by Laurence Minsky and Julia Tang Peters

Conventional thinking has suggested that leadership positions go to those who aggressively plan their careers with a keen eye for building the right skills to reach top jobs. Others believe that leaders are born, not made. But according to research one of us (Julia) conducted for her book Pivot Points, the key differentiator between the career arc of someone who becomes a successful business leader and the average person is consistency in how the person makes major decisions.

In-depth one-on-one interviews with five recognized leaders who have been operating CEOs in five different industries—PR (Al Golin), health care (Glen Tullman), finance (John Rogers), social enterprise (Dale Dawson), and marketing (Bud Frankel)—revealed that their leadership development occurred in a process far more organic than career planning. Each one made a number of pivotal decisions with unwaveringly strong accountability and ingenuity that triggered learning and growth.

A further survey of 500 college-educated individuals in professional careers supported this finding and identified inclusiveness in the decision-making process as the key differentiator of leadership. Specifically, respondents were asked to indicate their degree of agreement on a five-point scale with 40 statements of various decision-making behaviors they used at different career decision points. A variable cluster analysis found strong agreement with the following three statements as the behaviors that distinguished decision making with leader-like accountability and ingenuity:

• Before making a decision at a critical time, I invested time and effort to explore multiple perspectives, needs, and ideas through a proactive dialogue with experts and stakeholders.
• During the decision-making act, I weighed a variety of options.
• Then, after making the decision, I explained it fully to all stakeholders to reduce the stress of change among those affected.

Note that this inclusive process is not decision-making by committee or by consensus. It’s the process of constant connection with respected experts and stakeholders, which enables them to recognize business opportunities and threats, and figure out how to adapt or take advantage of them. Habitual outreach prevents insular thinking, opens doors to ideas and collaborative relationships, expands problem-solving perspectives, and increases the range of resources for implementation. Most importantly, it enables real-time adjustments that improve outcomes. This inclusive approach takes 360 degrees of context into account, thereby ensuring better decisions and a higher chance of successful implementation.

In its full context, the study asserts that, over time, leaders who follow this inclusive process progressively stand out from the crowd. Consider the story of Bud Frankel, the founder of Frankel, a firm that created the marketing services industry (where both of us eventually worked) that gained a national reputation and attracted clients across both the consumer and healthcare areas.

As a leader in his company, Bud used what he called “Management by Wandering Around” (MBWA), where he’d stop into offices and ask the opinions of employees, clients, and others to gather insights about his organization and clients. He made it comfortable for people to give him contradictory advice and bad news. In doing so, he discovered major flaws in the company that called for radical change. One such issue was years of growing discord between himself and his partner, Marv Abelson, and its divisive impact on the organization. “We were an ‘us’ team when we started out. Then competition between us brought out insidious kind of stuff—that’s my designer, that’s my copywriter, why isn’t your guy billing as much as my guy, all kinds of stuff,” Bud recalled while being interviewed for the book. “We were Abelson-Frankel, yet operated as two separate agencies.”

Bud sought outside counsel on the fairest way to fix the issue, namely, to break up the partnership. Various perspectives he obtained helped him clarify his options and enabled rational decisions for all parties to focus on moving forward. He came up with two workable options: to buy or sell. Bud’s partner decided to sell and got cash, as well as the opportunity to hire any employee for his new agency.

With the purchase of Abelson’s shares, Bud invested all of his efforts to galvanize clients and employees around one vision and one leader. He took full ownership for the implementation of the decision, explaining his thinking and the implications to those affected. He encouraged feedback—even if the subordinate and clients disagreed with him—monitored the company’s progress and the results, and changed course when necessary. “Mostly I looked at the people and saw how they were doing and feeling,” Bud said told us in conversation. “I based a lot of decisions on the staff. If the staff were uncomfortable with a decision, I’d look at it.” What’s more, he would openly admit his mistakes, even apologizing at times to employees who expressed disagreement with his decisions when they did not turn out as hoped.

As the agency grew, Bud appointed an agency leadership team and focused his energies on scaling up the company’s unique value proposition. Bud continued to use MBWA to randomly drop in on meetings and pepper others with questions and stories, prodding them to create the breakthrough ideas that actually worked in the marketplace. He also formalized an outside advisory board of business leaders, thus ensuring that future leaders of the company would also get feedback on important leadership decisions.

