In 2016, one of my friends introduced me to a Hair Salon chain named Green Trends. This is when I was residing in Hyderabad.
Green Trends set a benchmark of what it means to delight someone.
There were many things that they were doing right, but I will give you just one example. A tangible one.
Usage of a neck ruffle roll. As you can see in the image below, it is a special “tissue paper” like material, slightly elastic. To be wrapped around the neck before beginning the haircut.
The neck ruffle traps and prevents tiny hair pieces from entering the shirt. Also, prevents any rashes over the neck, which are sometimes caused by the nylon neck gown.
I’m yet to find any salon — big or small — where using neck ruffles is the norm. And I say this when I’m a salon-hopper (that’s a separate story altogether).
These neck ruffles cost at the most a rupee apiece. But the care, the thought, and the overall service made my visits to Green Trends a delightful experience. It is not about the cost. I mean, would I be delighted if the salon gave away 1 rupee toffee every time I got a haircut? Of course not.
So, as a knowledge worker, a manager, a leader (I cringe at the word “leader”. If someone’s title has to state that they’re “leader”…well, I don’t know how to mend that) – how can we delight others?
But wait…why the focus on delighting people?
Delighting people, our co-workers, investors, or bosses is not people-pleasing.
Delighting is a gift.
If you’re going to deliver a 10-pager, then why make it boring? Why not make the recipient go “Aaha!”?
Positive associations are the real incentives. You can’t pay your boss. But you can pay with dopamine. And that lasts long.
The real reason
Everything else aside, the real reason behind delighting the people that matter is: that you learn by going inwards.
For example, the process of delighting someone at work involves you to:
- listen to them
- understanding their point of view
- calibrate everyone’s expectations
- differentiate between non-essentials and essentials
- say NO to the non-essentials
- say YES to the essentials
You’ll see that it is a service to ourselves, an investment of learning.
But then why do most people shy away from it?
The problem of over-selling and under-delivering
How many times have you seen your colleagues say “I have to revise the deadline” or “I thought I would be able to finish it, but I could not”?
I have seen it so many times – done many times.
That’s because the industrial ideas of quantity, quotas, and targets are still instilled in modern knowledge work.
We are taught to think in terms of doing the work as if we are producing some steel utensils in a factory.
When the manager asks, we think “If I stretch a few days, I will be able to achieve the target” and the manager will be delighted by our hard work! But that never happens. Because if you keep promising something beyond your capacity, you can’t deliver it consistently.
So, most of the knowledge-workers oversell and underdeliver.
What’s the solution?
Under-sell and over-deliver
Once you practice this, you’ll be blown away by its simplicity.
First of all, under-selling doesn’t mean that you should lie about what you can deliver.
But contrary to it, it means being realistic about your capacity. Being modest.
By not promising stars to your customer, investor, or boss, you may look a bit less glamorous for the time being. But when you deliver your work, you can delight them by going the extra mile.
This is exactly what Green Trends Salon did to its customers. They marketed themselves as just another mid-level salon chain. Charging a little more than small salons but over-delivering by a magnitude. And in return, customers like me still sing their praises after a decade.
Nithin Kamath wrote something similar a year back on start-ups struggling to keep their investors happy. Especially the ones that had IPOed.
What does it mean for you?
Probably, you have no shareholders to answer to. You might be a small to mid-sized company CEO, employee, or consultant.
How can you help but over-sell yourself? I mean if you don’t over-sell yourself, won’t a competitor, or another department snatch the rewards from you?
In the short-term, maybe. But then, I can’t think of meaningful competition in knowledge work. Take the advertisement field for example. How long would you like to keep your agency hamster-wheeling? It is not only silly but also unsustainable.
Under-selling and over-delivering gives you the most scarce thing in the world: trust.
How do you look at this?
Is there any particular thumb rule that you follow to delight others?
Also, could you spare a moment to express whether you’d like to receive similar types of letters such as this in the future? You know the type where I talk about a process, a strategy, and not solely about tools or software. Thank you for your involvement.
Hit Reply and share your thoughts with me.
Reads of the week:
Milei’s 2024 Davos Speech
I thoroughly relished this AI-translated, dubbed, and lip-synced speech of Javier Milei in Davos last month. (And I don’t think WEF is going to invite him next time because of his excellent verbal slaps) This speech has been watched 100M+ times across different sources and languages.
Milei is a great orator, but I don’t understand Spanish. So, when the AI dubs and lip-syncs the entire speech, it feels nothing less than a spectacle. Yes, the voice is Javier’s. But generated by AI.