"What You Don't Know Can Kill You"
When a call comes through in the Call Center, we tend to think we know what we're about to do: Sell.
And the people who lead us - whose job it is to motivate, support, monitor, correct and improve us - tend to think they know what we're about to do:
All of the above while accepting that few, if any, of those above us will want to hear our point of view about what we do, how we do it, what the effects are, what could be done better, etcetera. We're just gonna do all that, just because we have a job. Yada yada yada. Sorry, but no.
I mean, yeah, of course. But...no no no no no.
What we are actually doing - most of us - is trying to keep our jobs while not putting our heads through a wall. (Is that all???)
Pretty simple mission. But not at all inspiring, motivating, fun. Uh-uh. And since attrition rates in Call Centers are famously high everywhere, it might behoove us - ya think? - to Address. The. Real. Problem. What we need is a mission. EVERYONE needs a mission! And our missions change - oh shit! - so I, for instance, have been learning how to follow the bouncing ball! When I suddenly and unexpectedly and horrifyingly found myself homeless about five years ago, my mission was to put my life together in a new way. So, when I started making some stable, if unimpressive, money and I could maintain an apartment again, month after month, WOOHOO BABY!!!!
[Talk about being humbled by life! Jesus! I could write a blog. Oh...wait...
Anyway, into Year Two of starting to feel safe in my life and my mission is changing. Now I want even greater security PLUS I want to move forward with my work at work, and my work with my business.
Our missions change as we do. Those missions are based on emotional responses to what we want, and what we want is based on emotional needs and wants. Think it might be important to consider peoples' emotional needs! But no. We stick to method training. Whatever, dude. We still need to find a mission - meaning - in our work. Making money is not a good enough motivator. Paging Dr. Viktor Frankl! Paging Dr. Frankl... I am always on a mission at work to keep finding and deepening the meaning in my days. And if I had the ear of management, I would tell them - as actually I think I did in a meeting the other day, but I'm not sure anyone really caught it - that if they will find what motivates us, really motivates us during this job we're doing, then they'd be cookin' with gas. It seems so incredibly obvious to me that if we don't find what really motivates us about this work, we are unawakened Neo's (Missssssster Anderson) in the Matrix. And we're resentful. D'uh! Resentful = bad, angry, listless. Satisfied = drinking less! These days I have the world's best boss. He's a nut. He's really devoted to helping us. He's "for" us. He's hilarious. And he's a little insane. I like that in a guy! He calls his leadership style the "annoying big brother style of leadership". Tell you what, babe, it works for our team! He reads people well, he cares, and he knows how to support people with positive input and transformational information. He says he has learned things from me (and with my big mouth and his open attitude, I wouldn't be a bit surprised). I'll bet it's mostly about emotionally-based ANYthing. Kinda my mantra. Seems sooooooooo obvious to me that you gotta find what makes it worth coming to work, because money is why you got the job, but it's not what keeps you there long-term. It doesn't make you excited to be there, I don't care how much you're paid. Any human being who doesn't have the opportunity to think or act creatively for 8 or more hours every day is going to feel resentful. Resentment=bad attitude, depression, lack of inventiveness. Creativity at work=fulfillment, input, smiley faces! Soooo obvious!!!! Obvious to one of my heroes, Daniel Pink, too. (Excerpted video (click here and all of that), courtesy of my annoying big brother boss who shared the longer version of this with me without knowing that I was already familiar with Daniel Pink; great minds think alike.) Daniel says money is not the motivator for any activity that requires any level at all of creative thinking. It works for mechanical things that have an instantly measurable beginning/middle/end. Stack those quarters the fastest? I got it! Sort those papers into three colors? I'm all over that! But you can't motivate me with money when I'm working on the phone with a human being who is calling on my inventiveness, patience, cleverness, knowledge and personality. You really going to measure that? That's upper-level abilities, bub! Jeez...get a clue! You can't pay me enough for that shyte! Seriously! And God knows you don't!
Call Center work is not mechanical work. Sales is not mechanical work. It's not, "If this happens, do that." It's creative. It's original and it's unique every single time, if you treat it correctly, if you understand it correctly as a mode of service and assertion of benefit.
Sooooo, not being mechanical, this "do better and you'll get more money" thing is not ever going to be madly successful. I have worked in corporations as a Secretary, an Administrative Assistant, as an Executive Secretary, and Human Resources Admin. And my biggest mistake in these particular types of jobs was in treating each one as something that just paid the bills. As if that was enough. It isn't. And when management also gets that wake-up call and "gets out of bed", their profits will rise. So, yes, Mr. Corporation, definitely apply the external band-aids that indicate that in this parent-child relationship fostered by you, some basic expectations will be met. Supply coffee for "the kids" without charge, and have regular conversations with us - take in our feedback. Let us know we're good for something besides our broad backs. Give us decent chairs, benefits, the whole nine. But understand this: if you don't ever go deeper than those surface answers to addressing our needs...if you don't take on the question of what truly motivates a person, and different types of people - and those are questions that actually require deep thought and emotional intelligence and choice and trial and error - there ain't enough coffee in the whooooole world to keep us there, motivated and visible to you in all of our true value to your company.
©2019 Lori Kirstein
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AuthorWorking in Sales at a Call Center for one of the biggest stores in the country should come with hazard pay. Archives
December 2019
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