Bud’s inclusive approach kept him constantly connected with the pulse of his clients, employees, and the marketplace, and helped him decide on the ways to professionalize the marketing services industry and start his agency. Near the end of his career, it also helped him decide to sell Frankel. Through his ever-broadening perspective, he led Frankel to develop many firsts, including the first worthy cause promotion and the first to use computer graphics in advertising. It helped his own career to grow from a commission-based salesperson to a global, industry-changing business leader, marketing legend, and later, philanthropist.

In today’s fast-paced environment of dramatically changing technologies and global forces, leaders need to understand how to make the right decisions the right way. By making use of those around you in understanding the situation, weighing a variety of options, and explaining the decision to stakeholders, leaders can make better decisions and set themselves up for future success.

Laurence Minsky is Associate Professor in the Marketing Communication Department at Columbia College Chicago; his most recent book isThe Get a Job Workshop.

Julia Tang Peters is a leadership adviser to C-level executives and the author of Pivot Points: Five Decisions Every Successful Leader Must Make.

This article is directly sourced from HBR: https://hbr.org/2015/04/how-you-make-decisions-is-as-important-as-what-you-decide

The cyber security (CS) debacles faced by Target, Sony Pictures and others may seem far afield from the concerns of nonprofit directors, except for the giants in the area, like AARP. However, think about this hypothetical scenario.

A group of high school students hacked into the computer system of a local nonprofit offering mental health services and gain access to records of clients, perhaps even placing some of the records of other teenagers on the internet.

What due care obligations did the board need to forestall the above situation? A move to recruit directors with special expertise in information technology or cyber security would be nonproductive. A nonprofit director has broader responsibilities such as the overview of management, approval of budgets, fostering management and staff growth etc. Similarly, when social media became a prominent issue a few years ago, boards debated the advisability of seeking directors with that specific kind of background. Today, a consult with management is likely to provide guidance to directors on these issues.

After listening to a group of cyber security experts discuss for-profit challenges in this area, I have the following suggestions on how nonprofit boards might respond to similar types of challenges.

1. Carefully "wall off" all confidential information -- Have management be certain that private information such as health records, are encrypted and separated from operating data that may be considered public in a nonprofit environment.
   
2. Review D&O and other liability policies -- Determine whether or not the D&O policy protects directors and managers from CS intrusions. (It likely does not, but I understand that some carriers may offer some protection along with smaller policies.) It is clear that most general liability policies do not protect the organization against CS.
   
3. Board Encouragement -- Devote some meeting time, perhaps 10 minutes, to a discussion of the CS topics so that management and staff are aware of the board's concerns on the subject and will take action when necessary. Appropriate due care actions like frequent password changes should become routine. Some checklists are available online, suggesting questions directors might pose to raise awareness on the topic and avoid potential CS breaches.
   
4. Can third party payer help? -- Many nonprofits deal with third party payers with sophisticated CS systems and may offer the nonprofit some advice or assistance.
   
5. Education and training of employers -- Many CS crimes have been successful because employees have violated or forget to effectively protect their working accounts and information. Proper education and training can help reduce these types of lapses.
   
6. Finance & Audit Committees -- Current data indicate that only 24% of nonprofits have a standalone audit committee and 47 percent have a combined finance/audit committee. * In my opinion, neither of these committees have time or expertise to help the nonprofit board stay on message in regard to CS problems.
   

If a nonprofit, like the one described, is attacked, not only will records be compromised, but also the reputation of the agency will be destroyed, probably along with the nonprofit organization itself. Sony and Target may be able to survive such an attack, but the typical nonprofit may not.

*BoardSource (2015) "Leading With Intent: A national Index of Nonprofit Board Practices," January.

This article first appeared on the HuffPost Blog and was written by Eugene Fram

Follow Eugene Fram on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@eugenefram

Today the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) announced that, for the very first time, the financial information of over 23,000 registered charities is available to the public. Members of the public can access the financial information registered charities have provided to the ACNC as part of their 2014 Annual Information Statement on the Charity Register – Australia’s first free, searchable, online database of charities.

As part of the 2014 Annual Information Statement, charities of all sizes were required to provide financial information, with medium and large charities also providing reviewed or audited financial reports. ACNC Commissioner, Susan Pascoe AM, stated that the purpose of publishing charities’ financial information on the Charity Register was to increase transparency. 

