CX Journey

147: Tim Perek: It was a stump the chump moment

Intro Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion, today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today that I think has just so much energy, wisdom and excitement that when I saw him speak at the IQPC’s Contact Center or Customer Experience Executive Exchange in Chicago that I knew I just had to have him on the show and share him with you. Tim Parek grew up in Chicago’s north side on a dead-end street immersed in the sights sounds and smells of the city of broad shoulders. The oldest of three kids, Tim Perek could find his life and his career shaped by those early days, remarkable days riding a CTA bus to St. Ed’s school and munching on Chicago style Vienna hotdogs dragged through the garden, an ideal place to observe and study and relish, no pun intended, the remarkable lives and interests of people around him like Mister Rogers would sing it was always a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Tim’s business schooling began at age eight listening to Ed Perk, his dad, share the latest business intrigue of the day. He was guaranteed a steady stream of priceless customer stories as the two walked to the gas station after dinner to buy a gallon of milk and a pack of Viceroy Cigarettes. A business degree at DePaul University would galvanize those early lessons bringing context to his father’s story telling. All this crafted a perfect alchemy of theory and practice that Tim continues to employ as customer experience leader for Schneider Electric one of the world’s biggest firms that no one has really heard of. Schneider Electric is the global leader in sustainable energy management and industrial automation. Their deep expertise in energy management, automation software and services allows them to integrate and connect operational technologies in ways not possible just a few years ago.

Tim currently lives in Arlington Heights, Illinois with his wife Sue. When he’s not talking to or talking about customers, Tim can be found playing jazz on any piano he can find even in airports, hotel conference rooms or in his basement studio. Tim Perk, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Tim Perek:   Sure, I am Jim. Hello and welcome good to be here.

Jim Rembach:   Well I’m glad to have you. I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better.

Tim Perek:   I got to tell you it’s a lover of customers. I know that sounds sort of like the five love languages but Jim it’s really true. In in all of the years of sales leadership and marketing leadership I’ve always had a passion for customers, an affinity for them and always an eagerness and excitement to learn more and if possible do it face to face.

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so talk about—I had the opportunity to see you speak and I definitely think all that passion and all that came through but Schneider Electric is B to B, so when you start talking about customers face to face and the experience, what does that really look like for you?

Tim Perek:   Jim, you know at first blush you would think, yeah, it’s a lot of gray metal boxes and software but as we all know it gets back to dealing with human beings. All of these customers inside these corporations and these businesses it’s all about people and the basics of relationship. That idea of trust and understanding and sharing really is true and B2B as strong as it is in B2C.

Jim Rembach:   That’s a really interesting point, I think that a lot of people don’t have visibility into that. If you’re just thinking about general consumerism and you going and having relationships with the vendors that you have as a person but I would dare to say that the personal connection in a B2B environment really almost needs to be stronger than it does in a consumer space, is that a wrong assumption? 

Tim Perek:   No, no it’s really true. From the largest customers to the smallest in all of the ethnography work and customer journeys we’ve worked through there is one thing that’s true amongst them all, Jim and that is this—they all asked us one important thing—know me. Know me when I’m a facility manager inside of a data center co-location that gets an alarm at three o’clock in the morning that something is wrong and they pick up a phone to Schneider Electric and we tell them that we understand the problem and we’ve got it taken care of. Three o’clock in the morning you don’t want to be asked whether you have a purchase order or whether you have a warranty with them, customers big and small want us to understand and know them. Know the equipment they have in their facility, know the relationship, know how to do business, know the basics write down what’s the most important to them and what isn’t.

Jim Rembach:   I know that when you start talking about having that type of culture and that type of focus within an organization that could be a challenge when you’re start to talk about all the different brands that you guys have as well as when you start dealing with the different ways that you actually are connecting with, say your customer and even and end consumer. How do you keep that consistency across those brands?

Tim Perek:   You’re exactly right. Over the last 10 years we’ve had an incredible amount of change into this thing called Schneider Electric. So it’s 25 billion in revenue and 41percent of that is in new economies but when you think that in the last 10 years we’ve had more than 200 acquisitions. This idea of the business itself really changing from going to mature markets to new economies from a product based sort of approach to products and systems and services and software from a medium size to a large and a global business and a whole idea of globalization so it’s really difficult. In fact, it really is pointed out I think here mostly in this idea when we talk about culture and changing the culture. Well, you can imagine when you have literally hundreds of companies push together in all parts of the world you can just imagine how many cultures there are and how difficult it is if not impossible to change those cultures. So, yeah it’s quite a challenge.

Jim Rembach:   So as you were talking I started thinking about—when you start talking about people’s personal health they start talking about the big things that kind that are really against you, high blood pressure, diabetes, all these things. When started talking about the size of the company, the globalization, the transformation, the acquisition, I’m like, that’s like—just fall to your knees. When you start thinking about something that has really assisted you guys the most or you know some of the things that you do from a system, how do you actually get these organizations to move forward with you as one? 

