moment(s)

As we walked through the gates of the Magic Kingdom on Sunday, my 3-year-old daughter got a surprise; the lady who took her ticket looked her in the eye and said sweetly, "Happy Birthday, Lily". I was slightly impressed; my daughter, however, was amazed. In one fleeting moment, Lily realized that she, on this day, at this place, was special.

Then...it happened again, and again, and again. She was wished a happy birthday over 50 times during our day at Disney, each time with a smile and a moment. Every single 'cast member' that crossed her path, from the cashiers to the ride-runners, from the 'real' characters (i.e., Pluto and Ariel) to the virtual ones (i.e., Crush and Nemo), from the Voices of Liberty to the robot trash can, every one of them called her by name, looked in her eyes, made her feel special. Consumer/parental satisfaction? Check.

However, I was not struck by the 'customer service' or 'user experience', though I probably should have been. No, what kept amazing me was the consistent and total buy-in from the Disney employees. Though hundreds (probably thousands during peak times) of people celebrate their special days within Mickey's walls, I saw no hint of fatigue, no eye-rolling, no ignoring, nothing at all to make me feel like my daughter was one-of-many, instead of one-in-a-million.

She was, to each employee, special, if only for that moment when we crossed their path.

We talk a lot about 'evangelists' these days. We survey our customers, we survey our employees, we survey our management, all in an attempt to classify who the detractors are, who the evangelists are, and who lies somewhere in between. We crunch the numbers, assume that there is Truth in them, and present/spin them to make a statement to the masses, both internally and externally. But to what end? I have yet to find a number that has any special qualities, let alone one that can shift the tide.

Perhaps instead of pointing to numbers, figures based on questions that are less Truthful than vague, we should look to moments. Instead of asking ourselves how many employees fit within a certain fabricated category, we should ask ourselves how many of them feel special, how many of them feel valued, how many of them feel unique.

Numbers, graphs, figures: yes, they all have a place. But so do I, and so do my colleagues, and so do you.

Take a minute to ask yourself how many of your employees are special to you; take a minute to make a moment for one of them; then take a minute to watch what happens.

If we spent more time making moments and less time making surveys, well...maybe we wouldn't need surveys to locate evangelists. My guess is that they would reveal themselves.

shanti,
mjh