The three Cs of customer satisfaction: Consistency, consistency, consistency

It may not seem sexy, but consistency is the secret ingredient to making customers happy. However, it’s difficult to get right and requires top-leadership attention.

 “Sustaining an audience is hard,” Bruce Springsteen once said. “It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.” He was talking about his route to music stardom, yet his words are just as applicable to the world of customer experience. Consistency may be one of the least inspirational topics for most managers. But it’s exceptionally powerful, especially at a time when retail channels are proliferating and consumer choice and empowerment are increasing.

Getting consistency right also requires the attention of top leadership. That’s because by using a variety of channels and triggering more and more interactions with companies as they seek to meet discrete needs, customers create clusters of interactions that make their individual interactions less important than their cumulative experience. This customer journey can span all elements of a company and include everything from buying a product to actually using it, having issues with a product that require resolution, or simply making the decision to use a service or product for the first time.

It’s not enough to make customers happy with each individual interaction. Our most recent customer-experience survey of some 27,000 American consumers across 14 different industries found that effective customer journeys are more important: measuring satisfaction on customer journeys is 30 percent more predictive of overall customer satisfaction than measuring happiness for each individual interaction. In addition, maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys has the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20 percent but also to lift revenue by up to 15 percent while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20 percent. Our research identified three keys to consistency:

1. Customer-journey consistency
It’s well understood that companies must continually work to provide customers with superior service, with each area of the business having clear policies, rules, and supporting mechanisms to ensure consistency during each interaction. However, few companies can deliver consistently across customer journeys, even in meeting basic needs.

Simple math illustrates why this is so important in a world of increasingly multichannel, multitouch customer journeys. Assume a customer interacts six times with a pay-TV company, starting when he or she undertakes online research into providers and ending when the first bill is received 30 days after service is installed. Assuming a 95 percent satisfaction rate for each individual interaction—whether measuring responsiveness, the accuracy of information, or other factors—even this level of performance means that up to one in four customers will have a poor experience during the on-boarding journey.

The fact is that consistency on the most common customer journeys is an important predictor of overall customer experience and loyalty. Banks, for example, saw an exceptionally strong correlation between consistency on key customer journeys and overall performance in customer experience. And when we sent an undercover-shopping team to visit 50 bank branches and contact 50 bank call centers, the analysis was confirmed: for lower-performing banks, the variability in experience was much higher among a typical bank’s branches than it was among different banks themselves. Large banks typically faced the greatest challenge.

2. Emotional consistency
One of the most illuminating results of our survey was that positive customer-experience emotions—encompassed in a feeling of trust—were the biggest drivers of satisfaction and loyalty in a majority of industries surveyed. We also found that consistency is particularly important to forge a relationship of trust with customers: for example, customers trusted banks that were in the top quartile of delivering consistent customer journeys 30 percent more than banks in the bottom quartile.

What is also striking is how valuable the consistency-driven emotional connection is for customer loyalty. For bank customers, “a brand I feel close to” and “a brand that I can trust” were the top drivers for bank differentiation on customer experience. In a world where research suggests that fewer than 30 percent of customers trust most major financial brands, ensuring consistency on customer journeys to build trust is important for long-term growth.

3. Communication consistency
A company’s brand is driven by more than the combination of promises made and promises kept. What’s also critical is ensuring customers recognize the delivery of those promises, which requires proactively shaping communications and key messages that consistently highlight delivery as well as themes. Southwest Airlines, for example, has built customer trust over a long period by consistently delivering on its promise as a no-frills, low-cost airline. Similarly, Progressive Insurance created an impression among customers that it offered lower rates than its competitors in the period from 1995 to 2005 and made sure to highlight when it delivered on that promise. Progressive also shaped how customers interpreted cost-reduction actions such as on-site resolution of auto claims by positioning and reinforcing these actions as part of a consistent brand promise that it was a responsive, technology-savvy company. In both cases, customer perceptions of the brands reinforced operational realities. Such brands generate a reservoir of goodwill and remain resilient on the basis of their consistency over time in fulfilling promises and their strong, ongoing marketing communications to reinforce those experiences.

