Technology is great; GREAT service is even better!

Ok, here’s the scene. You travel to a country you’ve never been to before and don’t speak the native language. You order an “uber’ish” service to take you to your hotel but the designated pickup area is closed for construction and you have no way of knowing where the new pickup area is and NOBODY speaks English to help you.

Such was the scene when I arrived in hashtag#Guangzhou, hashtag#China ????yesterday for a business trip. While my driver waited in the new pickup area which I couldn’t find, I increasingly got frustrated as everyone I tried to ask for help was dismissive because we didn’t speak the same language and were unable to communicate with each other. Some blatantly ignored me and turned their backs as if I wasn’t there, as I tried to communicate to no avail. This went on for about 20 minutes until I got to a policeman in a golf cart.

Like all the others, he didn’t speak English either and I still didn’t speak hashtag#Mandarin but he could sense my frustration and was determined to help. Now the technology he had in his pocket to speak in Mandarin and have it translated to English is something I’m sure most of the others I tried communicating with had as well. However, technology wasn’t the solution here.

He cared enough and wanted to serve in my hour of need enough that he thought how can I help ? My pointing and verbalizing made him understand where I was trying to get to and didn’t know how. He took the time, spoke Mandarin into his phone, received the English translation, then held it up for me to take a picture of to help guide me. The image below is that picture.

I’ve recently become familiar with the term “creative empathy”. In essence, it means putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and using your creative imagination to devise a solution to their problem. As business professionals, that should be our goal. In working with our customers, our prospects, our partners, our employees, our colleagues, and other stakeholders, let’s do our utmost to put ourselves in their shoes by LISTENING to their challenges and using our creative and active imagination to develop comprehensive solutions to their problems. This is how we will advance society one step at a time and one solution at a time. Thanks again Mr. Officer or to use one of the 3 hashtag#Mandarin phrases I’ve since learned, … “謝謝 Xièxiè”

#OneLove #TechTalkAndTings #CreativeEmpathy