Hello, leaders.
This podcast is something for everyone.
We discuss how emotions and memory glue and why kids don't remember what they got for
their birthdays.
They remember something else.
We discuss why customers never measure us by what we do for them, but rather how we
make them feel.
Bose gets a good mention on this podcast, so Bose, if you'd like to sponsor us.
And Bollinger, we still haven't heard anything back from you.
We also talk about why leaders who show appreciation create a passionate and connected team.
Enjoy.
Why did it count backwards?
Oh no, we're now recording.
What?
Hello, captain.
What do I say?
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.
What are we going to talk about?
I don't know.
So, leadership, life and everything else.
Yeah.
And we're live.
No, we're recording.
Somebody said to us just the other day, please keep doing that.
I know.
And you went, no.
A big shout out to John.
Thanks.
John, I'll keep doing it.
It just starts the podcast off with a little bit of annoyance for Michelle.
Not that that's my intent.
Hey Michelle, how are you?
Good.
How are you guys?
Yeah, good.
I'm glad that your voice doesn't sound like a female Barry White now.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Over that cold.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Good, good, good.
Good to hear.
So today we're going to be talking about memory glue.
This is a good one.
Yeah.
Those people that think they don't have a great memory or they can't remember people's
names, which we've spoken about before, or facts and things.
The glue that actually helps bond that memory.
Yes.
And so I guess what do we start off with?
A bit of the science?
Yeah.
Okay.
So our memories, the strongest memories that we have quite often have an emotional context.
So if you look back through your life, the days in your life that you'll never, ever,
ever forget always had a strong emotional component because emotions, the chemicals
released into your body when you're experiencing strong emotions are memory glue.
So they glue the memory, or it's not really glue, but it's going to make it a permanent
memory.
And the reason why we have memories and why the chemicals form those strong memories is
so that we can remember things from the past, especially dangerous things that we might
need to avoid in the future.
So it was, I guess, an evolutionary thing that our bodies did so that we could remember
the past.
But the reason why we got interested in this topic for today's podcast was because of something
I read online about kids' birthdays.
Right.
Yes.
And we were discussing it just before.
So if you were to ask, let's say a teenager, what they remember about a particular birthday
when they were younger, the post was basically saying that guaranteed they don't remember
what presents that they got for their fifth or their sixth or seventh birthday.
What they remember is where they were, what they were doing and how they felt.
Yes.
Yeah.
It actually reminds me of, and hello, mum, I know you're going to be listening to this.
You'll drill me about it after.
But my 13th birthday.
And it's funny.
I built it up to be because I was turning 13 and my kids are about to turn 13.
So I've been thinking about it more that I had this idea of what it was going to be.
And I don't know, I can't actually remember what the idea or ideal was.
But I remember being the disappointment.
And I don't know, I think maybe I thought 13 because of movies that were on at the time.
You were growing up into a young lady.
And I thought it was going to be something bigger and I would blossom.
And the birthday was a disappointment.
And mum will laugh.
There was no birthday cake.
And yes, I'm still holding onto that, mum.
So she gave me a packet of cake mix and said, here you go.
On the day.
And I'm sure I was being horrible and bratty.
You were 13.
That was your job.
That was it, but I could see I probably pushed her to the limit of her boundary as well.
And that's the emotional attachment I have.
So you worked it up in your head.
I did.
And it didn't live up to your expectations.
That's right.
And I've had birthdays where there were no birthday cakes, but that one stands out as
being the big one.
I'll tell you what presents did you get on the day?
No idea.
You can't remember, can you?
Oh, actually I can.
I think I might have received, you know, those lemons.
I'm showing my age now.
The lemon that was on a piece of rubber and you'd attach it to your ankle and then you'd
kind of skip.
Oh, OK.
Skip.
And with it going around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK.
Are you sure that was your 13th birthday present?
No.
You don't know.
So that was what the post was all about.
We give kids these presents.
It's all about the presents on birthdays.
A lot of people put in a lot of effort towards the presents, but you ask them later on in
life, tell me about your eighth birthday, your ninth birthday, that they do not remember
the present they got.
They remember how they felt, who they were with, what they did, the experience of the
day, not the gift that they gave them.
And I really liked reading this post because I've always had this thing about, oh, how
do you find the right gift for people?
But it's not so much the gift, it's how you make people feel.
That's what they remember.
And then after reading that post, I thought about, and I read another post very similar,
about school.
If you go back to school, you don't remember the kids who had the coolest shoes.