Becoming a company that delivers customer-journey excellence requires many things to be done well. But we’ve found that there are three priorities. First, take a journey-based approach. For companies wanting to improve the customer experience as a means of increasing revenue and reducing costs, executing on customer journeys leads to the best outcomes. We found that a company’s performance on journeys is 35 percent more predictive of customer satisfaction and 32 percent more predictive of customer churn than performance on individual touchpoints. Since a customer journey often touches different parts of the organization, companies need to rewire themselves to create teams that are responsible for the end-to-end customer journey across functions. While we know there are an infinite number of journeys, there are generally three to five that matter most to the customer and the business—start your improvements there. To track progress, effectiveness, and predict opportunities, you may need to retool both metrics and analytics to report on journeys, not just touchpoint insights.

Second, fix areas where negative experiences are common. Because a single negative experience has four to five times greater relative impact than a positive one, companies should focus on reducing poor customer experiences, especially in those areas in which customers come into contact with the organization most often. For instance, training frontline service representatives to identify and address specific customer issues through role playing and script guidelines will go a long way toward engendering deeper customer trust.

Finally, do it now. Our research indicates that since 2009, customers are valuing an “average” experience less and have even less patience for variability in delivery. In addition, companies that experience inconsistency challenges often expend unnecessary resources without actually improving the customer journey. Making additional investments to improve the customer experience without tightening the consistency of experience is just throwing good money after bad.

About the authors

Alfonso Pulido is an associate principal in McKinsey’s San Francisco office, where Dorian Stone is a principal; John Strevel is an associate principal in the Toronto office.

Using Performance Indicators to Drive Your Business Strategy - White Paper

 

We’ve all heard the old management adage “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”, but in the world of big data where managers have countless reports and data at their fingertips, the key challenge for companies is to identify what they need to measure and to ensure they are measuring it properly. In many companies, existing reporting doesn’t provide the key data that employees need to identify performance issues and take action. Many organizations have a lot of financial accounting data but only a few measures that relate to strategic and non-financial performance. In many cases there is too much data, but too little information, with no linkage to the strategy of the business. How do you go about fixing this problem?

This article describes an approach to developing and aligning performance indicators with strategic objectives. Other processes, such as developing objectives and measures through a formal contin- uous improvement or ISO program can also be used. There is no single “right” way to decide on the best approach for your business; you need to consider what fits both within your business culture as well as the other systems you have in place.

 

A Balanced Approach To Identifying Strategic Objectives

It all starts with a strategy that flows from the company’s mission, vision and values (see Figure 1). If you do not have a strategic plan for your business, you need to start by developing a plan along with specific measurable objectives. These objectives could cover a broad range of perspectives, including these areas:

• Internal Processes - streamlining key processes, applying new technology to improve efficiency
• Environment and Community - support local businesses, community leadership and connecting with future employees
• Learning and Growth - increase expertise and skills through training or mentoring
• Financial – revenue growth, asset utilization, cash flow
• Customer Focus - customer satisfaction, identifying and targeting the most profitable customers
• Employee Satisfaction - staff retention and positive company culture

Identifying the Right Performance Indicators

Once strategic objectives are in place, you need to ask: what are the critical success factors required to drive each objective? For those success factors, develop a list of potential measures we call “indicators”, which will allow you to track performance. From this list of indicators, prioritize the ones that will have the biggest impact on achieving the strategic objectives. A simple example of how a strategic objective is converted to performance indicators is shown in Figure 2.

In order to measure performance, you must be able to readily obtain the data needed. Therefore, it is important to consider the availability of data, the effort required to obtain it, and any changes to systems or processes needed when selecting your performance indicators. If you are implementing performance indicators for the first time, keep it simple. Use data that is readily available in the organization; if you need to collect new data, ensure the benefit outweighs the cost and effort of obtaining it.

Cascading Objectives AND Performance Indicators to Align the Organization
Cascading your strategic objectives and indicators to all levels of the organization is a powerful way to align behaviour across your organization and improve performance. In order to do this successfully, you must develop indicators appropriate for the level of the organization at which they will be used. The manager or team using the indicator must be able to influence the results within their scope of responsibility. It is not necessary to have indicators related to each strategic objective; only the ones that are relevant to the manager or team. The best way to develop these indicators is to directly involve the people who are responsible for achieving results or have an influence on the outcome.

