Some bosses lead, some bosses blame

Bosses make great CX a central part of strategy and mission. Bosses set standards at the top of organizations. Bosses recruit, train, and deploy employees to face customers. Bosses decide how much to spend to make things better. Bosses design processes. Bosses create response and recovery mechanisms. Bosses motivate employees to care about what happens to customers. - Sunny Bindra, What’s really wrong with customer experience? The bosses…

When the bottom line is at stake, bosses can either elevate the CX game or they can plunge the whole organisation into the ground. When the boss's fate is tied to the bottom line, he will either lead from the front or he will find scapegoats to sacrifice. It all depends on what the incentives are, doesn't it?

I have been fortunate to witness the leadership styles of several bosses at my place of work. Some were very inspirational. Many are professional scapegoat hunters. One of my favourite bosses took the time to listen to our clients' complaints, and then she would sit with us and work out why the client had a poor CX, and on the basis of that process, proposed a solution. Sometimes the solution worked. Sometimes it was a trial-and-error process until it was solved. She was firm with us, but she never shifted the blame onto us. She led us to do some amazing things, especially in designing a client management system that I have taken with me in subsequent posts.

My least favourite boss refused to take responsibility, shirked difficult decisions, and refused to discuss his proposals with anyone. Not his direct reports. Not the rank and file. Not even his peers in the organisation. He was so busy covering his ass that even obvious things fell through the cracks. What's worse, he identified a few pet employees whom he favoured over other, and they became his snitches - not for quality control purposes, but to weed out the frustrated malcontents who desired to do better and be better. Under him, CX was no longer a priority; all that mattered was that the boss was not blamed for anything. He was eventually sacked and it will take a long time to address the problems he left behind.

Being boss is frighteningly hard if one lacks the EQ to manage a diverse staff and manage the inevitable complaints from his clients. As a line manager, I want the team I manage to excel, and I want my clients to have an excellent CX. The past two years have been difficult all around and part of my job is giving clients bad news. If I didn't have faith in my team, I wouldn't have the necessary information to manage my clients' expectations, and make the experience of receiving the bad news tolerable.

While I don't subscribe to the adage that the customer is always right - in my profession, when the client walks in through the door, it is because he has been accused of doing something wrong - but I almost never dismiss my client's requests out of hand. In order to figure out what kind of service he needs, I ask a million questions, prepare a draft opinion, and  then work with the client to arrive at a common understanding of the problem and a reasonable understanding of how to deal with it. This takes time and my favourite boss understood this. She demanded speed, but never at the expense of precision. I miss her.

My least favourite boss assumed that all that hand-holding was intended to undermine him, that we were delaying solving clients' problems so that he would look bad to his bosses. As a result, he forced many of us to cut corners, with the expected outcomes: poor client experiences that eventually led to his sacking. He broke that which didn't need fixing, refused to fix it, shifted blame, and made working for him a nightmare, which made our client management suffer in the bargain. Even our clients are happy he got sacked.

So, yes, agree. A boss who wants his clients to have great CX and who is willing to do the hard work of setting the necessary standards and overseeing their implementation will almost always have grateful clients and loyal subordinates.

They all fall, eventually

The member of the National Assembly for Mumias East is a spectacularly unpleasant character. But he is not unique. A former member of the National Assembly for Gatundu South is just equally as unpleasant. They are not unique. They are not even unique in the nasty, overbearing, narcissistic and hubristic way they go about generating publicity for themselves. They are just extreme examples of their fellow parliamentarians, who, whenever the opportunity challenges them, can be as nasty and unpleasant as these two worthies.

There is something in the water they drink over there that transforms usually decent hum beings into uncouth, ill-mannered, reckless, unpleasant parliamentarians. Well, not exactly the water. But something. The day they are sworn in, they are instantly swaddled in an extremely comforting and isolating cocoon of privilege and power. They have instant access to millions of shillings in the form of a mortgage, a car grant, and an annual salary that is many multiples of what the lowest paid Kenyan earns.

Wherever they go, doors are flung open and red carpets rolled out for them. Whenever they speak, serious members of the chatterati and civil service pay keen attention. Whenever they demand things, the great unwashed masses bend over backwards to accommodate them. It matters not that they treat their constituents like shit. Now they are mheshimiwa, and mheshimiwa's wish is our command.

Whatever selfish and narcissistic tendencies they posses are usually amplified to the nth degree. They, almost to a man, believe that they deserve to be where they are, that they are there because the people adore them, that they are cleverer than the rest of us, that they are God's choice because the christian bible says leaders are chosen by God. Arrogance and contempt are their watchword. Not even the judges of the High Court or the Inspectors-General of Police can corral their ambitions, power and vision.

As a consequence, it no longer occurs to them that they cannot ride roughshod over is without facing electoral consequence. They cannot scoff at the law without, eventually, made to face the long arm of the law. They are immune to the lessons of political history: eventually, they all fall, and the harder they rode roughshod over us, the harder the fall is. Very rarely will we sympathise with a former mheshimiwa. More likely, we will make them taste what they shoved down our throats, and if they happen to be financially at sixes and sevens, we will make them regret the very day they chose to adorn themselves with a power that wasn't theirs.

Who will rid us of this pestilential man?

Dimples is a bad governor. He is not the only one, but I choose to focus my animus on him today.

If you are one of the residents of our once fair City who has had to trudge through mud, effluent and storm debris as you go from place to place, you can lay the blame for your tribulations at the feet of Dimples and his laughably bad administration.

When he was our senator, and he was contemplating a gubernatorial campaign, and we were, once again, in the quagmire caused by heavy rains and potholed roads, Dimples suggested that we could overcome our transportation woes if we bought SUVs like his beloved Land Cruiser VX. He was a stupid man then. His stupidity has not stopped. It might have gotten worse.

I am (still) a resident of the Eastlands Nation. I have no choice but to use Jogoo Road, to and from work. These days, because the public transportation is all shot to hell, I commute in the discomforts of my jalopy. Potholes are the bane of my commute. Many months old potholes that Dimples has not seen fit to fill in. Potholes that, when covered with the massive oceans of rainwater that cannot be drained because the drainage is blocked, are a hazard to similar jalopies to mine.

From the Dönholm Roundabout to City Stadium, from City Stadium to Wakulima Market (using Landhies Road), From Wakulima Market to the Moi Avenue/Haile Selassie Roundabout, Dimples has turned a blind eye to the potholes, clogged drains, drains with missing drainage covers, manholes with missing manhole covers, and the maelstrom of mud and rubbish that has accumulated over many months. Instead, Dimples amuses himself by repainting City County buildings and calling that progress. Or tweeting Nai iWork rubbish.

Dimples is a bad governor. We should rid ourself of his pestilential self.