“To date, the Charity Register has received over half-a-million views, highlighting that it is indeed a useful and popular resource amongst donors,” Ms Pascoe said. “For the first time members of the public have been able to search a register to see if a charity is indeed registered, and then find out what it does, where it operates, the people who run it, the rules it needs to follow, and now, its financial information."

“While we encourage the public and donors to use the Charity Register as a resource to help them make informed giving decisions, it is also important to understand how to interpret the information available. With this in mind, our team has published a new factsheet on interpreting the financial information on the Charity Register."

"The factsheet, available at acnc.gov.au/understandingfinancialinfo, discusses the different financial elements we collect, the factors to consider when interpreting financial information, and also why we collect and publish this information. Comparing charities’ financial information will be of interest to some donors and members of the public, however there are a number of factors that need to be considered, and the factsheet covers a number of these."

The understanding financial information factsheet builds on earlier work by the ACNC in conjunction with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and social impact analyst Emma Tomkinson.

“Administration costs have always been a point of interest for donors and researchers,” Ms Pascoe said. “Our work with QUT’s Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies aims to explain administration costs and why they are not a comprehensive or reliable measure of a charity’s work and its outcomes. Instead we encourage members of the public and donors to consider charity impact – the changes the charity has produced in an individual or community through its work – alongside an assessment of its governance and financial management. All three factsheets are available on the ACNC website, acnc.gov.au, and I encourage donors to consider this information when giving.”

To search the ACNC Charity Register, visit acnc.gov.au/findacharity.

-ends-

Links:

• Understanding financial information on the Register.
• Charities and administration costs, produced jointly by the ACNC and the Queensland University of Technology.
• Understanding Charity Impact, produced jointly by the ACNC and Emma Tomkinson.

ACNC Media Contact: 
media@acnc.gov.au

External resources

• CPA Australia: A guide to understanding financial reports of not-for-profit entities
• CPA Australia: Charities - A guide to financial reporting and assurance requirements
• Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand guidance: Enhancing not-for-profit annual and financial reporting, which includes a supplementary guide for charities reporting under the ACNC Act 2012 (last item in Related Links on the same page).

AuSAE have received the following request from a member. If you can assist in any way or if you would like to find out more please contact our office on 07 3394 8381 or email info@ausae.org.au

I just want to put a call out to any Brisbane-based AuSAE members who may have some spare office space they would like to let out, or if they are aware of any that could be suitable.

We are a DGR Charity with about 280+ volunteers supporting people suffering from long-term mental illness across SE Queensland. We have grown exponentially in the last 2 years and are really feeling the squeeze where we are now. A potential new project slated to commence in July this year will have us bursting at the seams. We will need 25-30 square metres, ideally no more than 10km from the CBD, we are looking at an initial 12 month lease.

Any help in assisting us to find a new location would be greatly appreciated.

PwC recently released its 18th Annual Global CEO Survey, which interviewed 71 New Zealand CEOs amongst its global participants.

Confidences and concerns

Of the New Zealand based CEOs surveyed, 88% said they felt confident in their company’s growth prospects this year.

However, the report found that 84% of CEOs were concerned about the availability of key skills in New Zealand. Compared to their international counterparts, Kiwi CEOs had more confidence in the recovery of the global economy, with 47% of them saying that they predicted an improvement.

In China, 46% of CEOs agreed, while 41% in the UK, 38% in Australia and 29% in the US said that they thought the global economy would improve. Globally, 37% of CEOs predicted economic improvement.

Growth

According to the report, the majority of New Zealand based CEOs identified Australia as the place they considered most important for overall growth prospects. This was followed by China and the US. Globally, CEOs chose the US, which overtook China for the first time in five years as the top location for growth opportunities.

Technology

The following technologies were deemed the most strategically important by CEOs in New Zealand:

• Mobile (84%)
  
• Cyber security (81%)
  
• Data mining (77%)
  

“With real time analytics, we know every day how well everyone is doing, rather than grinding through performance reviews because it’s the HR process,” said Barbara Chapman, CEO of ASB Bank. “We need to get data analytics into the HR space.”

Almost 70% of CEOs said that digital technologies are creating value in finding, developing and retaining talent. This put New Zealand as a leading user of such technologies – globally, 59% of CEOs said the same. A further 26% said that they use technology to analyse how skills are being deployed in their organisation, which set New Zealanders behind the global proportion of 46%.

