Fusion Leadership

Unleashing the Movement of Monday Morning Enthusiasts

Dudley R. Slater, Steven T. Taylor

• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781626344013
• eBook ISBN: 9781626344020
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

The majority of the nation's workforce hates their job. Are these employees working at your organization?
Seventy percent of US workers hate their jobs and don't want to show up on Monday morning, cites entrepreneur and CEO Dudley Slater in his inspiring book, Fusion Leadership. Slater squarely lays some of the blame for this shocking phenomenon at the doors of leaders: When their selfish actions diminish the effectiveness of their teams, they commit the ultimate failure in leadership. But when leaders learn how to successfully balance the needs of their egos with the collective needs of their organizations, they can see increased profits and a workforce unified around a common goal.
Slater examines some of the biggest hurdles and toughest calls you may have to make in your organization and, with tips and anecdotes from a variety of gifted leaders, he reveals how to navigate these situations. From a call center in Minneapolis to the desert of Saudi Arabia, Fusion Leadership offers valuable insights into how top CEOs and leaders at all levels reconcile power and wealth temptations with what is best for their organizations and their people.
Through the powerful stories of eight leaders and his own journey of becoming the leader he is and aspires to be, Slater illuminates the goals of Fusion Leadership: to create a motivated workforce committed to its members and to ignite a common passion that provides self-fulfillment for individuals and increased success for the organization.
?Unleashing the power of Fusion Leadership can grow profits, engage employees, and release the most powerful force on earth—human beings working together toward a shared purpose. Slater's genuine commitment is apparent, and it generates great hope and optimism that when leaders apply Fusion Leadership concepts, they can start a movement that will extend well beyond their workplace to society as a whole.

CHAPTER 1

WHO DO YOU PRIORITIZE WITHIN YOUR ORGANIZATION?

WOW! WHAT A CONCERT: FRONT LINE TAKES CENTER STAGE AS LEADERSHIP ORCHESTRATES FIRM’S SUCCESS

At the start of a hot, muggy day in the summer of 2007, the general manager of the Cleveland, Ohio, office of WOW! gathered his team of technicians to meet with the CEO of the national cable and data firm, Colleen Abdoulah, who was visiting from WOW!’s Denver headquarters. Abdoulah was about to find out which technician she would accompany and work with in the field for a full day of installing cable lines. The GM pulled a name out of a makeshift hat and announced, “And the winner is . . . Terry!”

Terry, a technician who’d been slouched over in his seat, tilted his head back, stared at the ceiling, and, scowling, let this indiscretion slip from his lips: “Oh shit.”

Everyone in the room laughed nervously, and several technicians stole glances at Abdoulah to see how their boss would react to Terry’s verbal misstep. But the unflappable CEO quickly defused the situation. “Don’t worry about it, Terry,” she recalled saying. “We’ll have a nice day today.”

Well, “nice” would not be the best way to describe how that particular work day actually transpired, a day that tested Abdoulah’s resolve to keep her selfish ego in check so as to advance the company’s collective ego. But I’ll get to that soon enough.

Gaining Customers, Winning Awards, and Building Value

When I met Colleen Abdoulah, I was struck by her intelligence, wit, optimism, and effervescent personality. As I got to know her better, I discovered that she has a dynamic yet humble leadership style, with an uncanny ability to motivate others. She’s also a savvy businesswoman who knows how to achieve big-time results, leading WOW! to experience a string of successes that helped catapult the company to become one of the ten largest cable and data players in the United States.

When Abdoulah took the helm of WOW! in 2002, the company had $200 million in annual revenue and employed six hundred people in five markets. As of this writing, in the fall of 2016, WOW! generates $1.2 billion, has thousands of employees, and serves customers in nine states. That’s impressive growth by almost anyone’s standards. The firm has won a slew of awards, including seventeen first-place rankings in the prestigious J. D. Power and Associates consumer studies of telecom companies.