You don't remember the kids who had the latest fashion thing or whatever it is.
What you remember about school is how people made you feel.
Yes.
The bullies and the friends.
The bullies and the friends, yes.
We both experienced bullies and we both had friends.
So you don't remember whether they were the cool kid with the latest toy, the latest gadget
or whatever, which is what kids want these days.
They all want the same drink bottle.
What's that?
Frank Green?
That's hilarious.
No, it has to be Frank Green.
It can't be a normal one.
We've got a thousand water bottles at home.
And yeah, but I've been asked to get a Frank Green.
It's incredible because I luckily get given water bottles as gifts all around the world.
And so I've got a nice collection of them.
One of my favorites was given to me by Porsche actually.
I'll never give that one away.
But yeah, but they're not good enough because they're not what everyone else has got.
Yes.
What I want to talk about is why memories are so important in a couple of areas.
So we'll talk about customer service and leadership.
And so in customer service, one of the things I like teaching is that we have never, ever,
ever been measured in customer service.
We have never been measured by what we give the customer, so the product.
We have never been measured by the service that we provide.
We have always been measured by how we make the person feel.
Yes.
All of those scores that you do after.
The net promoter score.
Yeah.
How they feel.
Yeah.
So when you talk about customer experience, the reason why we have this term customer
experience is because it's how the customer feels at the end of the experience, taking
into account all of the different touch points with your company.
And the basis of this is because people remember things that have an emotional context.
And because emotions and memory glue.
And I've got a story I want to share with our listeners about an example of this.
So in a customer service course I've been running for years, I said this was many years
ago, I teach more customer centricity now and customer experience.
But I used to say, okay, stand up, find a partner and have a chat to them about a customer
experience where you were the customer and you received an incredible customer experience.
And then I listened to the stories over the last 25, 30 years, I've been listening to
these stories and have a guess what they are always about.
They're always about two things.
So it was a great experience.
Yes.
Actually, no, sorry, let's start with the bad experiences.
So I say, okay, stand up, share a story with a partner where you had a bad experience as
a customer.
Okay.
I mean, have a guess what those two things are always about.
They didn't listen.
That's part of it.
But it's I didn't get what I wanted.
Yes.
Or I was treated poorly.
That's it.
Yep.
They're the two stories.
So when you're listening to thousands of stories, it's always I didn't get something I wanted
or I was treated badly.
That's the bad stories.
Now, I've been listening to the good stories.
So tell a partner a great experience where you were a customer, you had a great experience
and they again fall into two categories.
Have a guess.
Well, I'm going to go with the opposite of what I just said, which is they felt heard.
Well, that's a part of it.
But that doesn't create the category.
Keep guessing.
It's similar to the poor one.
So I said in the poor one, I didn't get something that I wanted.
So what's the opposite?
I got something that I wanted.
Okay.
Well, that's hilarious.
That's what I was expecting that I got what I wanted.
So you go off and tell people.
No, if you get what you want, you tell no one.
No.
The statistics are that if you get what you wanted, what you expected.
You got above and beyond.
You've got to get more.
So 10% of the stories, you got more than what you wanted.
And so it's elevated your emotional state.
And if you go in expecting something and you get what you're expecting, it doesn't change
your emotional state at all.
So it doesn't create that memory glue to remember that situation.
So you don't walk away telling all your friends, hey, I went into this shop and I got what
I wanted.
You tell no one.
But if you get more, it elevates your emotional state.
Okay.
But that's only 10% of the stories.
I'm going to ask you, Michelle, and it's really difficult.
Okay.
Guess what the 90% of stories are about.
So these are great experiences.
I asked people to share their great experiences and have a guess what 90% of the stories are
about.
I don't know.
You tell me.
Sorry.
I can't.
I'm putting people on the spot.
It's that the company started with a mistake.
Okay.
But then they fixed it beyond your expectations.
And the reason being is, and this goes back to the memory glue bit, when a company makes
a mistake at the start, how would you feel?
Yeah.
You feel annoyed.
So you've got the emotions of frustration and annoyance.
But then when they fix it beyond your expectations, how do they now feel?
That you've gone above and beyond.
And they feel elated.
Yes.
So there's this massive shift in their emotional state.
And because there's this massive shift in their emotional state, that's the memory glue
that makes them remember the experience.
That's right.
So there's the opportunity for that business, either the memories that they're bad, and
so they tell all on sundry, I bought this and it's crap, it broke or whatever.
And they were really rude to me, no customer support, or turn it around.