“With more than half of New Zealand CEOs looking to increase headcounts this year and 84% of them worried about the availability of key skills, it’s clear that technology and the use of data analytics in people strategies will be key to unlocking an organisation’s potential in coming years,” the report said.

Diversity

PwC found that New Zealand’s organisations are lagging behind when it comes to workplace diversity. When it came to the promotion of diversity and inclusion, just 32% of CEOs said that their company had a strategy in place to do so. Of the remaining participants, 26% said that they intended to implement one, while 35% said that they did not have a strategy in place or plans to adopt one.

Globally, 64% of CEOs said that their organisation had such a strategy in place, while 13% said that they were planning to implement one. Just 17% said that they had neither a strategy nor a plan for one. “We have recently established our first diversity committee,” said Adrian Littlewood, CEO of Auckland Airport. “One of the trickiest things early on was that we didn't actually know how diverse our organisation was.” Of the reports Kiwi participants who had a diversity and inclusion strategy in place, 85% said that it has enhanced customer satisfaction, while 80% said that it enhances business performance.

“Our approach to people and diversity is initiative based, initiative driven from the bottom up by people who want to make a difference, do better,” said Chapman. “In my mind, diversity is about being able to think about decisions from lots of different angles and being brave enough to speak up.”

- HRM Online, Chloe Taylor

The association that helps school trustees has declined to investigate a complaint against its Northland adviser. In early November, the New Zealand Principals Federation sent a complaint to the New Zealand School Trustees Association about Eric Woodward, the region's industrial relations adviser. One of the concerns raised was that Mr Woodward was acting informally when he could be following formal processes.

However, the trustees association said it had full confidence in Mr Woodward and would not be investigating because the complaint was not specific enough. Principals federation president Denise Torrey said Mr Woodward was involved in 71 per cent of all the serious matters dealt with by the federation throughout New Zealand.

But school trustees association president Lorraine Kerr said she had full confidence in him. His role involved advising school boards of trustees and principals, including disciplinary inquiries and dismissals affecting school staff.

"NZSTA is very concerned that its Northland adviser is clearly being unfairly targeted for doing his job," Ms Kerr said. "Our Northland industrial relations adviser [Mr Woodward] has experienced a very high workload, and with a disproportionate number of complaints/concerns regarding principals."

At the time of the complaint the association was made aware of concerns from a federation member and member of the Te Tai Tokerau Principals Association. Te Tai Tokerau Principals Association president Pat Newman said he had been aware of the issue for at least two years.

- Northern Advocate

By Jessica Roden

A Queenstown charity has closed its doors because its Invercargill parent lost a major health contract. The Disabilities Resource Centre in Gorge Road shut late last month.

Queenstowner John Turnbull, who chaired the local charitable trust which ran DRC, admits he's "gutted". "The closure of Queenstown was a knock-on effect of the Southland Disabilities Resource Centre trust losing its Southern District Health Board home-care contract," Turnbull says.

"We always referred to the Southland trust as the mothership." Over its life, Turnbull estimates, DRC Queenstown received about $700,000 in grants from other community trusts.

Figures obtained by Mountain Scene show Queenstown traded at small losses in recent years. DRC Queenstown hired or sold every disability aid imaginable - wheelchairs, shower and bath equipment, devices to do up buttons, even special can openers for one-armed people. "We didn't make the [closure] decision," Turnbull reveals.

After discussions with the Southland trust and the New Zealand Federation of Disability Information Centres, he says, everyone agreed the Queenstown trustees should resign and hand back control to Southland. "It was easier to hand the reins to Southland," Turnbull says, so the two operations could be run as one. Turnbull's board resigned en masse late last year but he says they kept an eye on the Queenstown centre over Christmas, after which Southland ran it.

"The decision to close Queenstown was really up to [Southland]," Turnbull says, "they made that final decision." Yet Southland DRC chair Penny Skerrett hints at being let down by her Queenstown counterparts. "When a whole board resigns and leaves everything in limbo, somebody needs to help - Queenstown was running on its own, independently from Southland," Skerrett says.

Skerrett: "What Invercargill has done, out of goodwill, is try to sort this mess out." Yet she also maintains Queenstown never stood alone financially: "They've always been topped up by Invercargill."

Turnbull's adamant about his Queenstown board's resignation. "Had our local trustees boxed on," he says, "it would have been financially imprudent and risky with public funds at stake."

Southland was down-sizing and cutting costs and couldn't continue its financial, management and clerical support of Queenstown, Turnbull says - Southland also guaranteed Queenstown's Gorge Rd rent of almost $50,000 annually.