Setting Targets 

Establishing targets enables you to check if you are on track in reaching your objectives. There are a number of ways to set targets, but the main point to keep in mind is that you want your teams to be motivated to achieve the results.

A target can be set using an external or internal benchmark. External bench- marks are applicable in cases where you have access to published data on industry best practices. Frequently they are most applicable in areas such as cost, quality, production cycle time, sales and marketing. Internal benchmarking involves analyzing internal data to understand where the company performance currently stands in order to set improvement targets. If you do not have the data, it may be necessary to collect it for a period of time (e.g. 3 months to 1 year depending on the measure) so as to establish a baseline.

Stretch targets are a great way to challenge and motivate staff to achieve great results. When setting stretch targets, be sure to break them down into more achievable targets or sub targets and quantify them in a shorter time frame. This will reduce the anxiety amongst staff and help them see what actions are needed to achieve results.

An example of how an objective can be cascaded through the organization, with targets set that are specific to the position in the company is shown in Figure 3. 

Developing Reports and Dashboards
Once you’ve identified your performance indicators and set targets, the next step is to establish an approach to ongoing monitoring and reporting that can be used by managers and teams to track progress. The reporting framework must consider requirements of different levels of the organization and the reporting frequency that is required to support effective decision making.

A simple dashboard, which is a one-page tool displaying the performance indicators, targets, and historical data in a graphical form, can be an effective tool for reporting. The purpose of a dashboard is to provide a big picture view, focusing on the key performance indicators, and draw attention to areas of concern so that mangers can drill down into additional information that is needed to take action. There are a wide variety of software tools available for dashboard reporting; however, existing reporting systems can easily be used to create simple custom dashboards. In designing reports or dashboards, here are few things to keep in mind:

• Keep the data for each area of the business limited to a single, easy-to-read page
• Provide context to the data, historical trends and targets help the user to see if they are on track
• Use graphs or tables that clearly communicate the data
• Don’t change your reports too frequently, people need time to get used to them

Implementation

If performance indicators are new to your organization, you need to approach the design and implementation process as a change initiative. You should consider building these steps into your process:

1. Make it a priority – The President / CEO and senior management must support this initiative and ensure there is a sense of urgency within the organization to follow through with this project.
2. Develop a team – This group should have enough authority within the organization to lead the change and include people from various functions. This team needs to be given the time and resources to develop and implement the program. You may want to include an external consultant or advisor who can facilitate and guide the process.
3. Communicate – A clear and consis- tent message needs to be delivered to the business on the strategic objectives and changes that are being implemented to introduce performance indicators. This is not a one-time thing; use as many vehicles as possible to communicate the message (e.g. newsletters, staff meetings, workshops and one-on-one discussions with staff).
4. Empower employees – Involve a broad group of people in the process in order to gain their support and input in developing the performance measures through workshops, facili- tated meetings, or surveys tools.
5. Plan for and celebrate success - Set targets that are achievable so that people can see visible results from their efforts. Acknowledge and celebrate success, reward people who have been fundametal to achieving the results. Be sure to start this early enough in the implementation process to motivate staff and build momentum.
6. Keep the ball rolling – Establish an annual process to review and update your performance indicators to align with changes in strategy and set new targets. Continuously improve your approach by introducing per- formance measures to other levels of your businesses, or link it to your performance management system — any time you do this, remember to start at step one in this process.

Annual Review And Continuous Improvement 

Once you’ve established a performance indicator system, you need to revisit and refine it to ensure relevance to the business. This should be linked to an annual strategic plan review and budget setting process. You should review which measures have worked well and which have not; it is especially important to look at which measures need to be changed based on adjustments to your strategic objectives. If you need to develop new measures, brainstorm on the success factors and identify new measures for each level within the organization. Regardless of whether the measures are new or not, you should be reviewing your annual performance and setting new targets for the upcoming year. Once these are established, they need to be communicated to the appropriate level of the company.

Identifying and linking performance indicators to the organization’s strategic objectives provides a foundation for aligning activities across the business. Developing simple reporting tools or dashboards will improve communication, decision making and performance monitoring. Overall, this process will help you to continuously improve your business and adjust your strategy as needed. 