This happened, but they went and they did this for me and they did this.
So then it's almost like they personally went out of their way to help you.
Yeah.
And that shift in your emotional state.
So I want to tell you a quick story.
Actually, it's not such a quick story, but I'll tell it anyway.
So many, many years ago, my captain said to me at the end of the financial year, you need
to spend some money.
I said, why?
He said, oh, you're going to have a big tax bill.
If you don't, you need to have some expenses.
What do you need in the company?
I said, I don't need anything.
He said, well, you're a speaker, go and buy some speakers.
He was joking, right?
But I took him seriously.
I wasn't going to write these off, but I went off because it made me think I've always wanted
to buy those little Bose cubes.
Have you seen those?
I have, my parents have them.
Yeah, they're amazing.
Anyway, so I walked into the Bose store and I was looking at these cubes and he said to
me, oh, have you seen the new Bose television?
I said, Bose don't make a TV.
He said, they do now.
He took me into this room and he turned it on and the room filled with sound.
And I said, oh, where did you hide the speakers?
He said, no, they're in the TV.
I said, no, couldn't be.
I heard a helicopter behind me.
He said, that's what the TV does.
Anyway, so I bought that TV and I stuck it on my wall and I filled the house full of
sound and beautiful pictures.
And then a couple of years later, we decided to move up north.
We went up to Noosa for a year.
And so I took the TV up there, put it on the wall and filled that house full of sound and
pictures.
And then I noticed a couple of pixels had gone on the screen.
And so this is quite a few years ago and this is in the early days of flat screens and stuff.
And I noticed the pixels had gone.
So I rang Bose and I said, hey, look, there's a couple of pixels gone on my TV.
Can you fix it?
And they said, oh, Mr Newman, that's not good.
When are you going to be home?
I said, I'm home a week.
They said, oh, what day is good for you?
I said, any day.
They said, no, but what day is best for you?
And I said, Tuesday.
And they said, what time on Tuesday?
I said, any time.
They said, what time is best for you on Tuesday?
I said, 10 o'clock.
10 o'clock, they rock up, they walk in, they look at the TV and they go, hmm.
And they walk back, they take it off the wall and they start walking out to the truck.
And I said, oh, when am I going to get my TV back?
And they said, hold on for a second, please, Mr Newman.
And they came back in with a box.
They took another TV out of a box, put it on the wall and turned it on.
And I said, you're going to lend me a TV whilst you fix my TV.
They said, no, that's your TV, Mr Newman.
I said, no, it's not.
You've taken mine to the truck.
They said, no, that's your TV.
I said, what are you going to do with the other one?
They said, we're going to take it away to see what could possibly have caused it to
stop working the way we need it.
Have a great day.
And I went, wow.
And so, and but this was out of warranty.
This was out of warranty.
But that is also looking at the feedback loop.
So rather than taking it as a criticism, they're deep diving to get information from that.
That's right.
But it wasn't the product.
See, I was a little disappointed that I lost a couple of pixels.
It was just a couple of pixels, but I was amazed with the way they treated me and the
TV was out of warranty.
Yeah.
But it was a brand new product.
It was the first time they've released this to the market.
Anyway, so moved back to Sydney, took that TV back down there, stuck it on a wall in
Sydney, filled the house full of sand again.
And I think it was two or three years later, a couple of pixels went on that TV.
And so I thought, I'll get this fixed.
So I rang up those and they said, I'm sorry, Mr Newman, we don't make that TV anymore.
I said, oh, oh, can you fix it at least?
And they said, can we give you a bigger one?
I meant, pardon?
And they said, but all we ask is that you that you pay for delivery and installation
because we outsource it.
I said, yeah, sure.
So they rocked up and they put a bigger television on my wall and took the old one away.
And all I had to do is pay for the delivery.
And I remember that experience.
And I've told that to many, many people in my customer service courses and customer experiences
courses because like I didn't expect any of that.
They went way, way, way above and beyond, but it was a new product.
They're trying to obviously get it to be in, get it out into the market.
And so they changed the way I felt.
And I remember that story.
And I'll tell thousands of people.
I'm telling them on the podcast now.
Do you still have the television?
No, regrettably, I moved again and it was too big for the wall on the place I moved
into.
So I did sell it.
And the person I sold it to was extremely delighted by it and no doubt filling their
house full of sound and pictures.
And yeah, that experience really sticks in my memory because of the way they made me
feel.
It was a mistake.
They went above and beyond to fix it.
Even if they didn't give me a new TV, just the way they treated me was extraordinary.
