Tag Archives: Listening

The politics of great coffee

30 Jan

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My cousin is a coffee nut. She’s an aficionado. Coffee is important to her. She appreciates good coffee.

What I mean is, when she forks out between $3.50 – $4.50 for a takeaway coffee she hopes it’s going to be well made.

The problem is that you can count on your hand the number of places where the coffee is properly made. Where there’s a trained barista working the ‘piano.’ Where the taste and the blend, the colour and thickness of the froth are just as important as the silly leaf pattern.

She can be embarrassing too, this cousin of mine. It’s pretty confronting going to get a coffee with her. You know why? She speaks her mind. She tells them if the coffee is not up to her standards. She tells them and I back slowly away.

I’m tainted with that english politeness. Here in Australia, we were colonised by the British and that’s one of the hangovers. Politeness. We tend to seethe not speak up. We vote with our feet.

Is that good? NO.

Last week my cuz was in her local cafe (she lives out of Sydney.) She happened to compliment the young lady making the coffee. It was good. Up to her standards. The owner overheard this and exclaimed … ‘Oh. Coffee politics!’

No it’s not coffee politics at all. If you run a cafe, you make coffee. The coffee is supposed to be good at a cafe, hence the name … cafe.

Is it strange to expect your customers to not care about the coffee you serve?

Go on. Invest in your self, your staff.

Train them up. Give them the goal to make prize winning coffee. Make them proud!

And, get out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley … Ode to a Control Freak

3 Nov

ImageI had an amusing english teacher at High School. He had a loud voice and a pompous manner. He liked to peer at the more rebellious among us and proclaim quite stentoriously ‘shut up son or I’ll belt you!’ And back then, he did and they could. Under this man’s iron fisted rule I learned about certain poets and poetry. The only poem that I can still recite is Ozymandius:

‘I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…’

The poet was that great pioneer of pop star literati poet loser Percy Shelley. He also wrote Ode to a Grecian Urn amongst other treasures. But Ozymandius has always fascinated me. A monumental king of kings > all gone, boom! Just a pile of dust.

Which brings me back to the blog. Control freaks. I kind of love them.

Just recently I was involved at a workplace. The minute I arrived and set up, a person was there, next to me.

Not to be at all sexist here, but it was a lady. A women. You know, the other sex.

She fixed me with her glaring gaze and started to let me know how things were done ‘around here.’ I nodded and smiled and occasionally muttered a phrase of complete understanding like ‘yeah sure.’ But I could see that she (who could have easily been a he) was lost somewhere. Maybe she was in the desert looking at the gigantic monument and trying to make out the visage. All I know is that she was on her own planet and i was only docking for a while.

Now, I’m experienced. I’ve been around the block a few times.

To be honest, I could have been a waiter at the last supper.

I’m skilled and reliable and people relate to me. When I teach they might not learn everything, but they have a good time, which makes for good learning. I use humour a lot to bring people back into the room and off their Iphones. It works for me. I get great feedback. All you have to do is tell me where and when, the topic/subject, any materials and leave me to it.

But this person, lets call them Ozzie had to control me. Why?

Well I thought about it later. What drives a control freak? Insecurity? A need for power? Recognition? Panic? Fear?

All of the above.

Control freaks should read some Shelley and start with Ozymandius.

‘I met a traveller from an antique land who said …’

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What gets you up in the morning?

27 Oct

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A good friend of mine and my former boss applied for a position with a company the other day. He was contacted by phone and one of the questions he was asked in a semi formal telephone interview was ‘What gets you up in the morning?’

I thought about that. Why he was asked that question when he was obviously a highly qualified and experienced candidate with a huge background and lots of runs on the board?

How do you answer that?

What’s the question driving at?

Some answers might be:

“I love my work. I’m lucky!”

“My kids school fees.”

“Life gets me up.”

“The smell of the coffee brewing.”

“The alarm clock.”

Sometimes it seems that HR people want to hear responses so that they won’t hire great people.

I know there must be some deep psychology behind that question, I just don’t know what it is, and I’m not criticising the HR person here. I’m sure they know why?

I get up for all the aforementioned reasons.

And I’m lucky … I do love my work. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.

Doing the absolute best that I can is just something that was hardwired in me by parents and circumstances.

But the barriers are put up. The hurdles to jump over.

People don’t score well in interviews for many reasons. Possibly the same reasons why different kids get bullied at school. They are different, unique, smart, sometimes odd, and … they don’t run with any pack.

As we all know, a lot of those kids went on to start up global phenomenons in the fields of art, business, music.

Let’s try and let the sometimes awkward ones in and lead them well. Stop putting up the hurdles.

Give them the confidence to do what they do best.

Do better things differently.

Revolutionise.

I believe it’s called constant improvement.

I just noticed that the clock is set to wake me at 8.02 PM. Better change that.

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