Further Reading:
Kaplan, R., and Norton, D., “Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System”, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2007
Marr, B., “How to Design Key Performance Indicators” Advanced Performance Institute, (www.ap-institute.com), 2010
Pateman, A., “5 East Steps for Developing Your BSC Measures”, Harvard Business Publishing, March – April 2004

Tips for Development Performance Indicators

• Link indictors to your strategic objectives and align them across your organization for maximum performance improvement
• Develop indicators that are measurable, simple and easy to understand for those responsible
• for the performance
• Indicators must provide meaningful information on progress relative to the objectives
• Ensure there is a clear definition and precise methodology for calculation
• Have clearly defined targets that are challenging and motivating, but obtainable with a reasonable amount of effort
• Review objectives, performance indicators and targets on an annual basis to ensure alignment with the business strategy
• Stay focused, limit number for each level or area of the business to 10 measures maximum

ABOUT US

McNally Brown Group is a boutique management consulting and business advisory firm that works with companies to improve business performance. We work collaboratively with clients to conduct assessments, develop tools, and facilitate implementation of strategic initiatives in a broad range of areas including strategic planning and implementation of key performance indicators and dashboards.

Download a PDF of this white paper

The Power of “So What?”

You've gotta talk pain and pain relief when marketing to your ideal prospects. Take advantage of a sarcastic-sounding question that's actually a powerful marketing tool.

I suspect all of us have heard—and used—the phrase “So what?” many times. Delivered in a certain tone of voice (you know the one), it’s a snarky question guaranteed to fuel conflict.  Asked another way, however, it’s a powerful marketing tool.  When asked in a tone of genuine curiosity, “So what?” elevates our marketing from the realm of “I’m blah with blah blah and we offer blah blah blah” to the realm of “I know that you experience this type of pain, and here’s how I relieve that pain for you” 

Have a talk with yourself
In my opinion, it’s best to start by asking yourself  this pointed question. 

Whenever you identify a feature of your product and service, haul out the “So what?” guns.  This will force you to think from your client’s perspective and identify clearly why anyone cares about that particular feature; in other words, it will start you digging down to the benefit your product/service provides.

Once you’ve come up with an answer, ask the question again. Keep asking it until you’ve really drilled down to the essential value provided. Then move on to the next feature of the next service/product.

Going through this process is not necessarily fast or  easy. However, with determination, focus on the powerful marketing messages you’re creating, and massive amounts of chocolate, you’ll become much more clear on exactly how you provide value to your clients.

The big clue
How do you know when you’ve truly answered the question in a way that will improve your marketing results?  When your answer describes the emotional outcomes you create for your client : a feeling of financial security, or confidence, or relief, or personal power, or satisfaction...you get the idea.

The next step
That’s step one.  Step two is checking in with your clients to determine if what you  perceive as high value is the same as what they perceive.  Many times you’ll be beautifully aligned with how your clients are feeling and thinking. However, to simply assume you know what they most value is just begging to waste time, money, and effort on marketing messages that fail to address what’s important from the client’s perspective—which, after all, is the one that really matters.

How do you confirm or disprove your hypothesis about your product’s/service’s crucial value?  Ask.  Spend some time creating a survey that will genuinely take five minutes or less to complete, then send it to your customers.  You can do this at no charge by using a service like SurveyMonkey, you can ask for help with a posting on your company Facebook page, or you can tweet it.

As with any type of communication, your request for input has to answer the client’s question, “What’s in it for me to take time to do this?”  Here’s where the ethical bribe comes in.

You can arrange to put the name of everyone who responds in a drawing for a $100 gift card to the store of their choice; you can limit the drawing to the first X people to respond; you can send all respondents a $5 card to a local coffee shop.  This tangible bribe is, naturally, in addition to pointing out that getting guidance directly from your customers is going to allow you to improve your level of service and the amount of value they receive from you.

Once you’ve gathered your data, it’s crucial to acknowledge your clients’ input and to promptly start addressing any concerns that you uncovered.  Asking how you can improve and then failing to act on the information is a sure-fire way to create bad feelings—and decreased revenues.

Fer instance...
I’m launching a business called Stepping Into Big. Here’s one way to describe it:
Stepping Into Big, LLC, offers a highly collaborative, 90-day, business-building program comprising three modules. Delivery focuses on where the client is and where she wants to end up. Derailers addresses those mental and operational obstacles which have gotten her off track in the past. And Delivery looks at the challenges she faces in actually implementing her ideas. Clients finish the 90 days with a high-level Master Action Plan for moving forward as well as more detailed individual action plans in five key success areas. 