“A couple of years, we won the J. D. Power award in all three categories—cable, phone, and Internet,” said Abdoulah, who’s now retired from the company. “We’ve won the award over such [heavyweights] as Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time-Warner, Dish, and DirecTV. In the telecom industry, no other company has received that level of recognition from its customers. We have eight years of first-place recognition in Consumer Reports and have won the Readers’ Choice Award of PC Magazine as the best Internet provider. And, in every market we’ve operated in, we’ve been chosen as the best employer to work with.”

One reason WOW! succeeded in the market and received these accolades, including its best-employer status, is because Abdoulah and her team operated within what they call an internal “service structure,” which places the company’s frontline workers—well—front and center. The employees in the call centers and the technicians in the field serve as the firm’s focal point, because they relate directly with the customer.

Abdoulah used a concert metaphor to describe WOW!’s customer-centered configuration. “The service structure puts the frontline workers on center stage as the top concert performers,” she explained to me. “They’re who the audience comes to see. And all the rest of us, from the CEO to the vice presidents, to the engineering department, to marketing, to legal—we were all there in the background, helping put the concert on, helping our front line perform. So by structuring it that way, you take away the hierarchy, the bureaucracy, the power-based model that so many corporations exist on, and you put the power and emphasis on the front line, the people dealing with the customers. They’re the ones the customers talked to all the time, not me.”

This model, in part, influenced the behavior of WOW!’s work-force: They were motivated to serve the customer the best they could. It also helped keep spirits up, both internally and externally. Not long ago, the company conducted a survey to determine its employees’ and customers’ happiness quotients. Both turned out to be very high. “We were at 97.3 percent internally,” Abdoulah said. “With our customers, we were at 94.3 percent. And we believed there’s a direct correlation between how happy employees feel and the happiness of the customers.”

The service structure also ensured that members of management stay in touch with both the concert performers, to continue the analogy, and the audience. “We never wanted to make the mistake that too many companies make and that is allowing people in leadership to get too far away from the front line or too far away from the end customer,” Abdoulah said, noting that focus groups and surveys help keep leaders in touch.

But another method seems to be particularly enlightening. “We had a program where all people who didn’t have direct-line exposure or exposure to the end customer must go out once a quarter and listen, monitor phone calls. If you can get to one of our call centers, that’s ideal. If not, you do it remotely. Then the next quarter, you’d go out with a technician and work for a day in the field. If your schedule was really tight, you’d do half a day. But we preferred that you do the full day.”

On-the-Job Odd Couple

And that, of course, gets us back to that summer day in the field in Cleveland. A half an hour after she learned that Terry would be her colleague for the day, Abdoulah—dressed in jeans, a WOW! t-shirt, and boots—walked with the apologetic general manager to the parking lot lined with service trucks. “I’m so sorry about Terry’s reaction,” the GM told his CEO, referring to the technician’s obscenity. “He’s only been with us for about eight months.”

“That’s fine. No problem,” Abdoulah said, as they approached Terry, who was frantically cleaning up his truck. As the two unlikely field partners got into the vehicle, Abdoulah gave Terry her usual spiel, what she said to all the technicians she accompanied on the job: “I told him, ‘I don’t want you to treat me like a dumb girl. I’m here to help. Don’t treat me like the CEO. I’m to be your assistant. I want to learn from you. I want to observe what you go through during your day. So put me to work.’”

Now, when most WOW! technicians heard Abdoulah say this, they simply said, “Okay, Colleen,” and then, when they arrived at a customer’s house, they handed her an information packet, introduced her to the customer, and had her sit and converse with the customer as the technician performed the installation.

“Not this guy,” Abdoulah told me. “Terry said, ‘Oh really?’ and threw a map at me, saying, ‘We’re on a new route today. I don’t know where we’re going, so you find the address off the work order and tell me where to go.’”

The problem was—she didn’t know how to read a map. “So I said, ‘Okay, Terry, I guess I am kind of a dumb girl. I don’t know how to read a map.’ He quickly showed me how, handed me a phone and gave me orders. He said, ‘So you know our policy. Call the customer and tell them we’re on our way.’”

Clearly, the corporate boss was not the one in charge on this trip. But she knew exactly what she was doing.

