Thank you Daniel Pink great tips again time to think differently

March 21st, 2012

600 ways to say thank you

Earlier this month, we hosted Harvey Mackay on Office Hours. Last week, I received a thank-you note that was memorable — and in its own Godinesque way, remarkable. You can read all five pages here, but the image below should give you the gist.

Some of you might not dig this particular approach. But it’s a great reminder that we have more opportunities to stand out from the crowd than we realize.

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March 14th, 2012

My Favorite Tools: Ginormous Stickies

Drumroll, please.
We’ve got a brand-new video feature here on the PinkBlog. Think of it as the baby sibling of Pink’s Travel Tips.
The first episode — 173 seconds of pure viewing pleasure — is below.

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March 12th, 2012

Snuffing out smoking on a French train: Your solutions

One day last fall, Marie-Dominique Bonardi, a professor of public relations at Sorbonne University, posed a problem to PinkBlog readers: A group of smokers at a commuter train station in France takes over one car each day, “and spends the whole journey smoking and preventing other people from using the wagon.” When other commuters do manage to board the car, their lungs pay the price.

Even though smoking on the trains is illegal, this behavior has been going on for 10 years and clearly isn’t going to stop on its own. What to do?

You offered an array of terrific solutions, most of which fell into four categories:
Sticks: Punish the smokers, you said – turn the electricity off in the car, install smoke-activated sprinklers or brakes, squirt water in smokers’ faces. Liz proposed playing annoying music in the smoking car (e.g., Barry Manilow). Ed Hitchcock suggested choosing a date on which the smoking ban will begin to be actively enforced, advertise the date in advance, and then – enforce it. “Give out fines, revoke their tickets, and all the other consequences you would expect.”

Monetize it: How about putting a price tag on smoking? W. Corey Trench suggested, “If a smoker is willing to pay for his habit, and the added taxes to fund advertising and healthcare, then he will be willing to pay extra for the privilege of riding in a smoking car and all the attendant costs of its operations.” John Strosnider added an interesting twist: “Allow people to ‘adopt’ a wagon. Have an auction each month….Whichever group wins gets to set the rules for their wagon for that month.”

The social approach: Quite a few suggestions mined the power of peer pressure and social influence, with a little train theater thrown in. David Caswell suggested handing out cheap surgical masks: “Imagine how much of a dork you’d feel if you’re sitting on the train with a lit cigarette while everyone else is wearing a face mask!”  Ritch suggested seeding the smoking car with bean-fed commuters: “Schedule these ‘walk-by tootings’ each week…until the smokers relent. Let the metaphor speak.” Several readers proposed emotionally intelligent signage that highlights the risks of smoking to self and others, along the lines of these Japanese signs (via Samuel Feldman). Perry unveiled the ultimate weapon: “I suggest a crowd of mimes rush onto the wagon and make coughing and choking gestures.”
C’est la vie: A few readers claimed that this behavior – rule-breaking, smoking, train-hogging – is so typically French that it’s best just to live with it. Zut alors! Jim Hayward counters, “I live in Ontario, Canada and over the last forty years there has been a definite shift to smoking not being acceptable in public places. This has been a concerted program of the government to reduce health care cost and has broad support.”
A multi-faceted problem like the one Marie-Dominique brought to us requires a multi-faceted solution: some combination of emotionally intelligent persuasion, disruption, theater, social influence, and yes, maybe a few carrots and sticks. The entire comment thread is well worth reading, including Marie-Dominique’s response.
P.S. Stay tuned. We’re about to make this crowdsourced management consulting a regular feature!