Yawn. 

Okay, maybe not a huge yawn, but, really: Why would I just list attributes of the service instead of addressing the prospect’s pain and the type of pain-relief outcomes she can expect from working with me?  Would the following description perhaps resonate more with my ideal client?

Are you so paralyzed by all the things you could do to grow your business that you struggle to decide what you will do?  Do you cringe when you think of all the great ideas that never get implemented?  Then maybe it’s time to get some help so you can start creating a bigger business as well as a bigger life.  In just 90 days, the Stepping Into Big co-creative process will get you out of overwhelm and into control. You’ll feel confident, clear, and calm after we’ve developed a strategic Master Action Plan as well as detailed, tactical individual action plans in five key success areas to get you out of neutral and moving briskly down your road to success. Stepping Into Big provides a guiding hand for your journey to genius.

Bottom Line
We owe it to ourselves, our businesses, and especially our customers to clearly and compellingly share our value.  If your product or service is the answer to a prospect’s prayers, I think you actually have an obligation to that prospect to make it clear how you move them from pain to peace.  Asking the tough question “So what?” will make it easier to connect with the people whom you can best serve—and isn’t that the point of it all?

I shook the dust of W-2 work from my feet in 2000 and never looked back. Now, as an implementation specialist, I use the Take Action Now System (tm) to create customized action plans that propel clients down the road to more clients and more money.

Kathleen Watson

The Billionaire Winners Of The 2014 Academy Awards

"Dumb money” used to be a big joke in Hollywood. Rich folks who wanted to rub shoulders with glamorous stars would throw money at Hollywood and for some reason, their films never made any profit. Blame “creative accounting.” Eventually, they would slink back to the safer waters of Wall Street. 

Today’s billionaires are much smarter about their Hollywood investments. They’re not just in it for the glamour, they’re in the game to make money and create quality films.

Exhibit A: James Packer. Worth $6.5 billion, the Australian casino mogul decided last year to invest in Hollywood. (You can read more about Packer’s Tinseltown gamble here.) He partnered with director Brett Ratner to form RatPac, a production company that Packer plans will eventually encompass movies, TV and publishing. One of RatPac’s first deal was to land a massive financing deal with Warner Bros. RatPac is now covering 25% of the production budget of all Warner Bros. films.

The first movie in the RatPac deal was Gravity, which last night won seven Oscars including for Best Director. Although the film was completed by the time RatPac signed with Warner Bros., it hadn’t yet been distributed so Packer got to take his 25% stake in the film. Not only did Gravity win the most Oscars this year, but it’s also the highest-grossing of the Oscar films. The movie earned $704 million on a budget of $100 million meaning Packer and Ratner stand to make millions from the deal.

Another Forbes billionaire who played a role in last night’s Oscars was Arnon Milchan (Packer considers Milchan his best friend and mentor when it come to financing films.) Worth $4.7 billion, Milchan ranks 319 on this year’s Forbes Billionaires list. His New Regency Pictures partnered with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment to produce 12 Years a Slave, the brutal film about slavery from British director Steve McQueen. Last night the movie walked away with the biggest award of the night: Best  Picture. Milchan recently admitted that he had been a spy for Israel (something that was always rumored  in Hollywood). It’s unlikely the admission will affect his standing in the film industry. In addition to its Oscars, 12 Years a Slave earned $140 million at the global box office on a budget of $20 million. The film should continue to earn on home video.

Billionaire producer Arnon Milchan (center) joins the cast and crew of ’12 Years A Slave’ to accept the award for Best Picture at the 86th Annual Academy Awards (Photo: John Shearer/Invision/AP) Although she’s not on our Billionaire’s list yet, Megan Ellison has become a big presence in Hollywood and she had two films up for multiple Oscars last night: Her and American Hustle. Although American Hustle got shut out, Her won for Best Original Screenplay. Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, ranks fifth on our list with $48 billion.

