner's tenure, you can see two contrasting eras.  Prior to the ABC deal, the Disney stock outperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin during Eisner's tenure.  After the deal, Disney stock underperformed the market during the second half of Eisner's tenure as CEO.  

While ABC does have studios that develop programming, it's first and foremost a broadcast network.   Acquiring a broadcast network is essentially forward integration for Disney.  My students and I have always debated whether there is a persuasive argument for vertical integration here.  Does Disney need to own ABC to have effective ways to distribute its content?  Hardly believable.  Disney has highly attractive content that clearly would be of interest to many different distribution partners.   Does Disney have negotiating leverage with other distribution partners because it owns ABC?  One might think so, but on the other hand, Disney may have some challenges when it comes to selling content to outside partners.  If you were another broadcast network, wouldn't you wonder why Disney was trying to sell great content to you, rather than putting that content on its own broadcast network?  When you forward integrate, you create potential conflicts of interest because you are now competing with your own customers.  Finally, could Disney achieve many benefits of collaboration without having to own ABC outright?  It would seem so.  After all, Disney and ABC worked together for years on a contractual basis when the network aired the Disney movie each Sunday evening for years.  Disney CEO Michael Eisner even used to introduce the movies on the network long before the company acquired ABC.  It would seem that contracts, partnerships, licensing deals, and the like could enable the Disney and ABC to collaborate effectively without having to be part of the same corporation.  

In sum, Disney divesting the legacy networks might be the right strategic move, but not because people are cutting the cord.  It might be the right move because the case for synergies was far weaker than ever acknowledged.  

Calculating the Cost of Meetings

Source: Getty Images

Kaz Nejatian, Chief Operating Officer of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, has created a meeting cost calculator for his organization. Nejatian developed the software program to calculate the cost of meetings during a company hack-a-thon. According to Nejatian, meetings per worker have declined by 14% this year, and productivity has risen.  Bloomberg's Matthew Boyle describes this innovative new approach to curtailing excessive meetings:

The Canadian e-commerce company has rolled out a calculator embedded in employees’ calendar app that estimates the cost of any meeting with three or more people. The tool uses average compensation data across roles and disciplines, along with meeting length and attendee count, to put a price tag on the event.

A typical 30 minute endeavor with three employees can run from $700 up to $1,600. Adding an executive — like Chief Operating Officer Kaz Nejatian, who built the program during a company-wide hack day — can shoot the cost above $2,000.

As I read about this article, I contemplated why excessive meetings sometimes take place.  Many reasons exist - positive and negative.  For example, sometimes leaders really are trying to give a range of people an opportunity to provide input, and they are involving others to build buy-in for a course of action.  On other occasions, though, leaders are simply engaging in what Michael Watkins calls the "charade of consultation." In other words, they hold the meeting to make it seem as though they are soliciting input, but in fact, they have already made up their mind.  It's all a show.  Another reason we have excessive meetings in many organizations is that managers want to avoid accountability and responsibility.   They call others to meetings so as to avoid being put on the spot if a plan goes awry.  They intentionally create a "when everyone is responsible, no one is responsible" culture.  Without a doubt, many unnecessary or unproductive meetings take place every day in organizations.  

Is there any danger though in trying to reduce the number of meetings?  First and foremost, some issues are better hashed out as a group, rather than in one-on-one conversations or email threads.   If we eliminate meetings, but simply replace them with a long set of email threads, we may not truly be increasing productivity.  In fact, we just be shifting our time from one form of communication to another, and one that is perhaps more inefficient.  Second, successful implementation of key initiatives requires a great deal of coordination.  Moreover, it requires a strong shared understanding of the plan, something that may not be achievable without critical meetings.  Third, employees may come to feel as though decision-making processes are not fair, if they are left out of the deliberation process.  If they don't feel as though they have been given voice, then they may not commit and buy into the plans being enacted.   Finally, plenty of learning can take place in meetings, as junior employees soak in knowledge from discussions and analysis undertaken.  Moreover, they watch how others conduct themselves, make presentations, and answer hard questions.  This on-the-spot learning may be lost if too many meetings are eliminated.  

In sum, the goal is admirable.  We all can identify many unproductive meetings we have attended.  However, we need to remember that most things we do require input, support, and collaboration with others.  We do few things alone in organizations.  Meetings serve as important coordination mechanisms in many cases. 