Tim Perek:   Well, I think that first realization that you’re not Hercules, you’ve got no cape, but what you can do is have an impact on these individual pieces of the business and the countries and even the regions themselves by what I refer to as changing climate. So the changing the culture is almost impossible but you can change the climate and that climate is an idea of perspective. So, whether it comes down to your employees or your customers or your channels or anyone else your partner’s, your others that are around and surrounding you in that supply chain you can make a difference in that impact. Jim, it’s all about that, it’s agile, it’s small steps in changing and improving the perception of all of those people in your world.

Jim Rembach:   That’s a really great point when you start talking about perspectives, perspective taking it’s of the key elements in emotional intelligence and it does allow you to be more agile. That’s one of the things that I talk about on the Fast Leaders show is that, it isn’t about taking shortcuts, it isn’t about trying to leap over and skip steps in order to move faster it’s really kind of what you said you talked about chunking. You’re chunking things and you’re really taking perspective in order to be able to accelerate when the day is all said and done. 

Tim Perek:   It’s true and I’ve got to tell you that this work that we’re all invested in now and running these businesses really is an alchemy, as you had mentioned in the introduction. Because it is a combination of both aspiration and operation you have to do the tangible things, the efficient things, and the remarkable things in the day-to-day business. But with all of these personalities that we’re touching and interacting with we’ve got to make sure too that we’re aspirational and all of it and that comes to this building of trust. For any relationship whether it’s a spouse or another family member or a friend or a business it’s based in trust. 

And from a company standpoint there are really three pieces that I look at in that trust and that’s this, it is truly being customer-centric and we got to probably talk about what the hell the definition of that—it is innovation and the speed. Those all seem like very strong words but when you walk behind them a little bit you see a different vernacular, a different name, and that includes things like valuing the differences, understanding that culture is about not only of inclusion but that creative unleashing of innovation and that comes from a diverse group a wide range of people with different thinking about problems and empathy and all of that. The second piece that idea of being open and curious, let’s face it innovation gets hampered when it has when it has to come through the filter of closed minded thinking, so you’ve got to have that and that works into that, sort of I don’t know some people call it an innovators DNA, but it’s that key stuff of questioning and observing and networking and experimenting. The third one is this idea of time to think. And I think that’s probably the one most executives really miss is the taking a breath and really taking a look at things and allowing your brain to do that innovation work which includes things like simplifying the way you work to give you that free time and adopting some better rituals in your day to do that. There’s a whole bunch more but those are some of the key pieces, and I know they sound kind of soft Jim, they’re more of a psychology a more of the mind but running a business these days really takes both that left and right side of the brain and if you lean in on one side too hard you’re going to be in trouble.

Jim Rembach:   That really resonates with me and I’m sure it probably does with a lot of other people. One of the things that I was able to pull out of what you’re saying is that it also is very systematic. I can build some processes and have some structure around all of those things. For example I do have my time to think because I think most people can easily fall victim of, hey I’ve made all this other stuff more efficient so therefore I can just do more stuff. But sometimes that reflection thing—ideation does not happen because of activity associated with speed its things that require you to take multiple elements and variables and put them into a new formula and that’s how innovation occurs and you got to have time to do that.

Tim Perek:   It’s true. You said it well, Jim. You really have to do that. There is a difference between rushing and speed. Speed is being attentive, doing the efficient things. It doesn’t mean necessarily rushing because rushing is a different thing and that’s when it gets dangerous.

Jim Rembach:   Some people say, oh that’s just semantics, I think it’s much more to that. 

Tim Perek:   It really is. In fact, if you’d think about this—I saw a piece just had come out by Ceb 

Gardner and they talked about this thing in terms of a winning ticket and they said that when it comes down to really kind of satisfying the customer and making real differentiation through innovation. They had kind of pointed out five different things and one of them if I remember correctly was that idea of kind of personal concern for the customer and personal meaning not only with the employee but also with the customer themselves it’s about that trust that we had talked about. The second piece is this formalizing norms and processes. In what you’re saying there has to be a rhythm to this there has to be purpose. You can’t just wake up every morning just in tune with your thoughts and going wherever you lead you have to be have a good perspective and a clear approach to getting this stuff done so that’s where those norms and those processes come in. The third piece is this idea of financial impact. Because you know Jim, in every one of the meetings that we have there’s the financial guy, there’s the person running the business itself. She has one main thing in mind and that is the impact of your project and of all the other projects she has to decide on and pick. So, we have to remember, I think when it comes to this this culture stuff and CX, that we have to be attentive that we have to know and be clear on what the impact is and does it have real measurement. And of course, in order to have good measurement you’ve got to have a functional goal and then lastly decision certainty. Within those folks in the room when they’re making that decision it has to be completely clear on the hill that you’re trying to attack and at least the presence what the two or three steps are to get there.