And I'll remember that forever.
Do you have any experiences like that?
I have recently had an experience where I was gifted a spa day experience and it was
a treat.
The kids weren't home.
And so I've locked out half a day and went up there and was just excited that, you know,
I was indulging.
And it didn't quite meet the mark of my expectation again.
I don't want to lower my expectations, but what the product or the treatment was meant
to be was a massage, a relaxation massage and hot stones for a certain amount of time
and then a facial for a certain amount of time.
And I was anticipating, you know, being so relaxed that I was drooling on both of them.
I can picture that.
I was really, really needing that.
Anyway, the massage went for double the time allocated, which would have ordinarily been
lovely.
However, it was torture.
So it wasn't a relaxing massage for the hot stones that you're expecting.
No, no hot stones in sight.
It would have been a relief, but it was quite vigorous and a strong, very strong massage.
Torturous by the sounds of it.
She was, she had muscles on it, but she was just like getting right in there and I probably
needed it, but I didn't enjoy it.
Did you mention to her during that?
I did.
I repeated, please, just a little softer, a little softer.
And then I just, you know, harnessed that, you know, almost meditating.
I'll be over soon.
It'll be over soon.
That's not the state you want to be in when you're having a relaxing massage.
That's gonna be fitting.
And yeah, just kept going.
And then because it had gone so long, my mass, my facial, sorry, was reduced to 20 minutes
instead of 45 instead of 45.
And the facial, I was just drifting off.
It was beautiful.
And she's like, okay, well, we're going to stop now because your facial went over, your
massage went over time.
I was like, no.
So I got dressed and, you know, finished up and I thought, oh, okay, I'm not going to
say anything.
I just want to come back.
And it was only when I mentioned to the person that gave me the gift that it, you know, was
a little different, but very grateful for the gift.
And so they said, well, you know, say something.
So I did.
I went back up and said, look, it wasn't what it was advertised as.
And the manager, rather than just dismissing me, she made an appointment to see me, to
sit down with me, go through exactly getting my feedback on what my expectations were and
how I felt and asked what they could do to change that.
And so they gifted me or gave me another opportunity to have that treatment as it should be, as
what my expectation was.
And it was amazing.
And I tell, and so then I purchased a facial for my mom and, you know, it's like, oh, I'll
recommend this place to people.
And yeah, it's so a few people have actually gone there based on my recommendations about
how great they were.
And like you said, it was because of something that didn't quite go as it should have.
There was the opportunity and they exceeded my expectation.
I was drooling in both.
Very relaxing.
And we often, I read a lot of Google reviews and things and the nasty reviews or the reviews
that aren't positive about a business or an experience, the opportunity is there for the
people, the business being reviewed to respond.
Now those that respond with maybe attacking the reviewer, I side with the reviewer.
It's like, okay, maybe there's truth to what this review is saying because everybody's
perception is different.
The businesses that respond to the review acknowledging that they have actually not
lived up to the reviewers' expectation and then giving them an opportunity, an explanation
and an opportunity to come in and to actually talk about it.
And how can we fix this?
Even if it's something quite terrible that's being reviewed, I consider that business,
you know what?
I'd give them a go.
Yeah.
Because they're prepared to talk about any potential mistakes that they've made or improvements
that they can make.
You can have lunatics who make comments because they can make them.
That's right.
Anyone can comment these.
Anonymous.
Anonymously.
Yeah.
It's the memory glue that was created when they fixed it beyond your expectations.
That's right.
So Bose, I've used Bose products and I probably would go back and use Bose now based on what
you've just mentioned.
I'm wearing some Bose headphones right now.
You are.
Bose, if you want to sponsor us, Bollinger still hasn't got in touch.
We're waiting.
Bollinger, where are you?
France.
But come on.
It's not that far away.
We have the internet.
You can get in contact.
Let us know.
Come on.
That first podcast that we did all those months ago and we opened up a nice bottle of Bollinger
and we gave them all that free advertising and they still haven't reached out.
So Bose, if you're listening, because we're listening to our podcast through Bose headphones.
That's right.
I flew with Bose headphones.
Did you?
I did.
When you were a pilot?
Yeah.
Okay.
Great.
Fantastic product.
Yeah.
Noise canceling and everything.
Beautiful.
How do we tie this into leadership?
How do we tie this memory glue into leadership and what can leaders learn?
Well, if they can invoke an emotion, if a leader can invoke an emotion within their
team, now there's a chance here it can go either way.