The Queenstown trust was set up by Southland DRC in 2007 and local trustees gradually took over governance. Turnbull stresses his board were all volunteers and received no payment.

Southland chair Skerrett admits her Invercargill mothership is also troubled: "We're actually pretty much looking like we might not be here either." Southland financials show an operating loss of $308,000 in 2013 - the 2014 accounts aren't yet public.

Article by Frank Marvin - frank@scene.co.nz

In the biggest event of its kind, the Central North Island will host more than 540 TRENZ delegates, including hundreds of the world’s most influential travel and tourism buyers, to an afternoon of activities ranging from tandem sky diving to wine and food matching.

TRENZ is the $24 billion tourism industry’s premium international trade show. The 2015 event (17-20 May, Rotorua), is being hosted by eXplore Central North Island (ECNI) and will be attended by 320 international tourism and travel buyers plus media and representatives from 290 of the country’s leading tourism operators.

“On Tuesday afternoon, 19 May, delegates will take a break from their business meetings to experience first-hand some of the fantastic visitor activities on offer in the Central North Island,” says Chris Roberts, Chief Executive of the Tourism Industry Association New Zealand (TIA) which manages TRENZ.

“They will discover that this part of the country has something for visitors across the spectrum, from families and the youth market, to group tours, to those seeking luxury, and thrill seekers of all ages.

“This time away from TRENZ meetings is also an opportunity for delegates to network informally and potentially identify new business opportunities.”

ECNI Chairman Rhys Arrowsmith says the activity afternoon features around 40 different options and will open the international delegates’ eyes to the Central North Island’s diverse natural and man-made attractions.

“Activities include bungy jumping from 47 metres high above the Waikato River, a Maori culinary feast featuring traditional methods and ingredients sourced from surrounding tribal lands, a helicopter flight to White Island, high tea at a five-star Taupo hotel with an interactive fly fishing demonstration, mountain biking through Rotorua forests and a magical Waitomo glow-worm cave experience.

I happened to be in New York recently when Hilary Clinton announced her intention to run as a Presidential candidate. Her campaign office is based in Brooklyn. Within a few hours her various opposition candidates had come out in force against her starting the combat or conflict that will consume American media for the remainder of 2015 until the next election in 2016. One local evening news anchor said on the night of the announcement, with a sense of despair, “why don’t politicians just live in harmony, then we all could?”.

It got me thinking about the positives and negatives regarding harmony and conflict.

1. Harmony is not the same thing as the absence of conflict

According to Dictionary.com, conflict is:
(a) A fight, battle, or struggle, strife, controversy or a quarrel
(b) Amongst groups conflict is seen to be a discord of action, feeling, or effect; antagonism or opposition, as of interests or principles.

For many of us, the desire to create a “harmonious” environment is strong. It is believed that this will increase people’s engagement and enjoyment of work. In seeking harmony, many well intentioned leaders take action to suppress or ignore conflict.

This can be a naive and unrealistic expectation. There is no doubt a functional work place is better than a dysfunctional one in terms of productivity. But working with a range of people means there will be natural differences of opinion, agendas and desired outcomes. Indeed diversity of opinions and perspectives often drive insights that lead to innovation or break throughs.

2. Unintended consequences are often worse than the notion of harmony

Trying to create and maintain a harmonious environment through the avoidance of conflict actually creates the unintended consequence of dissatisfaction and potential combat – a far more aggressive and destructive result than the conflict itself.

The “rub” that comes from conflict is an often desired and needed element. These disruptors are the catalysts for creativity, debate and exploration of a broad range of ideas and perspectives, increasing understanding of other views. It can produce creative / innovative outcomes sparking from generative discussions rather than just “holding positions”.

Where this is not encouraged then the conflict doesn’t disappear it just goes underground to bubble up in combative behaviours such as silo mentalities, fiefdom creation, internal competition, dysfunctionality, power plays, lack of transparency, etc, etc. All of these behaviours lead to suboptimal outcomes for the team.

In a recent team meeting within the food industry a leader bravely spoke up to her peers that the reason they as a leadership team had failed to execute on their strategies was that they believed they needed to be nice to each other continually but in reality their functions were ‘fighting it out’ across the organisation and inadvertently sabotaging each other.

This is an unintended consequence of trying to uphold harmony.

