Whale Done! 7

Today, we will continue to learn with Wes Kingsley in Ken Blanchard's book entitled Whale Done! It carries the subtitle "The Power of Positive Relationships." The message and the "to do" items meld nicely with our journey to culture excellence in safety, quality, ethics, production, in fact, with all we do.

In our last lesson, the Consultant had just concluded her presentation on the "Whale Done" philosophy. Wes and the Consultant meet for a cup of coffee. Wes is full of questions.



Wes: "But aren't you asked if the WHALE DONE Response isn't manipulation?..."
 

Consultant: "I'm very glad you brought that up. There are two points about manipulation. First of all, the only people who don't need to be motivated by others are entrepreneurs - people who either own their own businesses or are individuals working for themselves.  They are self-motivated and their goals are aligned with the organizational goals. In fact, their personal goals and the organizational goals are usually the same... Secondly; you don't want people to become dependent solely on your noticing and commenting, so they do well only when you're around. The point of good management is to influence people to do the right thing when you're not around... The ultimate goals of the WHALE DONE Response is to help people become self-motivating."

 

Wes: "You means, so that the WHALE DONEs are coming from inside themselves?"

 

Consultant: "After giving lots of WHALE DONEs, you start to make comments like 'I bet it felt good when you finished that project before the deadline' or 'You must be proud of what you did on that report.' Or when you know that they must be feeling good about their performance, you can say, 'Tell me how that feels,' or, 'What's it like, to have done such a good job?' Then really listen to them and reinforce their pride and feeling of accomplishment."

 

Wes and the Consultant begin talking about business and business models. Why some are successful and others aren't.

 

Consultant: "Any new business improvement today, whether it's a technology or a service innovation or a pricing strategy, becomes instantly known and copied by the competition. That means that your only real competitive edge is your relationship with your people. If they trust and respect you and believe in your goals, they will want to please your customers. When that happens, provided you've got other factors like product quality, pricing, and marketing, and delivery in place, no one can beat you. The one thing your competition can never steal from you is the relationship you have with your people, and the relationship they have with your customers."

 

(Interesting! I sure thought the Consultant was going to say the only real competitive edge is your people! However, she said your relationship with your people.  That goes back to lesson #1 - trust and time.)

 

Wes leaves the coffee shop with a briefcase full of notes and a head boiling over with ideas.

 

Next time, Wes returns to SeaWorld to continue his learning with the Trainer.

 

Donald G Rosenbarger
Senior Vice President
Delta Companies Inc