So you are able to create a positive emotion, an emotion that the people in your team take
personally.
They can see that and they can feel it.
So they have an association to whatever you've just done or said and they can recall it.
They can probably even recall the seat they were sitting in, what they were wearing, maybe
if there was food involved, but they are then more likely to take ownership and to follow.
Yeah.
I ask a lot of leaders this question.
Go back in your history and think about leaders who have had a great impact on you.
I found that the one thing that makes their previous leaders, the leaders that they've
learned from, memorable is that they felt appreciated.
The leader that they look up to made them feel appreciated.
So we've spoken about this a little bit, I think, in another podcast where you don't
appreciate results.
You measure results, you celebrate results, but you show appreciation for effort.
One of the things leaders need to spend a lot more time doing is showing appreciation
for effort because when I do surveys, I do these 360 degree surveys where the leader
is evaluated by their leader, their peers and their team.
I always ask the leaders, how much appreciation do you show your team?
Then they give themselves a rating out of 10 and then I ask their team how appreciated
and do you feel, how much appreciation does your leader show you?
Then I get a figure out of 10 and there's always a discrepancy of two.
The team will always rate the leader two points lower than what they think.
It's one of the biggest complaints people make when they leave an organization, I didn't
feel appreciated.
Showing appreciation for people's efforts is one way to make them feel or feel appreciated,
obviously, but then develop that memory glue where you look back and you look at that leader
and you think, yeah, I really looked up to that leader because of the way they made me
feel and the reason why they did that is they showed appreciation for effort.
Yeah, I've discussed previously when I was in an airline and change of management CEO
and then the business and it was definitely the leader who came in, recognized everybody's
effort but then did it in such a way that you wanted to contribute, you wanted to add.
It became part of your family almost, this business that personified the business and
you wanted to go out of your way to help, to go the extra, to do bad days, bad weather
days and going over time and going into discretion and they can ask and if you're not feeling
appreciated, then you're like, no, and you are legally entitled to say no and just to
walk away, stranding passengers but you're within your rights.
Whereas if you feel appreciated and this is each person did that as well but the overlying
feeling and culture amongst the teams was from the top.
You did go the extra mile and you're like, of course I'll do that.
And Simon Sinek talks about that in one of his TED Talks.
He talks about how if you create this culture of safety where people feel psychologically
safe and part of it is the appreciation and being connected to something, then the people
will give you their blood, sweat and tears but if they don't feel like that, why would
they go above and beyond?
Why would they go above and beyond for you if they don't feel safe, connected, part of
a, not a family but a familial atmosphere?
Why would they go above and beyond?
Well I know people that say I don't get paid enough, I don't get paid for that, that's
not in my pay scale and I kind of feel sorry for them.
Do you know what they're actually saying?
Because there's much research into pay.
Once people get a fair and equitable salary, it's not a motivating factor.
What becomes a motivating factor in a workplace and I got this from Dan Pink is autonomy,
mastery and purpose.
So connecting to something bigger than your job which is purpose, mastery, being able
to improve and autonomy, feeling like you've got some sort of control over what you do
and then obviously feeling appreciated would add into that factor.
So yeah, when I hear people say I don't get paid enough for that, what I'm hearing is
I get paid but I don't feel good.
And so what they're doing is they don't feel good, they don't feel appreciated and so they
link it to their salary but it's actually not the salary from the research that I've
seen.
It's based on how they feel within the organisation.
And I can pretty much guarantee it's also not connected to cupcakes.
The cupcakes they bring up once a year just to tick that box and yes, we've done that
particular day.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Alright, so I think we could wrap this one up.
Memory glue, it's the emotions that come into your body when you're experiencing certain
emotions.
They create strong memories and that's important for kids' birthdays.
Kids don't remember the presents, they remember how they felt at school, they don't remember
who wore what, they remember how people made them feel and then in customer service it's
how you make people feel.
And also in the workplace, part of your career, you know, we spend at least eight hours a
day doing it.
Yeah, if you feel part of the team, like you're being appreciated, you're contributing, you're
making a difference.
Alright, we think the world will be a better place with more dogs?
Affirmative, yes.
Affirmative.
More dogs.
Bollinger, where are you?
We're waiting.
And bows if you want to drop us a line.
Bows, you can gazump them.
We're looking for that sponsor.
You have a great day, Michelle.
You too, guy.
Bye.
Well, that was fun.
That was fun.
You're such a clown.
Lady captain.
And who's going to listen to this?
Maybe our moms.
Thanks, mom.