A Gen Z Board of Advisers at The Body Shop

Source: HR Exchange Network

What's the average age of the Board members of your company?  For many companies, that average is much higher than the average age of their customers, and higher than the employee population as well.  You can see where decisions made by the Board might not always be informed by up-to-date thinking about the values, goals, beliefs, and needs of Gen Z and Millennials.  What can companies do to bridge this gap?  Orianna Rosa Royle has written an interesting piece for Fortune about one firm's attempt to address this issue.   In her article, she describes The Body Shop's Youth Collective advisory board. 

Other companies have tried similar structures, but not always with as much success as anticipated.  In the worst cases, employees view these advisory boards as all for show, without any real substance.  The Body Shop has structured the board and its process in ways that increase the likelihood of securing valuable input and constructive criticism, while building trust with employees.   First, 50% of the members come from within the company, while the other half are from external organizations.  This balance seems very important.  The internal members have a strong vested interest in the organization's success.  Meanwhile, the external members provide a valuable outside perspective, and they perhaps feel safer speaking up with their concerns or feedback.  

Second, not every issue comes before the advisory board. Royle writes that The Body Shop "avoids drawing on their expertise unless a problem needs out-of-the-box thinking that the older leadership team can’t crack."  In other words, align the issues brought before the advisory board with the core purpose of that group.  Don't simply try to replicate the conversations that a board of directors might have.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, The Body Shop has outlined the ground rules and shared norms for this group in a very clear manner. Most importantly, everyone has a voice, and there's a commitment to listen and consider each opinion in a genuine manner.  That doesn't mean the group always gets their way.  The Body Shop executive and board of directors member Chris Davis notes, “Do we always listen? Yes. Do we always act? No. When we don’t, we explain why. When we do, we explain why—that’s part of the deal.  There will always be feedback and full transparency so it’s clear that everybody is heard.”  In short, The Body Shop has tried to create a fair and legitimate consultation process.  Fair process means giving people voice and considering their views genuinely, but not taking a vote and making decisions democratically.  In the end, creating a strong perception of procedural fairness means explaining decision rationale, and specifically why leaders acted on the group's recommendations or why they chose not to do so.  If you don't create this perception of a fair and legitimate process, people will stop offering their input.  Trust will be broken. 

Practice Makes Perfect

www.sportscasting.com

We all know that great athletes practice intensely in preparation for competitions.  As a teenager, I remember reading about the incomparable Larry Bird showing up at the Boston Garden hours before a game and hoisting up hundreds of jump shots, as well as running on the track.  For much of my adult life, I read about Tom Brady's maniacal practice habits, beginning when he was a rookie on the training camp fields here at Bryant University, where I serve on the faculty now. Scott Pioli loves to tell the story of a late night in April in Foxboro during the offseason before Brady's second year: "It was a Friday night in the very beginning of April, and I was leaving the building. We still had the (practice) bubble and the lights were on in the bubble. I went around the construction (of the new stadium) to go hit the lights and on a Friday night in April, it's almost 10 o'clock at night and there's Brady working on his own with his boombox, with elastics around his ankles, throwing balls into the net."  

If athletes use practice so effectively to improve, how about business leaders?  Does practice play a role in our development?  If so, how?  Here are the three ways we can use practice to our immense benefit:

1.  Presentations (and later speeches) play an important role in our work.  We have to share our ideas and proposals with others in a concise, clear, and professional manner.  We have to persuade and influence those over whom we may not have any formal authority.  Practice indeed makes perfect when it comes to public speaking.  We should work on delivery, timing, and emphasis.  Moreover, we should anticipate questions and prepare our responses.  The International Churchill Society notes that the great British Prime Minister, who delivered so many memorable and impactful speeches, practiced relentlessly: "Churchill drafted his speeches several times and wrote them out in a way that would help him deliver them effectively. He rehearsed passages, again and again, pacing his rooms, repeating them out loud, learning whole speeches by heart. He developed a unique oratorical style that both covered up and employed his speech difficulties so that his ‘lisp’ – or ‘stammer’, which could occasionally seem like a groping for words – became a prop, not a hindrance."

2.  Giving feedback can be extremely difficult at times.  Many leaders dread these meetings with their team members.  Rehearsing the conversation can be very fruitful.  Consider not only the content of the feedback, but the method of delivery.  In what order will you make your comments? How will you set the stage at the start of the meeting?  What type of response do you anticipate from the other person, and how will you respond?  Finally, what will you do to bring the meeting to a conclusion?

