The dog days of Q4 are upon us. I can hardly believe it’s October already, and my colleagues and I have a hell of a few months ahead of us. In previous companies and organizations we’ve worked for, Q4 was always called “Fighting Season.” We get it, but let’s be real; fighting season is 12 months out of the year, especially when you have sales numbers, team goals to reach, and services to provide. We’re playing calendar Tetris to fit what we can and doing our best. There’s not a lot of white space left. We talk about this on our latest podcast. It’s hard. And while we’re chasing to meet those year-end goals, no doubt there’s a little part in us all that’s just done. You can admit it; you’re among friends.
This is the time to remember that the smallest of the “I-don’t-want-to’s” can make a massive difference, to ourselves and others.
I don’t want to answer this email.
This meeting is just one more thing on my calendar.
Another customer is walking up the steps that I don’t want to deal with.
I’m going to shut my door so another colleague doesn’t come in and ask me something.
We may feel this way, but it’s important that the people we provide services to don't feel it too. We’ve all gotten the brunt of that. When you say a cheerful “Good morning!” to the coffee shop worker at the register, whose response is a monotone “What can I get you?” with a stone-cold face. The tone of voice and heavy sigh on the other end of the line that lets you know you’re a pain in their ass, a pebble in their shoe. We can all remember when that happened to us, probably much more recently than we’d like. Hopefully, we can also admit that we have been the ones at times, doling out the “ain’t-nobody-got-time-for-this” attitude.
I’ll tell you where I didn’t feel like a pain in someone’s ass, and I got a valuable lesson in customer service - Japan.
I recently returned from an 11-day, multi-city, once-in-a-lifetime trip to Japan. My Dad was born in Osaka and emigrated to the U.S. when he was 11 years old. This was the first time my siblings and our parents had been able to visit Japan together. We walked the streets of his old neighborhood, went to the market where our late Grandma shopped, saw their apartment building, and walked past his school. I could write five more blogs about the hundreds of other things we experienced, saw, ate, etc. But, to stay on point…
I get a certain feeling when I travel and experience different customs and cultures. Call it wanderlust, a detachment from everyday life, whatever. And, if you feel this like I do, when it’s time to come home, you want to bring pieces of that trip back home with you, replicate it somehow, and integrate it into your everyday life. The most significant thing about this trip that stuck with me and continues to cross my mind every day is the Japanese concept of omotenashi.
Omotenashi can be difficult to define, but it’s easily felt and experienced. As always, Seth Godin’s take on a subject is crisp and to the point. Omotenashi is a very ingrained part of Japanese culture, which, at its essence, is a deep sense of personal responsibility, attention to details, the simplest of tasks done with pride, and, at your best, treating people how you’d like to be treated.
I’ll take defining omotenashi a step further - What we’re really talking about here is relationship building. Thoughtfulness. Respect. Ownership.
Here are a few examples I experienced:
How many cab drivers does it take to help us get back to the AirBnB?
An enthusiastic “Welcome!” cried out as soon as you set foot into a restaurant, shop or store, as an acknowledgment that they know you are there.
No handbags or purses were allowed to be placed on the floor in restaurants. Instead, hostesses or waitresses would hang them on hooks or place them into baskets provided at the table. This is both out of respect for others to keep the area clear and out of respect for your personal belongings.
I got out of a taxi and turned to grab my two bags in the backseat with me. The driver wouldn’t let me, gently patting my arm with his white-gloved hands shushing me aside. He took my bags out of the back seat for me, put my backpack on my back, then bowed as I walked away. When was the last time your Uber driver took your bags out of the backseat for you?
In a busy train station, I asked a worker at the help desk where the cab stand was. Though he knew what I was asking, he spoke no English and couldn’t find the words to answer. Instead of writing me off as a dumb tourist and feigning that he didn’t know, he instead used an iPad to translate his response to help me (there wasn’t a cab stand by the way).
Seeing a trend here?
Four generations - Sarah with her daughter Rory, her Dad and Grandma
I have no doubt that at least one of the Japanese people I encountered and helped or provided me with a service was having a crappy day. I sure didn’t know about it though. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a veiled “America sucks” themed blog. But, it’s valuable to learn something from our travels and other cultures and allow those lessons to change us for the better, help us improve and pass along to others.
The lesson in omotenashi came full circle for me after this trip. My siblings and I are intimately familiar with the characteristics and peculiarities of our Dad and Grandma and how they’ve integrated bits of Japanese culture into our thoroughly American families over the decades. But, it’s quite another thing to see an entire society of them in the flesh and walk among them. Our Dad has been with the same company for nearly 40 years, working his way up the corporate ladder. Our Grandma served her family first above all, a meal at the ready no matter what time you walked in the door. Looking back, relationships are the most important thing to them, and taking pride in everything they do, big or small.
I’m always a work in progress, and I have been making small changes in my omotenashi where I have identified room for improvement. Let’s be aware of and use our God-given gifts to serve others. Who knows—maybe if we can force a smile, it just might force our hand to actually enjoy what we’re doing as we get into the end-of-year crunch time.
