Steve Neiderhauser

The Shakespeare Economy

In NLP at Work, author Sue Knight decodes a Shakespeare poem and shows why we connect with his words.

A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tendered horns of cockled snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.

William Shakespeare, Love's Labours Lost

Studying the Shakespeare passage we find that the language is appealing to the eyes, the ears, and the feelings: gaze an eagle blind," "hear the lowest sound," "soft," "tender," gross in taste."

Typically, the majority of people have visual as a first preference and this is the choice with which Shakespeare starts. Feelings language is what encourages the reader to connect with what is being said and this is at the heart of the passage. And finally he leads us to a less usual form of language -- leaving a sweet taste in our mouths?

Instead of relying on abstract words and the nominalization of verbs (whatever that means), pour words onto the page that grab the senses and stir the emotions.

Lewis Carbone, author of Clued In, feels there's a connection between sensual language and orchestrating customer experiences. He writes of his favorite poet -- Robert Frost:

As a poet he seemed to have an instinctive grasp of the power of clues. His work in its own way is as fully functional an experience management system as the environment Uncle Pio created in the aisles of his A&P. Frost's words are finely crafted, with a cadence and a sound all their own. Each is rich with meaning. When woven together by one as skillful as Frost, they have the extraordinary ability to drill deep into my emotional epicenter.

Language is one of the elements that comprise the customer's total experience. Minor language changes can make a major difference. In the early 1990s, Ritz-Carlton Hotels performed an experience audit and made a minor change in the way its people talked to customers.

Instead of saying, “You're welcome,” Ritz-Carlton people from the front door to the housekeeping staff were encouraged to say, “It is my pleasure.” The change reflected the character of the establishment as well as the expectations customers have in it.

Just like Shakespeare, we can use language in business to create rich and rewarding experiences for our customers. And it's easy to get started. So the next time a customer thanks you for a service or product, instead of saying:

"No problem."

Say:

"It was my pleasure."

Metaphor -- map to the subconscious

In Clued In, author Lewis Carbone cites the work of Harvard Business School professor Dr. Gerald Zaltman.

The tangible attributes of a product or service have far less influence on consumer preference than the subconscious sensory and emotional elements derived from the total experience.

Curious, I discovered this Fast Company article about Dr. Zaltman. He uses metaphor -- and visuals -- to perform market research that uncovers our subconscious feelings. In turn, this research can be used to create and manage the sensory and emotional elements.

Options and integrated thinking

CIO magazine presents an analysis of an ERP project that went astray and cost HP millions. A problem occurs because the right option wasn't in place, and no one had an in-depth knowledge of business and technology.

CIOs don't run the supply chain in most companies, so they have trouble envisioning what will happen to sales if a critical system doesn't function as expected for a few days or weeks. Businesspeople, meanwhile, have trouble imagining an IT programming glitch getting past the walls of the data center and causing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of lost sales. The chasm between cause and effect is almost too vast to contemplate.

It's been my experience that integrated thinkers are able to peer into the future and understand what options need to be in place to eliminate roadblocks and throbbing headaches.

Why we need people who have business and technology skills

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend. I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below says, "Yes, you are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees North latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West longitude."

"You must be a programmer," says the balloonist.

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

The man below says, "You must be a project manager"

"I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

Through humor, we see how important it is to hire professionals with an integrated skill set.

An Option to Learn

While attending Wharton's MBA program, Rohini Gupta wrote a paper in 2002 about Real Options -- “Real Options for Evaluating Venture Capital and Strategic R&D Investments"

With regard to options, I've noticed that some job functions help people think in terms of options. The author provides a similar insight:

Venture capitalists don't explicitly think about real options, but the real options theory has strong parallels with the way VCs think about valuation and investment. Venture capitalists ask questions that seek to explore options embedded in their investment decisions, play a mentoring role, and are incredibly close to the ventures they're interested in and they've investing in… They think more in terms of opportunity management than budget management.

Even though many people intuitively use options, once they learn about Real Options they are more likely to frame problems in ways that take advantage of opportunities.

Rohini writes, “Real options analysis is merited where there exists flexibility to adapt to changing business conditions.”

If we were to think backwards from this premise, we could say that if it's not possible to analyze products in terms of Real Options, the products are lacking in design. Because flexible products give you the ability to respond to changing business conditions and markets. And that's why it's important to build options into your products from the ground up.