3.  Data analysis and interpretation skills have become more important for leaders in all functions of an organization, not simply those working in finance, data science, or engineering roles.  We all need to know how to analyze data, interpret results, and draw meaningful and appropriate conclusions.  Practicing these skills can be very helpful.  As a young financial analyst, I used to hone my skills outside of work by focusing on something that I loved, namely professional sports.  I would analyze baseball and football statistics in my free time, and I loved to read articles in the nascent (at the time) field of sabermetrics.  I enjoyed it a great deal, and it helped me learn how to use Excel, perform various statistical analysis, and come up with conclusions that sometimes challenged pre-existing notions or conventional wisdom.   Ok, I was a nerd... but these analyses really helped me hone my analytical skills.  Sports doesn't have to be your thing.  You might take some time to analyze your own company's 10K filing, or to compare your firm's 10K with a competitor's results.  Or, you might read a few business school case studies about interesting companies and analyze the firms' performance.  These efforts can help refine your skills.   

Should Internships Be Fully Remote?

Is remote work diminishing the efficacy of the summer internship experience for thousands of young college students?  Emmy Lucas has written an article on summer internships for Forbes this week.  In that article, she examines how challenging it is this summer for many students to land internships, given the layoffs at many firms, particularly in the tech sector.  She also raises a question about how remote work has affected the ability of interns to learn, grow, and develop successfully.   Here's an excerpt from her article.  She begins with a comment by Jane Ashen Turkewitz, who administers internship placement for the University of Texas at Austin: 

Remote work has also put a damper on the intern experience. “I remember joining the workforce in my twenties and it being super fun,” Ashen Turkewitz says. “You would do your work, but there was camaraderie, there was brainstorming. There was an energy that I believe students and early career folks are missing out on, big time.”

On Glassdoor, negative mentions of remote work in reviews by interns grew by 548% between 2019 and 2021. “Clearly a lot of companies' internship programs are struggling to adapt to the new normal,” Glassdoor’s Terrazas says. “Big companies have been leading the charge in getting folks back into the office, so I'm really going to be curious to see if it has a measurable effect in terms of experience this summer.”

Salesforce’s head of global futureforce programs, Alex Murray, says its interns are back fully in person. “We’ve experimented with remote and hybrid programs over the past few years,” she said in an email. “But our interns told us they want to be in an office environment.”

Kate Feeney, who is interning a second summer at Raytheon Technologies, spent last summer fully remote, but is going to the office one or two days a week this summer. “It’s a lot more isolating [working] online,” she says of her experience last year. Now, “I get to ask more questions about [my co-workers’] job rather than it being so focused sitting on a Zoom listening to them talk.”

This article raises very important questions.  In my view, business leaders need to invest the time and effort to meet with their interns in person throughout a summer experience.  Apprenticeship, learning, and development will often (not always, but often) not take place as effectively in a fully remote manner.  One challenge is that many managers want the flexibility of working remotely often during the summer months.  However, if you hire an intern, you have a responsibility to make that experience meaningful and productive.  Managers should be paying it forward, offering the mentorship and guidance they once received at a young age.   

Investing in Your Own Development This Summer

Beyond spending time with family and friends this summer, we can all take the opportunity to invest in our own development as well.  Certainly, our organizations may offer workshops or leadership development programs in which we are asked to take part.   Or, we might be pursuing an advanced degree or certificate. However, we shouldn't simply wait for these opportunities to come to us, or simply focus on formal educational experiences.  We should find time to learn on our own.   I'm reminded of the famous Italian saying, "Ancora imparo."  I have a small plaque with this saying on my office bookshelf.  While some scholars have doubts about the usual origin story for this phrase, the common explanation is that the great Renaissance artist and sculptor Michelangelo uttered the saying at age 87.   The idea of Michelangelo exclaiming "Ancora imparo" at that ripe old age reminds us all of the power of always learning something new, no matter our age, experience, or knowledge.  

What can we do this summer to learn and develop as a leader?

