The new year – everybody celebrates the end of the old and the beginning of the new year today. It is the day where many of us start new hopes and new aspirations, but it is also the day where the old year definitively is over. Time to look back, time to admit with humility that some things definitively have not happened in that old year – and it is the very last chance for some quite banal daily life things that are tied to the final deadline of December 31, 2013.

I am not a good administrator of gift-vouchers, so the year-end is a potential threat for me: Oh, that voucher that I have been offered last Christmas, in what drawer have I put it.. and how long was that valid, by the way…? To my surprise I then discover that there are vouchers who are valid for one year only and that they even have a deadline long before December 31 – because the day of their purchase was earlier. The voucher from a big arts photography gallery is one of these.

Short conversation on the evening of December 28: “No, is that voucher deadline already passed? That would be bad….Do you think they will still accept it after December 10?” – “Well, I would say if not, then they are not really interested in their customers… that should not be a problem two or three weeks after the deadline. At least I would not treat my customers like that: Either you come in time or you loose your money – and thank you by the way for your generous gift, Mr. Customer. Happy to see you again next year.”

Besides that speculation and hoping, of course, driven by my bad conscience of not taking care well of my gift vouchers, I start to wonder why I did not use that voucher during the whole year, before. And I find that this time it was even with best intention and reasons: I wanted to wait until we had moved to a new appartment and then choose a picture that would fit into our new home. And I simply also did not imagine that there are vouchers of such higher value that have only one year validity.

We finally moved in November and the weeks after moving had been very busy – of course. And then next Christmas had to be prepared already. Now, suddenly the year is over and on December 28, I look at the voucher again to find that one-year deadline until December 10. I find myself being pushed to go and buy a picture quickly now – on the other hand, certainly they will not be that strict and inflexible… I start watching their pictures online, to choose one, to think about what format at what price I would like to afford one – only a small one for the 80 Euros voucher, or better a larger one for about 300 Euros? But then, even worse, two days later I hear that I should rather go now on December 31 – to seize the last opportunity, for the case that they won’t accept it any more next year. So we go there, to have a look and to check how flexible they are with the voucher. Choosing one quickly, however is not what I like, and certainly not now, today, and after a short time in that gallery shop I feel stressed and pushed – and I decide to first ask if they would still accept the voucher and if yes, how long – because after all, what I expect is that they certainly will not be so strict with one-year-voucher-deadlines.

“Yes, ok, as a courtesy and exception we would still accept it today, despite it being more than two weeks over the deadline.” – “Ah, that’s great. So I could still come back and use it later this week, too, in the new year…?” – “Ah, no I am afraid, if you still want to use it, it should be at least still in the old year”. “How long will the shop be open today?” (it is 11:50 am). “Until 1 pm”. So, definitively they take their deadline serious and put me in a situation of ‘last chance’ and ‘now or never’. After some minutes of increased stress and dissatisfaction about that situation, I turned back to the nice sales-woman and asked her: “Tell me, you would seriously just take the money and let the voucher turn invalid….seriously? Without me having purchased any picture?”. “I am really sorry, Sir, but after all, you had a full year time to use it..and the deadline is written on it.”

Seen from her business-perspective, I had a fair chance to make the promised voucher business deal with them. Of course, I understood that, seen from a business perspective. However, unfortunately,  to make a business deal was not my purpose as a customer for that gift – I wanted to find the right piece of art for me and my new appartment.

How did that little story of the collision of my voucher-weakness and their voucher-deadline-policy end? I purchased a picture in small format within the next 5 minutes, to save the money. And I was not even dissatisfied with the picture. It is nice, it is ok – but it is not the well chosen, great piece of art for my new home. And I was certainly dissatisfied with the gallery and with their voucher policy. And they certainly missed the chance that I would have bought a much bigger format, adding the multiple value of the voucher out of my own money, for a much higher purchase price. And it was a stressy experience for me. Thus the whole nice idea of making customers enjoy good art was just smashed within 10 minutes. What should have been a nice gift to let me choose a picture that I like and that I would highly appreciate in a nice corner of my home, has become a story of being forced to choose something quickly to not loose money.

While we walked home with the new picture I wondered what the company philosophy and the declared purpose of that gallery was, if they found it normal and acceptable that a customer would simply loose his money when a voucher deadline of one short year was over. I had thought that they were selling art – and not bets…But they seriously found it all ok and normal to tell us that either we buy now or they would just keep our money (and between the lines, why should they even really care about it: This is your problem Mr. Customer). Think about it: We already borrowed that money interest-free for a whole year to them and they would now just keep it all without any picture purchased or new voucher issued. Good deal for them, certainly. But is that their goal…? Should it be.a goal for an enterprise to just make money, no matter how..?

At their place I would define and live a better purpose. A purpose that makes customers love them. For example: “We make our customers find and enjoy great photography artworks for their homes”. And I would make this the guiding principle of all decisions and policies towards employees, partners and customers. Following that purpose they would have allowed me to use the voucher also later in the new year – to make sure I can choose my picture as I like, and to make sure I get one that I really like. Declaring a voucher invalid in the new year would then simply mean no art at that customer’s home and that they miss their purpose of making customers enjoy art at home.

But I have now evidence that in case of doubt, something else is more important than me (the customer) and what I need and like around art-photography. My money seems to be a good enough goal for them and only customers who choose a picture for their already spent money within one year are good enough for them. But so many companies have that goal. They all want my money. Thus, what makes this gallery special to make me spend my money just there? There is another photography gallery twohundred meters further down the road. And the internet is full of artworks that wants to be sold.

