Catastrophes Are Highly Desirable - S4E5

Business Jazz

Recorded in Republic of Work, Cork City centre. The podcast starts with Roger & Paul describing what happened the last time they recorded the podcast. A disaster. The episode was lost : the recording equipment failed. That 'catastrophe' led to discussion about "What should a company do when it has a major failure?" All businesses have failures - you have to pick yourself up (2:30) What to do when you have a major disaster (a huge screw-up) - and you want to remain genuinely attractive? There's evidence that when things go wrong - providing you recover well - you become even more attractive to customers. (3:20) People think you're human We all fail. But because of the way you recovered... Your client is a human being as well. You can easily imagine the worst. However, the reaction may not be anger - may be one of understanding. Roger's story about his father's mistake. How he learned from the experience. "What are we going to do about it?" - this is the big question. (6:45) When this is the focus (1) Employee doesn't feel so horrible, they can continue to do their job (2) No energy is wasted on feeling bad, shouting - all energy is directed to solving the problem. There is slight reference to "A no - blame culture". (8:00) Roger's big recommendation: There are three questions that need to be asked when things go wrong (1) Why did it happen? (2) What have you learned from what went wrong? (At Business Jazz - we had a faulty kit, we weren't monitoring the audio, there was an intermittent fault. We weren't monitoring the audio throughout the whole podcast. (3) How do we move on? What's our action plan? (At Business Jazz, we had a 'small' problem - we moved on before we sorted the problem and that led to a much bigger problem.) Paul asks: What if the disaster is big and the cost of fixing it for ever is too high? Should you be going out of business? (14:15 ) This led to discussion of - Example of travel to Mars... - Use of Disclaimers - Insurance to cover failure to deliver. Plus even more discussion of the experience Roger had with Air Canada & Aer Lingus - on his way to Vancouver, Canada. The cost of guarantees Aer Lingus wasn't able to guarantee ... Big praise for Heathrow Airport website is excellent : tells you how to transfer. (19:00) Big emphasis on the importance of really good clear information - presented in a friendly language. Go to Heathrow. Paul & Roger say they'll put the Air Canada email up in shownotes. Paul sent a tweet with a link to the last episode of Business Jazz to Air Canada - but there's no guarantee the CEO got it. Humourous chat about Air Canada. Any other disasters? (24:50) Exxon Valdez oil spill is discussed. Elevator pitch: New TV program Roger would like to make. Roger tells " Do nothing - let the sea clean up" Better than throwing chemicals over the oil. Adding to polution. Oil is of nature - not synthetic. "We're not here to tell people how to clear up an oil slick" How to communicate that to the public in a way that will persuade the public you're being responsible: 1. Be seen to be doing something 2. Do what you can for wildlife 3. Educate people (For example: Why do you think we're transporting oil?) What caused the oil spill? A meteorite fell to earth theory If you have thoughts about oil spills, please get in touch An experiment to try at home: Spill olive oil on water & clean it up. Roger's tip - use lemon juice Contact us please at BusinessJazz.net.