Both of his children have gravitated to the movie industry. Ellison’s son David is helping finance big budget movies at Paramount like Star Trek and the hit zombie film World War Z. Megan Ellison has focused more more on the indie world. She’s backing the kind of tricky films that don’t always attract studio financing.  Ellison doesn’t have anything lined up for 2014 but she’s stepping into franchise territory with the Terminator films which she now owns the rights to.
 ,

Another Forbes Billionaire who has successfully made the leap to Hollywood is Jeffrey Skoll. Ranking 396 on our Billionaires list with $3.8 billion, Skoll’s Participant Media has earned Oscars for movies like Lincoln and The Help. The company’s big 2013 movie was The Fifth Estate which turned out to be a critical, and financial, bomb.

If You’ve Just Taken Over a Team, Quickly Let Underperformers Go

The best way for a manager to be successful is to build a top-notch team.  But when most managers take on new positions, they hesitate to act quickly in replacing poor performing incumbents.  Months later, when reflecting on what they could have done differently, almost all of these managers say that they should have moved faster in making the tough “people calls.”

Why are these tough calls so tough to make?  Let’s look at three possible reasons:

First, many managers don’t trust their own instincts. They’ve been taught in business school to analyze situations rationally and to use as much data as possible — but when taking over a new team, the data can be limited. Sure you see performance information, but it often comes with explanations, excuses, and rationalizations. So in the absence of rock-solid data, many managers simply decide to collect more data, get more input, and see how their subordinates perform in the next quarter, or two, or three. It’s a time consuming strategy.  The reality is that you’ll never have complete and perfect information about each person, and will eventually have to make a decision based on imperfect data.

Another reason for hesitation is what I call the “Darth Vader syndrome.”  Like all human beings, managers want to be liked and respected, and don’t want to be seen as distant and scary.  So to avoid coming across as a bad guy (or gal), managers pull their early punches, convey encouraging messages, and give everyone the benefit of the doubt.  While this creates a certain amount of comfort within the team, it also delays the inevitable weeding out of second-rate performers.

The third reason why managers delay these calls is that they don’t want to offend key stakeholders who may have strong relationships with some of the individuals on their team.  In one recent case, the new manager’s predecessor, who had selected most of the team, continued to be on the company’s executive committee.  As a result, the manager was afraid that removing any of her people would come across as a personal criticism of her ability to hire and develop. In another company, the weak performer had a strong relationship with a key customer, and the manager didn’t want to risk upsetting this customer until he had established his own relationship.

The unfortunate thing about these reasons for delay (and probably others) is that they all make sense in the short-term.  As such they make it easy for a new manager to convince himself that he shouldn’t take any precipitous steps.  “After all,” he can say to himself, “the data is imperfect, I want to get off on the right foot with my team, and I don’t want to anger any important people.”  So the wise thing to do is to stay with the team that’s already in place.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the right strategy.

Most new managers are not hired or promoted to be business caretakers and status quo maintainers.  Instead they are expected to take their department or unit to a next level of performance — and putting the strongest team on the field as quickly as possible is one of the keys to making that happen.  That’s why a CEO recently said to me that the ability to make tough people calls was the most important leadership characteristic he looked for in members of his own team.

Of course that’s easy to say, and tough to do. But if you want to hit the ground running in a new managerial position, take a hard look at whether the team you inherit can help you win. If you have doubts about some of the key people, test them quickly with a stretch assignment; or do a rapid performance assessment by talking with their subordinates, peers, and business partners.  And if you’re still not convinced that this is the right team, maybe it’s time to make some tough calls.

Ron Ashkenas

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting. He is a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

The Best Ways to Sharpen Your IQ

Deepak Chopra MD (official)Influencer

Founder, Chopra Foundation

When they were first devised, IQ tests were intended to be bias-free. Intelligence was modeled as a fixed trait, untouched by a person's environment. But over the years this pristine model has been subjected to considerable criticism. A poor child raised in a home where English is a second language, attending an inferior school, and facing an environment where there is daily violence isn't the same as a child growing up in an educated home, attending a privileged school, and surrounded by an environment conducive to learning.


Does this affect the second child's IQ? I have my suspicions, as do various professional psychologists specializing in this area. But in practical life, I think what's most important is how you use the intelligence you're given. Like any other function that is dependent on the brain, intelligence is expressed in specific situations. It's used to make decision, for example, and every decision is subject to emotions, information, stress, and the people who are in the room when the decision has to be made.