Jim Rembach:   I think those are all great points. Gosh, I can see that you guys must do one heck of a concerted effort that’s very intentional in regards to having your leaders go through the understanding of all of this so that they can actually lead because like you had said we can focus on certain things that may cause imbalance the alchemy will cause some toxicity instead of the right mixture. How do you guys actually go through determining the process by which you’re going to educate and help people to be more customer-centric?

Tim Perek:   Jim, I don’t think we have yet. To be totally honest with you that has to be the most difficult thing for any organization to do let alone in this day of globalization. There had been a time, I don’t know 10 20 years ago when the leaders, the C-Suite, the others all sat in a room or sat in a building or sat in a town, the realization is now is that our leaders those making those big decisions their office is now an airplane and they are crisscrossing the world going back and forth, meaning with different people invested in different situations and it is an strikingly difficult to try to get all of these characters together with consensus, one thought, one mind, one message. And least which Schneider does over here is we do try to get together as a leadership group once a year it happens in different places this year we were in Hong Kong to get that done but it’s where we can kind of re-center ourselves to get focus get understanding and then, kind of like a huddle in football, and then coming out for that next play.

Jim Rembach:   Well, I can imagine that going through—just the activities associated with the operating of 25 billion dollar organization, the acquisitions, the, globalization all those things require a whole lot of energy and emotion to keep that focus. One of the things that we like on the Fast Leader Show’s quotes to help us give energy and focus. Is there a quote thing that you can share?

Tim Perek:   Sure Jim. I think it’s this—there are a lot of different ways we can communicate to each other or communicate to our customers but still the best most effective way to do it is face to face. And in that face to face conversation you may not be surprised by the content of what they say but you’ll always be amazed by the intensity that they tell you about it.

Jim Rembach:   I think that’s a great quote, I think that’s so true. I always talk about proximity and the importance of proximity and sometimes you have to simulate that proximity like you talked about this executives flying all over the place. You and I we’ve been doing this interview we tried to initially do it by having the video and seeing us but they didn’t work out too well so we did audio only but one of the reasons I like to do and that is because of that whole—if we can’t get actual face-to-face at least we can simulate it and I think everybody needs to think about that as a primary thing in their mind instead of like whipping out a text or an email or not showing your face.

Tim Perek:   Hmm-hmm it’s true. It really makes a difference and I will say that it changes the context of the audience of the person. In our work that we do I really insist whenever I can not only to use the surveys or the digital interviews, the electronic interviews, but really do that face to face if we can help it ethnography. So just like the video thing that we attempted during the call today to talk to each other and look at each other face to face the video feeds are always important and what’s so good about ethnographies is nothing beats that face on the screen looking at you. So when you are challenging or giving insight to a CEO or a CIO nothing beats that customer staring you in the face and saying what’s on their mind saying what is really bothering them where those pain points are and then that’s the important piece to it, face to face is the deal. 

Jim Rembach:   Definitely. I know even when we started talking about all this business and even personal and leadership challenges is that we’ve had to learn a lot of lessons along the way and there are humps that we have to get over. Can you think about a time when you’ve had to get over a hump that you can share with us?

Tim Perek:   Oh sure, I think it has to do is the kind of the nature of my career and that is the idea of kind of switching from leadership in marketing to leadership in sales. And although they’re very distinct there is a blend to it and I purposefully kind of worked my career out but I could kind of have a sense of confidence of the customer on both sides. But I will tell you there is a difficulty that I face now and then and that is really getting down to the operational piece of including all, let’s back up here a second and I’ll tell you about that. This customer experience customer centricity is a great thing and it allows for a lot of people to think and perceive the daily lives that we have as a business in a different way. But you’ve got to think about the different perspective of those around you, alright? 

Jim Rembach:   So you think about the head of customer experience like I am there are the actors the activators in IT, and sales, and product, operations and customer support and marketing and all of these different organizations. It’s not enough for you to come with your journey map to come with a persona to come with ideation with ideas but you really need to be able to speak in their terms. And as you can kind of think about it as you kind of close your eyes and thinking about each one of these different groups. They each have different needs most likely they have different KPIs and although unequivocally everyone will talk about customer centricity or being interested in the customer to them it remarkably means something quite a bit different. 

Tim Perek:   The hump that I have to face, and I still do to this day, is getting that insight that comes from the customer and to be able to translate it into a tangible set of decisions that all of these functional business managers and leaders can work together to attain. And I’ve got to tell you it’s one of the toughest things to do I think we’ve seen even in a lot of very, very large companies that they have given up on their CX groups to the point where they’ve minimized or reduced them to great lengths and it comes down I think at least in that ability to translate that thoughts and feelings of the customer into tangible actions that deliver revenue. So, the key to it Jim, to this hump, is taking this soft stuff that is the feelings and thoughts and concerns of the customer and translating it into actions that can cause impact and bigger still can get you to  what you really want. What these leaders want, these business leaders and functional and that is meeting their KPIs, meeting revenue goals, meeting share goals, meeting efficiency goals that’s the key to the whole game.