By the way, now that I have that nice art photography at home I enjoy it – and I feel that I should get more and larger ones. But I also regret that I did not immediately buy a larger format (what would have needed more time to choose it for the right spot in the appartment and to be sure the expense will be worth it for me). Normal reaction would be to turn back to that gallery again, next week. However, as they did not really show big interest in me as a long term customer and as obviously they do not understand how to help me find the right photographies (give me time, when I need it!) I will first have a look at the other galleries now. But certainly I will not give my money to anybody where I see that at the end they are even happy to have my money when I do not have a picture in exchange.

Year end is time of very last chances. Last chance for some vouchers – and some vouchers turn out to be the last chance for a shop to keep their customer for the next years.

Being overrun by the big machine.

Sometimes it feels like being overrun by the big machine, by the big tank that moves forward in its direction without anything that can stop it. And I was the poor guy who believed he could redirect it. Now I am in the middle of its wheels and mechanisms, feeling all the forces that push and squeeze me and that make me a bit scared. I am the one who is being redirected and thoughts come up: Should I change my mind about what I am trying to do?

Working in a big organization can make us feel like being a tiny wheel many times – just as Charly Chaplin illustrates it with his ‘wheelspinning’ worker in the film “Modern Times”. If we don’t get that feeling at all, we are either in a really great organization or it is that we are just too much part of it already – we are the wheel that turns nicely and we do not find anything wrong about that.We get what we expect from our work in it, or we just have already accepted that this is all we can get. In the latter case we just might have adapted our world view to the way how the organization runs, how it functions, how it defines how the world can be: How human beings need to behave and collaborate and what goals have priority. But is this the learning that we need? And is it the learning that the organization really needs to be succesful?

I am writing under the impression of a conversation with my manager, two days ago. A conversation as good-willing and open as it can be, with as much sympathy and respect for each other as one would wish and expect it in a modern company. Sounds like a nice chat right before Christmas, like a good experience. Rather easy. But it was not. It felt quite challenging. Challenging in a good way and in a bad way at the same time. It was about a very complex topic in work and about how I will continue to analyse it. The good part of challenge were feedback and comments related to my very individual tendencies of approaching that work: Strengths, predispositions and weaknesses that I sometimes let drive the direction into detours and that make me avoid things that I should not avoid, perhaps. Not comfortable to be confronted with it, not easy to admit and rethink. But basically it is a good challenge to be confronted with it. The bad part of challenge was how the conversation felt emotionally and how it was lead: It felt like a big push. Like ‘Let’s move on faster’. Like: ‘Don’t waste your time there, I know better that this is in vain.’ It felt a bit like: ‘We wanted you to analyse in this certain way and we expect you to fix what we assumed was the problem’. And I wondered why now that sort of time-pressure and impatience was coming up while they had told me that there was no short term expectation and no deadlines related to it. So I felt like my wheel being pushed with force into a direction where my wheel would not turn before having investigated and understood other turns first.The issue is complex, the task is to understand what wheels are turning together, first.It will not be solved by turning the wheels how they turn now – because that current way of functioning does not create the wished output. However, I was not really surprised by the style of conversation and that this direct leading and influencing took place. That is how we work and lead and try to develop people, today. Asking open questions in a spirit of respecting 100% ownership and with the knowledge what questions help the other think about the best analysis approach: Directing the conversation to the known facts and the unknown, the gaps – that is not yet part of the common, standard leadership competency in my organization.That would have been as difficult contentwise as it was now. But it would have felt much better and let thoughts move to the really important questions – instead of discussion two opinions about the best next steps.

The way how we lead conversations and how we expect that tasks and problems are being approached are one example for the forces that make an organization work in a certain way or in another way. Conversations are situations where often we can clearly feel the push into a certain direction of ‘wheel-turn’ very well. Especially if we talk to people where we feel a dependency of some kind: Here it was my framing of the formal powers (and its effects) that a manager has by his position. In another conversation it might be the fact that we need something from others.In bothe examples we will notice that some things go easily, without real disagreement and trouble and that there are other things that create reluctance, non-understanding or resistance. In the first case my wheel grabs into another as they are currently designed as a part of the whole organizational logic of roles, task separations, power-constellations, goals, priorities and ways of execution.In the second case we see the need to establish a new or different way of being a wheel and turning something. Then we find ourselves in the middle of a difficult debate.And in these debates it is where change starts.

The good news always is: Organizations are no tanks made of steel. They are complex setups of human collaboration, made of ideas.Sure, they are machines that produce outputs and cultures in which we live an emotional, subjective work life while we deal with the objective reality of actions and facts that they create around us. But they are not made of steel plates, wheels and screws. They are made of ideas, choices and actions.They are not tons of solid weight and solid, physical limitations. They are as soft and flexible as human beings can be (if they want to). They can be changed basically by any human being. It is not flesh against steel. It is ideas and choices against ideas and choices. As everybody plays with exactly the substance that makes organizations, sometimes it only needs little to influence or transform it. And there is even more good news. Once we manage to see clearer what drives and constitutes our organization and how its complex dynamics works, we can even find the spots where we can develop strong influence and where we start to change their logic and setup. Human beings and ideas have made an organization be what it is today and human beings and ideas make it do what it does every day. They can change it as well, at any time and at nearly any place inside or outside it.To add a realistic comment: Human beings in nearly any organization are even doing it already every day. Without human beings who change and influence their organization a little bit every day, most of them would disappear quite quickly due to a lack of adaptation to their feeding environment (called ‘customers’).

I felt like being turned over and squeezed by the big machine. However, I bet that this big wheel in it called ‘my manager’ felt a bit the same way, too. And he has not left the debate unchanged – as well as I did not. As one of my best friends once said: “The change starts in the debate”