This led me to coin a term - functional IQ - that describes IQ in action. No matter what you believe your IQ to be, there are definitely ways to sharpen it.


First, attend to the well-being of your brain. You are its user, just as you use your car, and a tuned-up brain works much better than a carelessly used one. Your brain needs to be rested with a good night's sleep. It should be focused on one task at a time, since multitasking decreases your ability to perform each task well. Alcohol, smoking, and probably a fatty diet damage the circulatory system, which over time leads to impaired brain function. A quiet workplace free of distractions isn't always easy to achieve, but it makes things easier on your brain.


Next, attend to detriments that affect your mind. We don't have to bring up the controversies over how mind and brain are related, because in general, every cell in the body is chemically connected to a person's mood, stress level, and state of well-being. There is a floating communication system that brings messages to the outer membrane of every cell, and the headquarters for this constant messaging is the brain. It receives complex input from the mind, which then gets translated into output. This feedback loop works best if you aren't

• anxious
• depressed
• fatigued
• obese
• ill
• addicted to various drugs and abused substances
• highly medicated
• malnourished.

The mind is involved in all of these detriments, and as the user of your brain, you should look upon these things as enemies of using your brain efficiently (in addition to harming your well-being in other ways).

Finally, functional IQ depends on the quality of your attention. Being able to focus sharply while remaining relaxed is a skill that can be trained. Meditation is a prime tool here, and to some extent so are simple relaxation techniques, such as sitting quietly for a few minutes with eyes closed in a quiet place. Avoiding work fatigue is essential, which begins by getting up from your desk once an hour and moving around. But if I had to name one factor that even highly intelligent people tend to overlook, however, it would not be maintaining sharp focus, but rather expanded awareness. When you make any decision, you can draw on the shallow part of the mind, which is impulsive, easily distracted, overly influenced by others, and constantly in motion. Or you can draw from the deeper part of the mind, which is centered, stable, self-reliant, and ultimately the source of wisdom.


It's been shown that older people score better on tests that require accumulated experience and wisdom than younger people, who are quicker and intellectually more nimble. But you can have the best of both worlds by expanding your awareness. And the best means for developing this are meditation, mindfulness, self-reflection, and similar techniques.

Constricted awareness is prey to all of the detriments listed in this post, while expanded awareness not only protects you from them - largely by making you more attentive and self-aware - but also leads to a style of functioning that is creative, open, intuitive, insightful, and always growing. We tend to think of the most enlightened states as somehow mystical and reserved for a small band of sages and saints. But I propose that enlightenment is simply the highest attainment of functional IQ, which anyone can achieve if they put their minds to it.

Deepak Chopra, MD, Founder of The Chopra Foundation, Co-Founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, coauthor of Super Brain with Rudolph Tanzi and for more information visit The Universe Within.

Posted by:Deepak Chopra MD (official)

How To Unlock Great Ideas

Many companies blow off the best ideas of their most creative employees–leaving innovators no choice but to leave if they want to act on their brainstorms. This is clearly a source of huge frustration, as some of you expressed in your comments the last time I posted on this topic in “What To Do When Your Boss Won’t Support Your Great Ideas.”

But if you’re an inventive type, maybe there’s hope that you don’t have to live with your frustrations indefinitely. Serial entrepreneur Ken Tencer, co-author of the new book Cause a Disturbance, believes that it’s very possible for companies to change and embrace innovation. He’s the CEO of Spyder Works, a branding and innovation firm with offices in New York and in a suburb of Ontario, Canada. He previously founded Nettlewoods, a private label of bath and body products sold through major chains, such as Walmart. He is also chair of the Unleashing Innovation Summit, to be held in New York City on March 26 and 27. Here’s an edited transcript of a conversation we had yesterday about how to bring more innovation to today’s workplaces and to innovate more on your own.

Many people say it is hard to get their company to pay attention to their great ideas. How can companies become more receptive?
Tencer: Certain companies really embrace the notion that `We have a lot of incredible people working for us, they’re very close to our customers, and we should actually be engaging these people.’ If  you look at a company like LinkedIn LNKD -4.55%, they enable employees to come up with new idea, put a pitch together and if it comes through, to bring the idea to market. At Google GOOG -0.37%, 20% of your time can be spent on projects other than your main job. I don’t know why more companies aren’t gravitating toward that whole notion of empowering employees, of putting in place mechanisms where they allow people to present ideas and push them forward. It engages and motivates them and helps attract the best talent to your company, rather than frustrating them, turning them off or pushing them out.