Jim Rembach:   Can you tell us about one of those times where you kind of missed the mark?

Tim Perek:   Well I can, it’s easy to do but I did it in style. And that is I walked in to a bunch of c-suite leaders I had all of my research and data put together there was a beautiful journey map that was probably about eight feet long and in persona pictures and all of that. I walked them through the ideation, I walked them through the prioritization but the moment of truth came and one of them it turned, I don’t know if it’s the CFO or whatever, and he said, Tim this is great and I see the direction and the things that we’ve got to accomplish. If we can accomplish this if we can do what you are showing us needs to be done what’s in it for me? What’s going to be the big difference? And I hadn’t figured it out it was early in my work in this thing and it was sort of a stump the chump moment, Jim. And it makes me realize and it does and did every day is that whenever you’re presenting, whenever you’re giving the findings of research or whatever it gets down to why should this be important to us? There are so many decisions that are being made so many choices. It’s not enough to give the context of a story like every good novel it’s got to have a finish and in this business novel writing that we do every meeting every ask of the leaders you’ve got to point it to a deliverable and to meaningful results. 

Jim Rembach:   I think that’s a really good point. I started thinking to that is it can’t be general nature it has to be very, very specific.

Tim Perek:   It does. And I think you’ve got to take into consideration to all of the other things that are going on. In this case that I had as I had created or the idea was to create an entirely different thing it was a tool for a set of customers and it was going to be a repeat and not leveraging many of the things that had already been done or were being done. So, you’ve got to really be clear as to where you’re sitting on the game on the on the field of what’s going on and be attuned to that so that in the minds and the heads of every one of these people sitting here making tough decisions. Your plan is clear and they have a clear understanding and trust of what the results are going to be if they go ahead and say yes?

Jim Rembach:   So when you start thinking about all this business activity that’s going on—we talked about the company size, the acquisitions, the transformation, the transitions, the pivots all of that stuff even your own personal jazz playing, you got a lot of things going on. What’s one of your goals?

Tim Perek:   Well I think there’s a combination of two things and we’ll use the analogy of jazz. There is an allowance for a lot of improvisation we’ll say. I try to do that and even within my teams I make sure that I don’t have the expectations and the rituals and the process it’s so tight that I’m limiting their creativity and limiting their possibilities of what they can come up with and it goes for myself as well it’s this kind of careful dance in between the two. You want improvisation but you’ve got to be on key. You’ve got to be playing together so you think of a jazz band everybody is doing their own thing but they’re also playing in the correct time, in the correct measure, in the correct tone, all of it has to be balanced out and that’s kind of the secret to this stuff. I’ll tell you what, it’s all it’s very, very easy in the idea of change and change culture to kind of come up with crazy ideas. It’s another thing to build that through that idea into a strategic actionable set of goals and achievements to get the job done.

Jim Rembach:   And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor. 

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Jim Rembach:   Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay Tim, the Hump day Hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So, I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Tim Parek, are you ready to hoedown?

Tim Perek:   I’m ready, Jim let’s go.

Jim Rembach:   Alright, what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Tim Perek:   Oh, the fastest—it’s making decisions quick but making them good. 

Jim Rembach:   What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Tim Perek:   I’d say trust yourself but not too much.

Jim Rembach:   What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Tim Perek:   Always trust the customer more than yourself. 

Jim Rembach:   What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Tim Perek:   Nothing beats a personal conversation. Stay off of email when you can and the time is right pick up the phone and have a personal conversation.

Jim Rembach:   What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, it could be from any genre?

Tim Perek:   The book would be Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader Legion you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fastleader.net/Tim Parek. Okay, Tim, this is my last hump day hoedown question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. So, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

Tim Perek:   I would take back with me the understanding that the customer knows what they need and what they want and drive back into that and ask that extra question.

Jim Rembach:   Why?

Tim Perek:   Well it’s pretty simple. I think we often sit even as people within a business will sit at a conference room and we can say, hey five years ago I carried a bag I know about that customer I know what they really need but we really don’t. Things are happening in our lives and in the lives of our customers and we need to validate those hunches that we have into tangible feelings and thoughts and pain points of the customer so that we’re sure that we’re giving them the best that we can be. 

Jim Rembach:   Tim, it was spend time with you today. Can you please share with the Fast Leader legion how they can connect with you?

Tim Perek:   Sure. You can get me on LinkedIn or you can just give me an email on timperek@gmail.com

Jim Rembach:   Tim Perik, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

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