Business Coaching

The strategies used by people on Survivor can be used in your office.

Everyone has at least one “job from hell” story.

If you don’t — count yourself lucky.

What the people who have had a job from hell know is that going to work is similar to going into battle, or a war zone, where you’ve got to rely on strategy, not just skill, in order to make it through another day and come back the next.

But if you’ve got no experience as a veteran or fighting on an actual battlefield, don’t worry: these same strategies can be seen in action on an episode of Survivor.

Yes, Survivor can teach you how to act in the workplace — if it’s a tense workplace — to, well, survive. Take a look at Spirit magazine’s first few points:

“1. Align yourself with the power person Survivor, like most offices, isn’t fair. Some of the nicest people go home first, and some of the sleaziest survive. It’s not about truth and justice, it’s about power, and in most offices the boss has all the votes. This isn’t true in every workplace—some companies have employees anonymously rate their managers and oust low scorers, and a teacher friend of mine can tell off his boss because he’s protected by a union. The rest of us need to identify who has the power—even if it’s someone as rotten as sock-burning, water-draining Russell, a finalist in season 19—and appear to be on his or her side.

2. Don’t fight the power—work it Most Survivor winners have been champions at charm and guile. I started at Crazy World Inc. horribly naive; I thought that honesty was the best policy, which just lead me to trouble in the conference room. Instead, I had to learn how to manipulate the unhinged bosses for my own needs. This made me feel like a sham until one of my mentors said to me, “Pretend you’re playing a part.” OK. I tried not to let the people who annoyed me know it. I tried to smile to their faces and make them think I’d never vote them out. I tried to keep my big mouth shut. When I did something well, I told them it was all thanks to them.

3. Blend in with the crowd Anyone who’s watched more than two seasons ofSurvivor comes to realize that, as they like to say in Japan, the nail that sticks its head out gets hit with a hammer. On Survivor, the first person voted off is almost always someone who is unusual in some way: older, more religious, more eccentric. People like people who are the most like them. If you stick out from the group—if you like to go sit by yourself on the beach, if you have strong opinions about how to build the shelter, if you’ve got a weird haircut (season 19’s mulleted Shambo) or tell long, strange stories (vainglorious, tattooed orchestra conductor Coach)—you could be exposing yourself to the group’s wrath and allowing yourself to be seen as a threat. Much better to be useless than different. The person fired fastest at Crazy World Inc. was bubbly and smart, but she talked too much about her love of roller derby for the boss’s comfort. Many a million-dollar winner of Survivorwas the best at lurking in the background and making minimal waves.”

Need more survival skills? Read the full article here.

If employee morale is down or your business environment isn’t the greatest, consider hiring a business coach to see if there’s anything you can improve.

Steven Slater, the now famous, ex-Jet Blue steward.

By now we’ve all heard of Steven Slater. For those of you who might have been out of the country or in a coma last week, Slater was the excitable Jet Blue flight attendant who flipped out after getting into a verbal altercation with a passenger following a flight from Pittsburgh to New York last week.

The story of Slater’s exit from the plane and the Jet Blue payroll has been rehashed over and over again, but it’s the aftermath that makes the story so interesting.

Since the incident Slater has become a star. He has a fan page on Facebook with nearly 200,000 fans and he is reportedly in negotiations for his own television show. The reported premise is that Slater will help people find unique ways to quit their jobs.

So what is it that has made Slater a star and what does the prevalent attitude surrounding the incident say about our society as a whole and for small businesses in general?

Slater, it seems, has struck a chord because Americans are tired of feeling like they have no control over their lives and, especially, their jobs. The problem economy that has plagued the United States for the last few years has played a big role in creating a populace that is nervous and unsure about the future.

When you couple that uncertainty with the fact that many employees have had to take on extra roles in their organization thanks to cutbacks, which leads to higher stress levels, less personal time and diminishing rewards, you have a recipe for disaster. The struggling economy has seemingly created a generation of American workers that are angry, and take out that anger on their employers through their customers.

Slater might have been upset with a woman who put too many bags in the overhead bin, but if that particular incident ever actually happened seems to be open for debate. Slater might have just had a bad day and made up the incident or they may have been another straw that broke his back.

No matter what the reason, his tirade could’ve hurt only his employer and himself. The anonymous woman he had the altercation with may or may not exist, but if anyone had been hurt, both Slater and Jet Blue would have been liable, with Jet Blue holding most of the liability.

Tension in the workplace is high these days and employees are not always equipped to deal with that tension productively. It’s actually something of a surprise that more Steven Slater type incidents don’t happen, considering the level of stress that most employees have to deal with and the lack of interest many businesses have shown in dealing with that stress and creating a tension-free environment in the workplace.

How do you ensure that your employees don’t flip out on your customers? What steps do you take to keep your organization as tension-free as possible?

Besides less expensive flights, Southwest Airlines is widely known for its customer service.

How important is customer service to your business?

A recent American Express poll showed that 61% of Americans felt that customer service was more important to them now because of the economy. More importantly, 9% of Americans said they would be willing to pay more for services if the company gave them outstanding customer service.

American consumers are also more likely to come back to a business if they’ve gotten quality customer service. Almost 81% would come back again, while almost 52% said they wouldn’t return to businesses that offered poor customer service.

A great example of quality customer service and its positive effect on the bottom line is Southwest Airlines. Southwest has been one of the most profitable airlines in the world over the last decade and that can be directly attributed to their attitude about customer service.

They consider themselves a customer service company that just happens to provide airline transportation to their customers and that has led to stability and growth.

Remember, over the long haul, your business cannot be faster, cheaper or even better than other businesses all the time. It’s just not possible. But businesses should be consistent and, more importantly, have a strong team that can deal with challenges and assuage any issues your customers might have.

For this reason alone, customer service is incredibly important and can be the difference between your company succeeding and failing.

In your non-business life, do you like to deal with people that are unpleasant, uninformed or just generally clueless?

If you don’t, then why would you want to deal with them when making a purchase?

Employees are hired for a reason and should be trained to provide pleasant, informed customer service. If they aren’t pleasant and well-informed, that is a management issue that needs to be resolved.

Creating quality customer service has never been more important for any business’ bottom line, as the results of the latest American Express poll shows. Check out the survey here.

How does customer service affect your business? Do you think you could create more customers if you and your team focused on customer service?