Within this blog post, we are going to discuss ways that your organization can positively change culture with the push of a button. Is this some kind of magic button that can instantly change the world? The answer depends on how you look at it. With the ongoing pandemic and economic anxieties, today’s climate is difficult for many organizations along with their employees and customers. Fatigue has set in as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to challenge all of us. Starting a new year is an excellent time to take on challenges and capture control of the future. Each section below will describe the blog post title. We will show you how the Push of a Button can be both positive and productive.
Change
Becoming stuck in a routine is easy. The human brain is constantly attempting to use energy efficiently. A daily routine that runs from the subconscious makes that process easier. Making changes, especially large changes, requires extra energy. Along with the pandemic fatigue mentioned above, we live in a society with information overload, burnout, constant changes in technology and knowledge, and a lot of uncertainty. All of this has an impact on each of us and we all adapt to this in different ways. Positive change requires both energy and focus.
As you read this post, what changes do you want to see at your organization? Having an objective and a focus on that objective will make it easier to accomplish the positive changes you want to make. In a recent blog post “289 Positive Words to Help you Design a Great Experience”, we talk about taking control and designing the words and phrases that you want people to experience. With proper training, focus, and support, these words can be driven into experiences and also be the words shared in reviews and with others. Consider what kind of culture you want to design in your organization. Have the map ready for others to understand and follow.
Organization
Positive organizational change can consist of many different forms. Changes can be organization wide, within a region, a department, a team, or it can be at the individual level. Defining the area of the changes you want to make is an important part of the design process. Being proactive and focusing on the design of where you want to make a positive culture change is key to success. Confusion causes uncertainty which leads to both anxiety, lack of focus, and wasted energy. Determine which part of the organization you want to make positive culture changes.
Culture
Culture can include your organizations leadership, values, how people interact with one another, behaviors, attitudes, community, and emotions that are reflected within your organization. In terms of measurement, it can be any one of these attributes or you can measure culture as a whole. An important point to make is that what and where you want to make culture change (individual attributes and/or a whole culture change), the success you achieve will depend on how people approach or avoid each one.
As an example, if people do not believe in your organizations values (avoid), there will be strife and less motivation to lead and build those values. On the other hand, if people do believe in a common purpose (approach), the amount of energy for positive outcomes can be tremendous. As you look to make positive changes, learn what, where, how, and why people feel the way they do. Become laser focused on doing the right measurements from your design and implementation. This will lead to quick and positive culture changes. That leads us to the last part, the pushing of buttons.
Push of a Button
As a manager, you can walk through an office and look at employees and attempt to guess how they feel about their work and work culture. You can also walk through where customers are shopping and guess if they are enjoying their experience. Organizations spend a lot of time on guess work and assuming – this can be very expensive due to the errors of this process. Assuming that everyone in that office is enjoying their work or those customers who are shopping like what they see is ineffective. In a world full of competition, if your organization assumes and another organization knows, the other organization wins.
SmileyAnswers has various Smileys that allow a customer and employee to push a button. It is very simple (which is important as we reiterate the amount of brain energy that is being used) and engaging. This simplicity of a quick question and a push of a button serves a powerful purpose. Are people approaching or avoiding your ideas, products, services, and leaders? By learning in real-time this important question, you are instantly ahead of where you were before to make the positive changes necessary to truly change culture. All day – Every day we as individuals are constantly approaching or avoiding. To make large improvements in culture change, having knowledge into this approach/avoid topic is vital.
We as individuals want to be listened to. We also want to feel valued. These two sentences seem obvious but as individuals and organizations go about their day, these two simple and important sentences get lost in the cracks. By capturing real-time insight with the push of a button, your organization can listen to KNOW how others feel. By showing others they ARE being listened to, and that they ARE valued, you can make giant leaps towards improving your organizations culture. To show how this can work, let’s review the process:
Listen
By having a Smiley that collects human emotions in real-time, you are listening to how people feel while they are IN the experience. A simple push of a button tells you whether they are approaching or avoiding the input you are asking for. You can ask about the whole experience or seek input about individual touchpoints within the experience. It is a quick way to show people that you want their input and that you want to listen.
Learn
You learn by having a real-time dashboard so you can understand the what, the where, the why, and the when. Using a heat map and learning the patterns of positive and negative insights, your organization is another step closer to finding pain points that prevent you from raising the bar on culture change. Since the human brain constantly predicts based on current and past inputs, having constant feedback is needed to stay on top of changing perceptions and expectations. Taking a year-round approach keeps your organization on top of human emotions to improve life experiences.
Improve
After finding pain points within your organization, changes can be made quickly to show that people’s opinions do matter and that they are valued. By sharing positive feedback with your customers, your organization will show them that you are striving for the best experience. By sharing positive feedback with your employees, you will achieve a better atmosphere leading to continual and positive culture change. Employees see that they are valued by both the organization and the customers they serve. This positive insight boosts self-worth and purpose. Instead of spending all your time on service recovery, your organization will be proactive and more effective. Service Recovery is about going to a past event and turning a wrong into a right. Energy should be used on being proactive to lower the amount of energy being used on service recovery. Spending too much time on service recovery because of bad planning and implementation is a culture drain. Spending more time sharing positive feedback and insight with employees and customers does the opposite.
Wrapping it up
Are Smiley Buttons Magic Buttons? When individual experiences and lives are changed for the better, it is difficult to say they are not. By learning how others feel in real-time, we understand and can make quick changes to bring people and ideas together. As competition grows for both customers and employees, guessing how others feel quickly becomes outdated. Investing the energy into building a bridge between organizations and their customers and employees is imperative as competition increases. More importantly, improving the life and experiences of others is worth the investment on its own. Listen, Learn, and Improve Culture with a simple push of a button.
About SmileyAnswers
SmileyAnswers is the leading reseller of the HappyOrNot® Reporting System within the United States, Canada, and the U.K. HappyOrNot® has over 1.5 billion feedbacks to date and is a leader in capturing the real-time insight of customers, patients, and employees. With the recent addition of the Smiley Link and Smiley Digital, SmileyAnswers is in the unique position to capture a whole journey Live by using the Smiley’s for both digital and physical touchpoints. Organizations can “listen” to how people feel at all the important touchpoints. After capturing real-time feedback at these touchpoints, organizations can then “learn” what and where the hidden pain points are to make immediate positive changes. Finally, success can be shared with Live Sharing, Social Sharing, digital boards, social media, email, power points, and more. This process can be repeated daily throughout the year to constantly improve human experiences.