3. Creating shared understanding allows for conflict to happen naturally

The real irony is when structures and systems exist to work effectively with conflict, it actually is more likely to create the desired harmony.

When leaders and peers learn how to raise objections, challenge opinion, control their own natural reactions in a mutually understood manner, then a conflict enabling system is created. This allows differences to be aired, for people to feel heard and to actually be heard. This demonstrates respect. Respect for both the person and their perspective. From this position, people are open to reciprocating the same to others. It increases the ability to listen and increases shared understanding.

The key is to have in place systems and structures that enable constructive differences to thrive. The creation of these agreements and processes are often the content of the meetings we facilitate for clients as part of their leadership team as part of the Decide phase of our PALDER model where they are establishing the framework for effective team and organisational performance.

Team members agree on their shared understanding of

• What is our joint purpose? Why does that matter? This information is then used as the reference point and navigation tool.
• How we speak to, interact with and engage with others individually and collectively?
• What kind of language sets are used so everyone recognises when a peer is objecting or challenging an idea and therefore not to take that challenge personally.
• What is the process for decision making amongst the group?
• What is the process for exploration of issues? What is needed to be provided? By when? In what format?

When elements such as these are well articulated and actioned, the ability for conflict to be constructive is heightened.

4. Sometimes, the leader needs to actively cause discomfort to get a raised performance from the organisation

There is little doubt humans like to work for someone they respect rather than someone of whom they are scared. Bullies can achieve results in a short term period but eventually lose discretionary effort as people tire of aggression.

On the flip side however, leaders that are overly harmonious, balanced and even just very nice, also lose out on potential discretionary effort from their team members.

This was highlighted perfectly with a current client recently. He is a new and well liked CEO, who is showing great early promise. His team in a frank feedback session to him, uniformly said they wished he would push them harder rather than just keeping everyone happy. They felt as a collective group they had more to offer. ‘Cause some conflict’, one of them said!

And he will.

This post is sourced directly from OSullivanField blog

You’d think in an era of social media, where we’re all so aware of what everyone else is doing, that it’d be simple to give your organisation a human face. So, do your members know who to contact with questions and concerns?

How do you feel when you dial an 800 number and have to talk to a robot for 20 minutes to get a partial answer to your question? When someone asks a question on your Facebook profile, will anyone respond?

So, in this age of automated sales, web-etiquette and tech, how do you maintain your organisation’s connection with members? Shoot for your biggest target: real people, not a social media statistic.

Mix Your Mixers

You already know better than to set your social media feeds on autopilot and walk away, but another great way to monitor consumer involvement with your organisation is to run contests and challenges. It encourages awareness of your organization on social media and addresses any potential disconnect.

Remember this sort of sharing is essentially a peer-to-peer endorsement. When you have one person saying, “Wow, I love your organisation,” the hope is their colleagues will see the same post and investigate further.

Do the same with occasional in-person mixers. Organise org-meet-community cookouts with raffles to encourage new clientele to come meet your team and, yes, blast them out over your social network too.

The About Page

Perhaps the simplest and most essential space on your website, the About page provides a space for your organisation to show its depth. You’re not just a membership organisation, you’re one with deep ties to the local community. The about section is where you show your clientele why they can trust you and what they will gain by doing business with you.

Gregory Poole CAT does an excellent job with this. Every kid who’s ever owned a Tonka truck knows the brand name CAT because it’s that large of an organisation. But Gregory Poole puts a face on the company by detailing where and how he started the company. Clients don’t learn about a faceless organization from this page, they learn about the hard work and 60+ years of business put in by one family.

Thank-You Follow-up Call

The thank-you note is nearly a lost form of art, but politeness never goes out of style. If a client makes a major purchase, write a thank-you note or pick up the phone and call them. A just-checking-in phone callprovides several opportunities. You can:

• Make a direct connection with your customer
• Provide a specific point of contact — the face for your organization — to your customer
• Express how much your customers matter
• Take a moment to make sure their new product meets expectation
• Remove conversational barriers

If the customer’s interaction with your organization wasn’t memorable before, they won’t forget to talk about it now that you’ve taken a moment to listen to their thoughts or concerns.

Don’t let your organisation oversimplify with technology to the point that you lose human interaction with your customers. Yes, automated social media allows us to market to our customers, but it should also increase our ability to interact with clients on a more personal level.

This article first appeared on Social Fish by Scott Huntington