• READ whole books!  Yes, blog posts 😉, web articles, and Twitter threads can be quite informative at times.  However, we should take the time to embark on a deep dive into a few important subjects this summer.   I don't mean just business or leadership books per se.  We can learn a great deal from reading history, about pressing problems of the past and the leaders, both successful and flawed, who tackled those issues.  For example, I just finished a terrific book titled "The Devils Will Get No Rest" by James B. Conroy.  The insightful book takes a close look at the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, when British and American poltical and military leaders gathered to develop a gameplan to win World War II.   I learned so much about how these leaders navigated contentious issues, debated intensely, and found a way to reach agreement, all while maintaining and even enhancing their working relationships.  
• Find a great podcast.  I don't mean the latest true crime adventure, though they can be entertaining.  Find one that tells a great story about the rise or fall of an enterprise, or offers insights into organizational behavior.  I enjoy podcasts such as How I Built This, Freakonomics, Cautionary Tales, Land of the Giants, The Dropout, and Choiceology.  
• Meet with a mentor/mentee.  If you have been too busy to invest in a mentoring relationship, commit to spending time on it this summer.  Make sure it's a two-way street, in which both parties are benefiting to some degree.  Try to take the time to meet in person, if possible. Prepare for these meetings.  Come with good questions and with some issues on which you woud like some advice and guidance.  
• Select a new skill to master.  Perhaps you want to learn how to code, or maybe you would like to learn more about data visualization.  However, don't just focus on these types of "hard skills."  Think carefully about certain "soft skills" you might hone over the summer too.  Maybe you want to improve at public speaking or presenting, or you would like to get better at setting and achieving goals.  Having a gameplan to improve both hard and soft skills is critical as you embark on your leadership development journey. 
• Reflect systematically.   I've written previously about Kellogg Professor and former Baxter Healthcare CEO Harry Kraemer's recommended practices for self-reflection.  Find some time this summer to reflect.  Perhaps you might use Kraemer's questions, or you could conduct an "after-action review" regarding a project you led recently.   As you reflect, don't build a long laundry list of things to work on moving forward.  Be selective and prioritize a few action items for the coming year.  You are much more likely to make progress if you focus your improvement efforts. 

Why the Decline in Labor Productivity?

Jane Thier reported last week for Fortune on the decline in labor productivity in the American economy.  She notes that the United States has experienced productivity declines for the past five quarters.  That hasn't happened since World War II.  Thier examines George Mason economist Tyler Cowen's commentary regarding the potential causes of this significant decline.   She notes that Cowen attributes much of the problem to "a serious crisis of morale" in the workplace.   I think there's no question that many employees are disengaged, and even disgruntled.  Organizations have been grappling with low engagement for years, but it does seem that the problem has become worse since the pandemic began.

Thier also writes that some experts have begun to question whether remote and hybrid work might be driving declines in labor productivity.   Cowen argues that more data are needed to draw definitive conclusions about the impact of remote work.   Fellow economist Gregory Daco of EY Parthenon argues that comments from various clients suggests that remote work might be causing a decline in productivity.  

Many companies reported high productivity of their employees during those early months of the pandemic.  I wonder, though, whether unique circumstances contributed to that efficiency boost, and if productivity might be falling as those conditions no longer hold.  Many employees and organizations rallied in those early days of the pandemic, working extremely hard to ensure that their firms would survive amidst a preciptious economic downturn.   Moreover, we all were stuck in our homes.  We had very little else to do, and so perhaps many were quite productive in those circumstances.  

Things have changed though.   Now, perhaps, we are seeing some of the limitations of remote work, and it may be having a deleterious impact.  It's not the popular thing to say these days.  People who try to argue for return to office often get pummeled by the press, and they potentially scare off talented employees who insist on working remotely.  Yet, the national productivity data should trouble us greatly.  We have to dig deeper into these data, and more rigorous empirical work must be done to understand the complete ramifications of remote/hybrid work.  

When Layoffs Occur, Who Else Leaves?

Source: Moneycontrol.com

Lisa Ward of the Wall Street Journal reports today on a fascinating new study by Sima Sajjadiani, John D Kammeyer-Mueller, and Alan Benson.  Their research paper is titled "Who Is Leaving and Why? The Dynamics of High-Quality Human Capital Outflows." The scholars studied more than 1 million employee records from a two-year period at a major retailer with more than 1,600 stores.  

The scholars found that layoffs can trigger a loss of highly talented individuals.  They found that the attrition rate of high-performing employees increases after layoffs of underperforming peers. Ward writes:

Why? High-performing employees typically have more employment options, says Sima Sajjadiani, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s UBC Sauder School of Business and one of the paper’s co-authors. As a result, when layoffs are announced, these individuals might pre-emptively begin job searches to secure new roles rather than wait to see if they would be included in the layoff.