Is it possible that big companies don’t see an upside to internal innovation? Many seem to want their employees to focus the products or services they already sell. When they want to add new products and services, they go out and acquire small, innovative companies, instead of doing a lot of R&D internally.
Tencer: If they don’t see an upside to internal innovation, I think it’s incredible short-sightedness. Your brand is about building relationships with your customers. Innovation is about keeping those relationships fresh. It’s about introducing “new, improved and better.” The people closest to your relationships are your employees. They’re on the front lines of  speaking to or working with customers. To me, these are where the most relevant ideas are coming from or should be coming from. I’m not saying acquisitions or open source innovation aren’t important. They are, but why–if you have  5 or 50,000 or 100,000 people–would you ignore their ideas?

Some companies want their employees to stay focused, but I am not saying innovation should be 100% of their day.  I’m talking about adding a glorified suggestion box. Let’s get those great suggestions back to corporate management and the R&D team. I think the tide is turning. I hope it’s turning. I think the great companies are seeing that listening to your employees is powerfully motivating and engaging.

What’s holding the other, not-so-innovative companies back? 
Tencer: It’s an incredible mind shift for most companies to move from viewing employees as the doers and executors to the idea generators. I think companies are afraid it will take them out of the stride of their daily work. The change is hard. Instead of being managers, we’re being motivator and coaches.

I think managers can be. [Creativity expert] Ken Robinson talks about  the notion that creativity is taken away from us and replaced by very linear thinking through our education processes in his TED talks. In large companies, just like you have an open source innovation platform, you need an internal platform through which employees propose or present their ideas, so it doesn’t become every manager’s responsibility to be brilliant at this. If you have the processes in place, you’ll see that tide changing. I do believe that, given permission, managers will start to shift.

What if you’re an employee in a company that isn’t as receptive to innovation as LinkedIn–and you’re innovative? What can you do to put your ideas into action? 
I think if top management  really doesn’t appreciate it–I hate to say it–but in many cases an innovative employee will leave. If you’re one voice in 50,000 I don’t know that you’re going to have incredible success at it. But I think that with this new generation of employees, recognition and engagement are so high up on the scale of what motivates people that you won’t be the one voice in the company anymore. Hopefully a lot of companies will recognize that they don’t want to lose their employees.

What can someone who is, say, 47 years old, learn from Millennials about innovation? 
They’ve grown up and see sharing as just a normal part of their life. They’re sharing their ideas, thoughts on what they’re doing and social activism through social media. They are habitual sharers. What we need to learn is it’s okay to share our ideas and to build on one another’s idea. For the 47-year-old, the whole notion of the wiki or open source programming or innovation is a little more challenging. We were taught to keep our head down, keep things to ourselves and go in a linear fashion. To be fair to our generation, we didn’t have social media growing up. We can adapt to a new reality. We do it very well through LinkedIn. We share a lot of ideas through LinkedIn groups and other platforms. We can do that internally, as well.

Do you see any relationship between Millennials’ attitudes about consumerism and their opportunities to create? Many started their careers during the Great Recession.
We were brought up with home ownership and the cars in the garage as status symbols. To them, status symbols relate to whether something goes to sharing: Does it go to lowering emissions, saving the planet, to working together for a better cause? It’s an extension of that whole interconnectedness. To me, they’re almost better equipped to bootstrap a company. They don’t have that singular focus on the acquisition of material goods.

So how do midlife professionals who have mortgage to pay take a cue from a younger, very entrepreneurial generation and get back in touch with the innovative side of themselves? 
In my workshops, I don’t start out talking about innovation and being creative. I ask people to talk about what cool things around them they like. Someone might say: “Standing on a corner and getting a text message that your cab is one mile away, and your cab is number 118.” Here’s another example I like: At Disney theme parks, if a child drops an ice cream cone, an attendant will run up and take them to the ice cream vendor, who will put a new ice cream upside down in a cup, with a smiley face on it. These are examples of brilliant process innovation. It’s about making your customer happy in a simple but very different way. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Once people start realizing that innovation is that simple, it frees them up to be creative.