When they arrived at the customer’s three-story, brick colonial home, they discovered that the representative at the call center had made a mistake. She had put in the work order as a reconnect, which doesn’t require much time. But, in fact, it was a new installation; the moving van was even there. “So we knew this was going to be a much longer job, and we’d have to redo our whole day,” Abdoulah said. “Terry handed me the phone— and he was a little angry—and said, ‘You’re going to have to call dispatch and reroute the rest of my jobs. We’re going to be here a good three or four hours.’”

Well, Abdoulah had never called dispatch. She was clueless but figured it out. And then she asked the customers—a husband and wife—if they wanted upgrades and additional services. They did, which is good for business, but it also meant the installation became more complicated. “So Terry and I were going back out to the truck, and he said, ‘We’re going to have to go onto the pole. Get the ladder and meet me out back.’”

A little later, Terry called from the yard: “What’s taking you so long?” Abdoulah was struggling with the ladder, unable to get it off the truck, frustrated, and feeling more incompetent by the minute. Terry saw this and told Abdoulah, “Well, you’ve got the safety latch on. You know how to take the safety latch off, right?”

At that point, Abdoulah turned to the technician and said, “Look, I am the CEO. I have not taken ladder training. Can you just take it down and show me?” He did, and instead of hauling the ladder himself, he showed her how to carry it safely and

walked away.

“So I followed this guy carrying this heavy-ass ladder,” Abdoulah recalled with a laugh, “and, needless to say, during the next few hours, he had me climbing the pole, helping him ground the cable, wiring the house, drilling in the closet, up in the attic. I mean, I worked so hard that day and learned so much about what we do and how we do it.”

“That Explains It”

Abdoulah also learned what these customers thought of WOW! and their impression of her on-the-job efforts. At one point during her “apprentice” day, she was in the master suite, cleaning up the shavings from drilling, and the wife was making the bed. They had this exchange:

“I love your company,” the woman told Abdoulah.

“Thank you. So do I,” Abdoulah replied.

“I really shopped around a lot, and you’re not by any means the cheapest, but your phone people are so nice, and now I see that your technician is too. Everybody I’ve come into contact with from your company is so knowledgeable and nice, and they make us feel really special.”

“I love to hear that. That’s great.”

“Can I ask you how long you’ve been doing this?” the woman asked.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t really do this. I’m the CEO of the company, and I’m out to help our employee and learn what goes on in the field.”

“Oh my god, that explains it. Honey, come here,” the woman said, beckoning her husband.

Her husband came into the bedroom and she said, “Honey, she’s the CEO. She’s not a technician.”

“Oh, that explains it,” the man said.

“Explains what?” Abdoulah wanted to know.

So the woman did explain: “We’ve been commenting all day while you’ve been here that this is such a great company. Everybody is so knowledgeable at what they do—that is, except you.”

“Well,” Abdoulah told me, chuckling, “we all had a good laugh. But I’ll tell you we have a WOW! A Friend referral program, and we must have gotten three or four referrals from that woman.”

Abdoulah ate her lunch in the truck en route to the next install job, worked all afternoon and into the early evening, and came home exhausted. “I’ve always had an appreciation for what our call-center reps go through—they take up to ten thousand calls a year,” she said. “And I’ve also had a great appreciation for what our field people do—in the winter or summer in the rain, snow, heat, and humidity. But when you actually do the work they do, you go from an appreciation of them intellectually to an appreciation of what they do physically.”

After hearing this story, I asked a couple of questions: “Colleen, as you know, I’ve also worked alongside the frontline people at an Integra Telecom call center, and it’s not easy. What you do—working in the field—is much more difficult, especially on that particular day. Terry ordered you around, worked you pretty hard, and didn’t pull any punches. Did you ever feel like saying Forget this. I’m the CEO and I don’t have to do this!? Did you ever feel like saying To hell with the collective ego and the common good of working with the technician and learning about his job!? Did you want to pull rank?”

As I expected, she was very honest with me: “I didn’t like that Terry got short with me and was impatient because I didn’t know how to drill properly, didn’t know how to ground the cable. Internally, my temper flared. My selfish ego was like, ‘Are you serious, buddy? You’re talking to me with that tone of voice? You’re ordering me around?!’ But I had to reflect to myself and say, ‘He’s the expert here, and he’s trying to get this done right and in a time frame that allows us to get the rest of our work done. I just have to appreciate that and do what he’s telling me. I’m here to learn and to stay connected with the frontline employees and the customers. It’s all worth it.’”