What about when an employee is dismissed for cause?  Interestingly, they again found a disparity in subsequent attrition rates.  Higher performing employees tended to stay, but low performers left in larger numbers after a peer was dismissed for cause.  Sajjadiani explains:

“High-performing employees may view the dismissal of a low-performing colleague as the organization maintaining standards, which can be seen as a positive sign about the organization’s commitment to performance,” Sajjadiani says. “On the other hand, low-performing employees might perceive the dismissal of a similar peer as a warning sign that they might be next, leading to an increase in voluntary turnover among this group.”

Finally, what about voluntary departures?   Well, high performers follow fellow high performers who leave.  Low performers follow fellow low performers.  However, high performers do not leave in greater numbers when low performers depart.  Instead, stars are more likely to stay.  Apparently, our judgements about our performance relative to peers matter a great deal when we decide whether to leave a job.  

Leadership Lessons from Chris Licht's Fall

Source: CNN

News has broken this morning that Chris Licht is out as CEO of CNN, just days after controversy erupted about a lengthy piece in The Atlantic about the cable news network's new leader.    I'm sure the list of mistakes he made is quite lengthy.  I'll just note three key lessons here in the immediate aftermath of his departure:

1.  Giving a journalist seemingly unfettered access during your early days as CEO, and then being so loose with commentary and language during that time together, was a colossal mistake.  It's hard to believe someone would not anticipate how such access could lead to massive fallout.   Leaders need to work with the press and shape their message through the media at times.  If you are a media CEO, you certainly can't seclude yourself.  Having said that, this type of access seems completely unnecessary.  I simply don't see any potential upside here.   

2.  Locating his office away from the newsroom appears to have been a major error.  It's simply too easy for executives to become isolated from their staff members.   You might make it even more likely that you will be detached from their concerns if you remove yourself physically from their workspaces.  The location also serves a symbolic purpose.  It signals many things about your priorities and your leadership approach, even if unintentionally.   

3.  Finally, Licht himself admitted to his employees, "As I read that article, I found myself thinking, CNN is not about me. I should not be in the news unless it's taking arrows for you. Your work is what should be written about."  Well, he's absolutely correct there.  The CEO is not the organization.  It's not his or her personal fiefdom.  CEOs need to view themselves as stewards.  The institution doesn't belong to the leader.  In particular, leaders must remind themselves that many employees will work there much longer than they will.  

Build Relationships & Trust by Tapping Into Others' Expertise

Source: Noam Galai
Copyright: 2015 Getty Images

Jennifer Hyman co-founded Rent The Runway and currently serves as the CEO. Recently, she spoke to Stanford University students about her experiences as an entrepreneur and leader. Hyman described a critical meeting when she was first beginning to conceive her idea for the business. She landed a meeting with fashion-giant Diane Von Furstenberg.   During that meeting, Hyman asked for feedback about her idea, and she tried to learn as much as possible about the fashion business.   She asked many questions and listened actively.   Hyman explains the lesson she takes away from that remarkable encounter: 

Now also in that meeting, I asked her, “Hey, could you introduce me to a few of your friends, and I’d love to meet with them and talk about this idea,” because every meeting has to get you to like three other meetings. And so never leave a meeting with someone without asking them for that introduction. Now those other meetings led us to other people in the fashion industry, some of which were designers, some of which were publicists, but people that actually could give us real feedback on this idea and people that could see that like we were interested in listening. It was helping to build trust in an industry where we had no experience, where you go in and you actually allow someone else to give you feedback, like “How does that work?”

What ends up happening in a situation where I sit with you and I ask you questions and I ask you for your advice, you end up walking out of that conversation feeling awesome. You end up liking me in that conversation. Like whenever you make someone else into the expert, like that builds a relationship right away. And we needed desperately at the beginning of the business to build trust so that anyone would actually trust us to like take their currencies and inventory and not cannibalize their business.

Hyman highlights two key lessons here. First, don't leave a meeting such as this one without soliciting an introduction to others who may be helpful to you.   Second, people love being put in the position of expert sharing wisdom with others.  They want to help, provided you demonstrate respect for their expertise, come extremely prepared, ask great questions, and listen actively.   Treating someone else as the expert sets the tone for a productive conversation.   You don't have to grovel or patronize others; you simply have to acknowledge what you do not know and point out how they can help.   Very often, others will find the time to share their wisdom with you, even if they have a very busy schedule.  I've certainly found that to be the case in my career as well.