WOW! Moments: Good for the Soul, Good for Business

When Abdoulah became the CEO, she and her team changed the name of the company from Wide Open West to WOW! and embarked on a rebranding effort that supported a culture in which employees nurture relationships with each other and their customers. “Our philosophical statement was to deliver an employee and customer experience that lived up to our name,” she said.

The new culture manifested in many ways, including a new twist on titles. Yes, Abdoulah had been the CEO (and chairwoman of the board), but on the company website that moniker came second, below descriptors of who she was as a person: “Mother, Hugger, Keeper of the Culture.” The chief financial officer had this primary description of who he is: “Family Man, Dog Lover, Teammate.” The senior vice president for human resources was described as: “Mom, Book Lover, Jazz Enthusiast.”

This wasn’t just a feel-good gimmick; it got to the heart of Abdoulah’s leadership approach and WOW!’s strategically conceived work environment. It seemed to resonate well with customers, too. “When people engaged with us, we wanted them to engage with us as a person, not as a technician or call-center rep or IT guy or CEO, but as a person who is a golfer, a reader, a foodie— whatever their descriptors are,” Abdoulah explained. “I remember when we messed up on something with a customer and that person wrote one of our marketing people and really blasted him and then said, ‘PS: I see you’re a vegetarian. So am I, and I’ve got some great vegetarian recipes.’ And—boom—they connected on the recipe side of things, and the service thing—which we resolved quickly— became secondary to their bond as two vegetarians. That’s the way we should be navigating through our daily lives—not based on our titles or positions but on who we are as people.”

Another embodiment of the company’s culture—and a way it differentiated itself in the marketplace—is through what are called WOW! Moments, which are written and talked about and often publicly acknowledged within the company’s community. The firm website describes a WOW! Moment as “an unexpected act of courtesy and kindness.” The explanation continues: “Sometimes the moment can represent a large gesture, but more often than not, it’s the little things that can make you smile or brighten your day. At WOW! we strive to create these WOW! Moments for anyone we might encounter in the communities we serve. It’s part of our company culture. And we do it not just because it’s good business but because we are committed to doing our part to make a positive difference in the lives that we touch.”

Now, I’m sure that WOW! employees, starting with Abdoulah, do strive to make “a positive difference.” But make no mistake: WOW! Moments were and are, indeed, good for business.

Here Kitty, Kitty

Consider this story that unfolded in early 2009 with a customer named Karen in the Detroit area. Abdoulah received a three-page letter from Karen that praised WOW! and explained how her family and friends had told her to become a WOW! customer, which she had done two weeks earlier. But then she said that ever since the technician had come to her house to do the installation, her cat of ten years had been missing. Karen attached a lost-pet poster to her letter, complete with a picture of her cat, with which she had blanketed her neighborhood—but to no avail. A couple of her neighbors told Karen that they suspected the cable installer of stealing her cat.

“She w...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION HOW DO YOU FOSTER ENTHUSIASM?
• CHAPTER 1 WHO DO YOU PRIORITIZE WITHIN YOUR ORGANIZATION?
• CHAPTER 2 WHO LEAVES YOUR MEETING AS THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM?
• CHAPTER 3 HOW DO YOU DELIVER BAD NEWS?
• CHAPTER 4 WHO OWNS THE CRISIS?
• CHAPTER 5 HOW MUCH DO YOU PAY YOURSELF AND OTHERS?
• CHAPTER 6 HOW DO YOU MOTIVATE EMPLOYEES TO MANIFEST THE VISION?
• CHAPTER 7 WHOSE JOB IS IT TO STEP UP FOR THE CUSTOMER?
• CHAPTER 8 WHO IS GOING TO KICK ASS—AND HOW?
• CONCLUSION HOW DO YOU APPLY THE MANIFESTO FOR A MOVEMENT?
• INDEX
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR