Tag: the new normal

The March Of Dimes & Funeral Service

Written by Alan Creedy on January 10, 2024. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 4 Comments on The March Of Dimes & Funeral Service

The March of Dimes was founded in 1938 by Franklin D. Roosevelt to eradicate Infantile Paralysis (Polio).

With the advent of Jonas Salk’s vaccine in the early 1950’s the disease was largely eradicated in the Western World. In 1994 the United States was the first nation to be certified “Polio Free.”

What does this have to do with Funeral Service?

Metaphorically, the history of The March of Dimes is instructive to the history of Funeral Service.

By 1976 Polio was so rare in the U.S. that most people thought the battle was won. But by then, the March of Dimes had become an institution. It had local chapters, it had employees, it had facilities, it even had a budget. It had successfully raised millions of dollars.

The stakeholders were faced with a dilemma. “What do you do when what you do loses its relevance?”

Fortunately, they had some smart people who were able to step outside of themselves and think about what’s next. In my imagination I can hear them saying:

“Let’s see…we have a dedicated and successful staff, we have a globally recognized brand, we have a system and a network, we have competency in operating a charitable organization, we are well – connected. and so on.”

History would suggest that they realized that they had more going for them than not. They just needed to reimagine (not reinvent) their purpose in a way that their strengths would carry them forward. Today, they are still globally recognized as an important resource in the fight against birth defects.

Funeral Service has reimagined itself more than once in the last 175 years. I doubt Joseph Gawler in 1850 even imagined the advent of embalming. Yet a mere 30 years after the founding of Gawlers the first embalming school was established. Likewise, I doubt he could have foreseen the day when manufactured caskets would supplant the home-built coffin.

Funeral Service has progressed and developed continuously here in America. The skill sets important in Joseph Gawler’s day are largely irrelevant today.

So, what do we have going for us? Well, people still die and will for the foreseeable future. Families still have need of someone to help with the process of disposal. What they seem to be moving away from is the furniture. At the same time, those who have begun to develop the skill of “Appreciative Inquiry” in the arrangement interview are discovering that they still want to honor the dead and interact in, what used to be, unconventional ways. The public does, in fact, care. We just haven’t yet developed the skill of helping them do it the way they feel is appropriate to them. A few have, but most are still locked into the furniture mindset. The funeral professionals who have, are experiencing renewed enthusiasm, renewed relevance and increased customer loyalty. It’s a new skill set. I think that skill set is well suited to most funeral director’s personality. It’s just a different approach.

The Takeaway:

Things change. Your task is to discern which of the old practices are “babies” and which is the “bathwater” and then to adjust accordingly by learning and leaning into the skill sets appropriate to our times.

Six Blind Funeral Directors – 2nd installment

Written by Alan Creedy on May 15, 2023. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 19 Comments on Six Blind Funeral Directors – 2nd installment

Six Blind Funeral Directors – 2nd installment

A Rational Approach To The Future

Last week we explored the theoretical approach to our future using the allegory of the Six Blind Funeral Directors. This week we explore a Rational Approach.

Our first question is: What do we know?

We know that our market has changed and most of us have not. We know that the public wants something different, but we aren’t sure what it is. We know that we are spending more time explaining our value to the public and to ourselves than we used to. We also know we aren’t completely sure what our value is…at least, in consumer terms. We know what customers should do and at the same time we know what they don’t want to do.

30 years ago, our product was simple. Society defined what to do when someone died and thereby defined value. Consumers only had two choices to make: which funeral home to use and what merchandise to buy. Today, our product is complex. Society is no longer dictating what to do but it is inferring what not to do. So, the definition of value has become ambiguous. Without the necessary clarity value defaults to price. For the first time in our country’s history, doing nothing is an option.

Rationally, we must be assertive in defining value and expressing it in a way that connects with the public. This is both difficult and stressful because funeral service has always been passive, unobtrusive and servile in its relationship with the market. When societal norms were in our favor, that made sense. But if we want to reverse current trends, we are going to have to take responsibility and become assertive. Fortunately, there is much to say in our defense…we just have to say it in the right way.

The second question is: What is the right way?

Consumers are already telling us the answer. They want a collaborative interactive approach. They want the funeral director to be more active as a mentor and muse helping them define meaning and a realistic, practical way to express why the life of the deceased mattered. It really isn’t any harder than that.

The conventional arrangement conference has highly transactional overtones. When society told us what to do, that made sense. Consumers, today, find that approach objectionable. So, our first step is to learn how to make funeral arrangements in collaborative ways with mutually beneficial outcomes. I like to refer to that method as “Appreciative Inquiry.” I borrowed that term from Organizational Theory. If you look up the definition in Wikipedia it will give you a good idea of how it is different.

Some of you are aware that Danny Jefferson and I have launched a consulting company called Two Guys and a Question. We train funeral directors how to Merchandise their Service Charge. We rely heavily on appreciative inquiry which results in greater bonding with family. That, in turn, creates a safe environment for people to explore options. This exploration results in increased average sale as well as increased volume.

Next week: Chapter 3 A Contextual Approach

Covid – 19 and The Reinvention of Spring Burials

Written by Alan Creedy on April 21, 2020. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 4 Comments on Covid – 19 and The Reinvention of Spring Burials

Covid – 19 and The Reinvention of Spring Burials

Talking with funeral directors across the nation and Canada I am hearing (as you are experiencing) that you are busy but the services are mostly abbreviated or direct. So your revenue is deeply affected. Many wonder what funeral service will be like after we struggle to return to normal.

I am a “true believer” in the value of gathering. I believe that humans need to be together during times like these which leads me to conclude that, no matter what the proponents of electronic funerals say, nothing will ever really replace a human hug. This social distancing thing is the proper approach but it ignores the need for human connection and is, therefore unnatural. I suspect, at an unconscious level, many of your customers and their friends are feeling this.

At the risk of seeming arrogant, I think that if I were in your place I would seriously consider reinventing the spring burial.

Years ago funeral homes in colder climates would hold a funeral for those who died in winter and then postpone the burial until the ground thawed. They would store the casketed body. Hence: “Spring Burial.” If I were you I would make a presumptive close with each family (including cremations). I would say something like:

“It’s unfortunate we can’t have a full gathering and service with people present. We have learned that human interaction at the physical level is critical to the healing process. So we are scheduling memorial services for later this year. We have openings for June 17. Would that be a good date for you? That way everyone would know when to schedule to come.”

For those that don’t elect to choose that option I would hold, at a date in the fall, a community gathering to celebrate all the deaths. I might have a bell I rung as each name were read aloud. I would invite not only the families but the community. (remember, by then, people will be looking for human contact). I might even host a barbecue. BUT VERY DEFINITELY, I would stand up and address the attendees to this community life celebration and remind them why gathering is so important to the healing process.

My two cents…take it or leave it.

Inside the Mind of Funeral Consumers

Written by Alan Creedy on July 31, 2018. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, The Video Blog, Video, Video Gallery. 5 Comments on Inside the Mind of Funeral Consumers

Several years ago the Funeral Service Foundation commissioned an unorthodox market research project. They retained one of the foremost market research firms – Olson Zaltman – to study the funeral consumer’s unconscious thoughts about funerals. They broke the research into two segments:

What consumers actually thought about funerals at the unconscious level
What consumers actually want in the form of their own service

The results were profound but, as with so many other things, it got lost in the day – to – humdrum that is funeral service. Of the funeral homes that have applied the findings, all have had significant consumer response and success.

Here is the first segment of a powerful video on how you can actually disrupt your own funeral market.

This week: what people really think about funerals, funeral homes and funeral directors.

https://youtu.be/ZknO0bZV_oU

Reinvention: Islands of Excellence In A Sea of Mediocrity

Written by Alan Creedy on July 14, 2014. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 7 Comments on Reinvention: Islands of Excellence In A Sea of Mediocrity

“one cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it.”

Peter Drucker

The Cornerstone Assumption of the funeral side of DeathCare is that being nice is the same as being effective. Our “worldview” of being nice people is that we must never, ever make waves or create awkwardness. We run pell-mell from any form of confrontation. This is an inherently flawed “worldview” but it is, nevertheless, the one that prevails and pervades the profession of funeral directing.

There is a consequence to this worldview. In fact, two come to mind. First,we rarely, if ever, stand up for ourselves.

But the second and more dangerous of the two is our overwhelming tolerance of mediocrity. Our almost pathological preference for conflict-avoidance leads to almost universal passive aggressive cultures in which:

“More energy is put into thwarting things than accomplishing things…but in the nicest way”

I am unwilling to believe that people don’t know this.

In fact, I believe that most practitioners are very much aware of it but since no one ever calls anyone to account and very, very few firms actually hold themselves and their staffs to high standards there is a mutual secret of complacency.

Whoa…Wait A Darn Minute…Alan!!! WE HAVE HIGH STANDARDS…YOU NEED TO COME SEE OUR FUNERAL HOME!!!!

Sorry, I have seen it and, frankly, the Emperor has no clothes.

In his book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” Patrick Lencioni discusses “Artificial Harmony” where fear of conflict leads to behaviors that mask true issues and avoid accountability. You are confusing Artificial Harmony with “fire-in-the-gut” passion for doing what is best for your customers. I know this because you are choosing to lay down and let your customers run over you when you know better.

But you are right. Before I go further we do need to stop here and draw a line. First, all human organizations are, to one extent or another, dysfunctional. This does not mean they are bad. Nor does it mean they are not occasionally effective. But it almost always means they are not optimal. Unfortunately, in DeathCare, it too often means they are mediocre even when they think they hung the moon. In fact, there is a correlation between “moon-hanging” and secret mediocrity. There is only one road to health and that is recognizing and accepting that there is a necessary tension between your current norms and the ideal you are hopefully working toward. Improvement requires you embrace that tension…something most DeathCare practitioners are loathe to do.

How do I know?

There are several ways, some subjective others scientific.

SUBJECTIVE OBSERVATION: I have a very close acquaintance. She is very likely a genius. She is also mentally ill. Early in her career she had a byline with either Time or Newsweek (I can never remember which) and The Journal of Commerce. This was a remarkable accomplishment for a woman in her 30’s in the 1960’s and 70’s. She is now and has been for many years unable to work. If I did not know her well, however, it would be almost impossible for me to detect that her take on reality was not true. I once asked a psychiatrist friend how he could possibly diagnose such a case. He told me that it was impossible in the first visit and often for the first 3 or 4 visits. But, ultimately, the patient can’t keep their story straight. Cracks appear and then you begin to see the real truth. And so it is with a human organization. Observe long enough and the cracks appear in the veneer. Not long ago I did a project for a very progressive and impressive firm. This firm “had it together”. While there I observed an incident. I concluded it was an aberration in the culture. Recently, I had occasion to interact with the same firm. During that interaction I observed a different incident with a different employee resulting in the same aberrant behavior. The cracks appear. No one is perfect. Artificial Harmony.
SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT: I use an assessment tool called an Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI). REMEMBER, I prefer to teach people to fish. That means that I want you to be well so you can function independent of me in the future. This tool has been used for decades to assess all manner of organizations across virtually every culture in the world. The research company that developed it (Human Synergistics) has found that cultures that produce optimal performance (Ideal Cultures) vary from country to country. The assessment produces a visual diagram of organizational culture called a circumplex. By comparing your company’s circumplex with the ideal you can focus in on what you need to do to improve your culture from its current norms to the ideal norms. It gets everyone pulling in one direction. Very effective and fairly rapid. Here is the ideal culture for the United States.

As a simplistic overview the Circumplex is divided into three parts: Constructive, Passive-Defensive and Aggressived Defensive. Ideal Cultures…those that produce optimal results…are almost always constructive styles. Here is a composite of actual funeral home norms:

Obviously quite a difference. What I want you to notice is that the strongest parameter, which is in green (part of the passive defensive culture) is avoidance. Here is a direct quote on that behavior at the individual level:

“The Avoidance style reflects apprehension, a strong need for self-protection, and a propensity to withdraw from threatening situations. People high in this style “play it safe” and minimize risks, shy away from group activities and conversations, and react to situations in an indecisive and non-committal way.”

Be careful here. You may think this is not you. But this circumplex included some very highly respected firms. Can you begin to see why I believe we have such a high tolerance for mediocrity?

3. THE NAKED TRUTH: I have a hypothesis I have been trying out lately. So far I am hitting 100%. I don’t like it. You won’t either. But if we are going to get well it needs to be said. Here is what I think happens. You get out of mortuary school. You go to work at a funeral home. Maybe your own family funeral home. You do removals, you embalm, you oversee visitations, you drive family cars, you lead processions and then one day…out of the blue…the funeral home is real busy that day…you are minding your own business and they get one…more…call. Someone hands you a folder, tells you the family will be here to make arrangements at 2:00 and you need to make arrangements…by yourself…unsupervised. When I first posed that hypothesis I was not expecting the response I got. Many of you can still name the family after 20 and 30 years. Some remember you were told not to worry “it’s only a cremation family”. Others remember the day of the week. But, so far no one has suggested it was different. THAT SEEMS TO BE THE SUM TOTAL OF YOUR ARRANGEMENTS TRAINING. If this is true then it explains the inability of the profession to defend itself. It explains the low self image that characterizes us. It explains our codependency relationship with our casket companies. It explains a lot. Best of all it can be fixed!!! and fast. And it gives me hope.

THE GREAT TEASE

I really try to keep these under 700 words I am almost double that on this one. Here is what I want to tell you. I have found the Islands of Excellence in our Sea of Mediocrity…the real answers. Thanks to the recent research completed by the Funeral Service Foundation we now have a much better sense of what consumers are looking for. I have found solutions for the Arrangement Conference. I have found the mechanisms that will permanently transform you and your culture into a high performing culture.

Next week I will share a little of that with you and my plans to help those who are willing to rediscover some of that “fire-in-the-belly” passion. Let me leave you with this:

I continue to believe we stand at the threshold of the single biggest opportunity in the history of DeathCare. The transformation will not be painless but the pain will be tolerable. It will require investment but that investment will not be out of the reach of even the most humble willing to make it. Best of all many of you will rediscover your purpose. The only real barrier will be our attitude.

Is this REALLY a Hill Worth Dying on?

Written by Alan Creedy on March 25, 2013. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 4 Comments on Is this REALLY a Hill Worth Dying on?

I think I can make a very strong case that funeral service as a profession makes a vital social contribution to society. For me that makes it a noble profession. Unfortunately, the profession doesn’t act with nobility as often as so many of us would wish.

Not long ago I spoke of Alpha Dogs and observed that one way to recognize them is their obsession with fighting lost wars. In a very recent Wall Street Journal article was this headline

A Casket Cartel and the Louisiana Way of Death

We have enough strings to push up hill without this kind of publicity:

“It didn’t take a divine revelation to recognize that funeral directors were using the law, the government licensing entity they controlled, and their political clout to monopolize the lucrative casket market…In ruling for the monks this week, however, the Fifth Circuit held that the Constitution prohibits laws that amount to “naked transfers of wealth” to industry cartels.” Quoted from the article

This has to fall in the category of “what are you thinking?” Can’t you come up with something less politically popular to fight about?

Of course, as with Pennsylvania, we should expect this to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Thank you guys for making it harder for the rest of us to earn respect.

“If You Find You Are Riding A Dead Horse The Best Strategy is…

Written by Alan Creedy on March 19, 2013. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 9 Comments on “If You Find You Are Riding A Dead Horse The Best Strategy is…

to dismount.”

Archimedes once said, “Give me a lever long enough and I will move the world”

For the last 30 years we have been pushing harder and harder on one and only one lever with diminishing results and it’s time we stopped.

Many of you, dear readers, know that I have been a bible student most of my adult life. The parallel between our behavior and this one lever has always struck me as akin to idol worship. 30 years ago it was amusing. Today it is tragic.

Having said that and before I continue let me be clear: I am NOT pointing a finger of blame. In the context of the times the behavior is fully understandable. Further, both sides to the resulting co-dependent relationship are equally complicit AND should now forge a new and different relationship because they still need each other. (emphasis on different)

Historically, until 1984 and the passage of the infamous FTC rule, society pretty much dictated what you did when someone you loved died. As a result, customers only had two decisions to make: 1. which funeral home; and 2. what merchandise. Everything was SIMPLE. Then everything changed. Not just because of the FTC. That was only a facilitative event. Because society lost its ability to cause conformity. Seemingly people could make alternative choices (including nothing at all) with no apparent ill effects. We began to experience our now increasing decline in relevancy.

Because customers only had one decision to make once they had selected a funeral home there was only one financial lever available with which to impact revenue. This:

Of course you can also increase volume. But that can take years because the public continues to stubbornly refuse to die at our convenience.

From this single lever grew a “co-dependent” relationship that is also understandable. Tacitly, manufacturers agreed to make practitioners their sole source of distribution and practitioners developed an over reliance (dependence) on the manufacturer for strategic direction. That was great when their challenges and goals were aligned. Unfortunately, that is no longer true. So, for 30 years now we have responded to a market turning away from traditional burial by pushing harder and harder on the one lever. This may be what has caused the cremation rate to spike by 250% in 2008. Who knows?

This is where the idol parallel strikes me. Families today don’t know what they want or need! To meet this challenge requires people skills. Skills like listening, guiding, teaching, relationship and trust building. To paraphrase god, “your idols cannot speak, they cannot listen, they cannot guide.” In fact, if they have any influence at all it is mostly negative.

Should the casket companies close up and go home? Should we stop selling caskets? Emphatically NO! But the question is begged:

“How is pushing so hard on that lever working for you?”

Instead a new alliance should be formed. Caskets need to take their rightful place as merchandise we sell…not “what we are.” We need, as a profession, to realize that we offer something valuable to society. For all of history mankind has demonstrated consistent needs when dealing with loss. Our current society is ignoring those needs but that doesn’t make them any less real. Replacing our real value to society with a piece of furniture only encourages that irrelevance. I think that for those who want burial we can do both. For those who want cremation we have a moral obligation to help them understand their needs. That means that instead of investing in a new selection room you need to invest in training.

I know both the funeral director side and the vendor side. The casket obsession has impaired the ability to adapt on both sides. U.S. vendors are severely hampered by their inability to become efficient both in distribution and in manufacturing by simple things that wouldn’t exist outside a co-dependent relationship. For instance, they have all realized that they would be dramatically better off by limiting the number of SKU’s they carry. At a recent supplier sales meeting I assured them there was not a funeral director in the country that wouldn’t support a reduction if it would hold down wholesale costs “AS LONG AS THEY CONTINUED TO SUPPLY THEIR FAVORITES.”

We are both (vendors and practitioners) in the same boat. It’s sinking. We should talk.

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe a box can replace a caring ear, an experienced word of wisdom.

Esse Quam Videri

Written by Alan Creedy on February 12, 2013. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, General Topics. 3 Comments on Esse Quam Videri

I have to admit I tense up whenever someone begins using the Ritz Carlton as an example Funeral Service should use to fashion its own customer service profile. Not that we can’t learn some things from the Ritz. We most certainly can! But it is a dangerous recommendation when we fail to “Go Deep” on the pain and effort it took for the Ritz to get to that level of service. Another example of mistaking form for substance.

I have now lived in North Carolina for almost 28 years. Within a year or so of arriving I noticed that the state motto is “Esse Quam Videri” which is latin for:

“To Be Rather Than To Seem”

I can’t find anyone who knows the genesis of that motto but I like it and have adopted it for my own. It’s a good standard and it’s good to have a standard. Especially when you fail to meet it. And that is really the story of the Ritz Carlton.

All too often we see something that works somewhere and we adopt what we see without really understanding the substance behind it. For the past 20 years I have witnessed many main line denominational churches send committees out to study the exploding megachurch movement. All come back with the outer cosmetic trappings. They change the music and often the ambiance but they never get to the deeper essence of what is really causing those churches to grow the way they do.

In the mid 1980’s, on behalf of my clients, I made a case study of the Ritz Carlton. They were then, as they are now, extremely gracious. It was entirely open book. I was introduced to the whole story of blood, sweat and tears or rather the herculean 10 year single-minded effort of Horst Schulz and his merry band of executives as they set about changing the culture of the Ritz. No small effort.

And that is really my point. Adopting “country club manners” was only the visible part. The focus and intentionality of achieving their vision was, by far, the most impressive. You see, it is not enough at the Ritz Carlton to ACT like a lady or a gentleman. You must actually BE a lady or a gentleman. And that is the key to any successful organizational change.

Your DNA must change

My wife and I have become addicts of Masterpiece theater’s “Downton Abbey“. In the presence of the Lords and Ladies the “help” puts on their best face. But downstairs in the servant’s work area they are as dysfunctional as any funeral home staff I have ever met. At the Ritz that would not be tolerated. The turnover rate at the average hotel (luxury or otherwise) is startling high. The Ritz turnover is a fraction of the industry average but it is still about 25%. That is partly because at the Ritz if you can’t BE a lady or gentleman…you simply can’t stay.

Click here for a copy of the Ritz Carlton Values Card

Click here for a copy of the Ritz Carlton Baldridge Award Application

The Road To Reclaiming Our Future

Written by Alan Creedy on February 4, 2013. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 2 Comments on The Road To Reclaiming Our Future

There is a way to a better future for Funeral Service. In fact, for those who are willing to closely examine the Sacred Cows I truly believe we will rediscover that we make a vital contribution to society. I say that not only because I have believed it for more than 30 years but because I believe history and our own experience, especially history of our most recent past bears this out.

But I digress. Soren Kierkegaard once said,

“Life can only be understood
backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

For us to be able to begin moving forward we must begin with our own Sacred Cow: The Funeral Service WorldView. And to understand that it is important to understand how it came to be.

In the fall of 1996 an article appeared in MIT’s Sloan Management Review that, for the first time, shed light on why organizations have so much trouble adapting to change or, as the author Edgar Schein Professor of Management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, called it “learning.” And that is really the problem, isn’t it? We, as an industry, are having a problem with learning.

The Three Cultures of Management

Schein established that within every organization there were basically three cultures or communities:

Operator Culture
Engineering Culture
Executive culture

For the sake of our discussion let me reclassify these as follows:

Operator = Licensees and staff
Engineering = Manufacturer vendors, suppliers and accountants
Executive = Owners

Clearly in smaller and medium size firms operators and owners are mingled but the cultures still exist.

Schein pointed out that while these cultures all share the same space and are trying to solve the same problems they necessarily have different worldviews, different needs and different agendas. Schein made it clear, and I agree with him, that all of these differences were legitimate and many were necessary. The breakdown occurs only in the resultant “Silos” that occur because the 3 cultures don’t know how to talk with each other. In the end, however it is how they view people in the equation that is telling and also critical to breaking this cycle. Here is a grid showing how these cultures think:

It is important to note that engineers strive to engineer people “out” of solutions because they believe people make things messy. Hence, the successful advent of the “people free” show room of the 1970’s and the ongoing but unsuccessful reengineering of same over the succeeding years. I say unsuccessful because not only are people buying lower and lower quality caskets, fewer and fewer people are buying caskets at all. Of course, both the executive and the operator cultures embraced this innovation eagerly but for different reasons. For executives, it made them less dependent on the abilities of individual staff and for operators it allowed them to avoid being “seen” as sales people and being held responsible for results.

Cultural WorldViews

The Chart below shows how I envision the various stakeholders in funeral service overlaid on Schein’s cultural map.

Prior to the 1970’s all of these cultures functioned in reasonable harmony for one reason: We sold a “SIMPLE” product. A simple product is defined as one in which few decisions are required and buyer and seller are normally in mutual agreement. Up to that time the only real decision a customer needed to make was: “Which Casket”. As a result, the casket manufacturer became the dominant influence in the industry.

What has changed from that time is that we now sell a “COMPLEX” product. Not only is there a much larger number of variables involved including different roles between buyer and seller but a historic new variable has been introduced: In addition to “why buy from you?” is added “Why buy at all?”

The answer to this problem is a people solution and engineers cannot comprehend a people solution and executives would prefer it not be a people solution. Compounding this is the very nature of the culture of funeral service itself.

Our Universal Passive-Aggressive Culture is Our Achilles Heel

For a while now I have been helping my clients address this issue through the use of an instrument called the Organizational Culture Inventory developed by Human Synergistics. Human Synergistics is a world renowned company that measures cultures and cultural changes within organizations all over the world. They are working with me now to do a research study on funeral homes to see the impact of cultural change on performance. By measuring current cultural norms in a given organization and simultaneously defining how that organization envisions the ideal culture for high performance gaps are identified in a visual way. In this way members of that organization see those gaps and begin discussing, first, their own deficiencies and, second, how they can close those gaps. It can be very exciting.

The chart below is the actual result of a classic funeral home. I have done enough of these now to say that even in the most admired and supposedly best run funeral homes I expect to see results like these. Without going into detail which I will do in a future article, the primary culture here is Dependent. This means that most of the people in the organization are “waiting to be told what to do.” By the way this includes the owner. The secondary culture is Perfectionistic. You will be tempted to interpret this as “getting everything perfect.” That would be wrong. In fact, it means “working long hours and enduring.” Perfect seamless product delivery is measured in the Achievement scale.

The results here show me in some detail why change is so difficult in funeral service and among funeral staff. It is not the purpose of today’s article to go into that. Suffice to say when these issues are surfaced in healthy dialogue in contrast to the “Ideal” culture most people begin moving toward the ideal. For now it is enough that over the years funeral service has become a “waiting to be told what to do” culture (owners and staff alike). Traditionally, it has received its marching orders from the Casket Manufacturers (an engineering culture).

So, you have a “Waiting to be told what to do” culture waiting on an engineering culture to tell it what to do for a problem that doesn’t have and never did have an engineering solution. It has a people solution which both Executive and Engineering cultures are ill-equipped to solve.

But lest you point fingers let’s remember that it is in the nature of the Engineering culture to design people out of systems. Just as it is in your nature to wait to be told what to do. And you can hardly fault them for fitting their solution into your problem. A solution which you so eagerly embraced. Unfortunately, as time has proven the paradigm (sacred cow) that the casket is central to the value of a funeral has proven a false one. Which is why I am so dramatic when I tell my clients to get their noses out of the selection room. Your solution isn’t in there.

What would I do?

As the 2020 Project unfolds in the next few months resources will be made available. Right now you need to stop seeing merchandise sales a solution. If you are an owner, you need to prepare yourself to deal with the reality that you are contributing to the problem. Before you get your back up on that issue please be aware that only makes you normal. But awareness and willingness to accept responsibility for it makes you leagues above most business leaders. Some years ago I took the certification course for administering an executive 360 degree assessment. This particular assessment is considered one of the top 3 or 5 in the world and in my class was a senior level partner from Booz & co. I happened to sit next to her and when I found out her rank in her company I asked her why she was taking the course. She shared with me that they had done the assessment on the CEO of a Fortune 100 company and that it was so bad they decided the news had to be delivered by someone of her rank and she drew the short straw. She figured she better get certified before she met with him.

My point is we all have issues and while you Mr Business Owner have issues you are not nor will you ever be the Sole Contributor. But until you are willing to participate and change yourself there can be no hope for your organization to change. The good news is that there are many devices and instruments that make this non-threatening and fun and very much life enhancing. In fact, in every instance people take the lessons learned and apply it to their family and personal lives with significant success.

The solution to today’s issues are two:

1: Reorienting our purpose

We must create an inspiring vision around an inspiring purpose

2: Reorienting our culture

We must move from transactional to relational

These are people solutions. They will work. I have already seen them at work and they are both high performing as defined by customer response and sustainable as defined by customer loyalty.

ALPHA DOGS AND THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

Written by Alan Creedy on January 28, 2013. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 10 Comments on ALPHA DOGS AND THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

WHY WE CAN’T AFFORD TO FOLLOW YOUR LEAD ANYMORE

Alpha Dogs are frequently those “Type A” personalities that exercise undue influence on others, especially organizations. You find them in every group of people. By their nature and sheer force of personality they tend to cause people to follow their lead whether they know where they are going or not. This is particularly true of Funeral Service which is generally populated by nice people who hate making waves and are quite content to let the Alpha Dogs have their way. Unfortunately, we live in a time where the results of this default behavior…or, really, lack of results… tends to speak for itself.

Funeral Service Alphas come in all shapes and sizes but can be recognized by their universal bark. But in order to hear it you have to sneak up on them. They only bark when their guard is down. Here is what it sounds like: “Those blankety-blank dumb– funeral directors.” Sometimes the bark is peppered with yips that sound like: “stupid” or “ignorant”.

Not long ago I was visiting with some staff members at one of the trade associations and they were lamenting that it was so hard to engage with the “average” funeral director who never came to meetings or conventions. I had just made an offer to do a program and had been told to “dumb down” my language because the “average” funeral director wouldn’t understand it. It is important for you to know, dear reader, that this attitude didn’t come from the staff. In fact, as I witness that staff pouring out their hearts to truly help the profession day after day and year after year with no real results I grieve for them. No, this was what they had been told by their leaders.

Hmmm!

So, I decided I would test their theory. And what to my wondering eyes did I find…“Beta Dogs.” Not only were they not dumb but they were actually beginning to make small but real differences in their markets. They too come in all sizes and colors. The difference is that they have no distinguishing bark. In fact, they seem to have no need to disparage anyone. They are quite content to mind their own business and, as I said a few weeks ago, “Make-The-Main-Thing-The-Main-Thing.”

I have been working with quite a few of these folk and I have to say it is a lot of fun. They are typically fairly humble, good learners and fairly passionate about their work. They watch all the bombast in funeral service with a mix of amusement and concern. They are very concerned about the future but long ago figured out the Alpha’s weren’t taking them anywhere. So, they decided they were going to have to do their best on their own. They tend to discipline themselves to think as positively as they can in spite of challenging times and they have little, if any, interest in parading on the national stage. They don’t tend to network a lot either so finding them can be a little bit of a challenge. But now that I am intentionally looking I am finding more of them than I knew were out there.

Interesting as well, Alpha and Beta Dogs have different life agendas:

It is not my intent to embarrass anyone here but to hold up a mirror for some and a flag for others. Alpha dogs are not bad people. They are simply strong people who have had undue influence over an industry that is populated largely by people who don’t like making noise. Alpha dogs can be either practitioners or vendors. Their leadership results speak for themselves. They have had their turn and it is time for something fresh. Besides, the Beta dogs are actually less intense and more fun and they are doing interesting stuff that looks like it is working.

As for me, my years are waning and I am tired of being around intense people with no results so I am planting my flag with the Beta Dogs. (I know, I know I am an intense person too. but I have found new purpose in helping people who help people and that is enabling me to lighten up) Beta’s seem to like me and truly appreciate the ways in which I can make a difference in their lives. And besides, it’s fun to swim in a blue ocean for a change.

After all seeing results is a lot better than hoping for them.

Disclaimer:

It would be easy to infer from this article that I am attacking Alpha Dogs: our industry leaders, vendors and associations. To the contrary. I am challenging all of us to think about the paradigms we have about each other. The fact that the results of the last 30 years speak for themselves and that countless funeral home owners have spent millions of dollars chasing after (what has turned out to be) rainbows is cause for all of us to stop and take stock.

We can be humbled by the market which it seems most willing to do; or we can humble ourselves and stop this ego driven mania and begin working interdependently. We are, after all, in the same boat.

So, in a nutshell, all I am saying is that, on a personal level, when I recognize the telltale bark of an Alpha Dog I am going the other way. It’s pretty simple really.

Doing Nothing Costs Too Much

Written by Alan Creedy on January 14, 2013. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Money: Getting it and Keeping it. 6 Comments on Doing Nothing Costs Too Much

On my office wall I have framed photos of three men. If I asked you what they have in common I anticipate I would get many different answers but, for me, there is only one answer.

Each, in his own way, despite significant personal tragedy and unimaginable public pressure and emotional stress understood the importance of MAKING THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING.

And this, dear reader, is the single reason so many of us mere mortals find it almost impossible to refuse distractions and remain stalwart in the face of resistance, resolute under pressure and persevere for long periods of time toward our goals. We have no real idea what THE MAIN THING is. We hear a lot about someone else’s main thing but we don’t have a strong enough hold on our main thing that we end up getting caught up in theirs. Or we are wise enough to recognize it is not ours so we do nothing. We function on someone else’s agenda or none at all. So, we go to default futures:

We Work In Our Business Claiming We Are Too Busy To Work On Our Business.

I am in my 34th year of commitment to the DeathCare profession and the 42nd year of my career. Like my heroes (but not to the unimaginable degree they suffered) I have experienced much of what they did. As I know many of you have. It has shaped me. I am grateful not bitter. If nothing else it has built my faith. Like many of you, it has prepared me for such a time as this. There have been times where I had no main thing and times, like now, that I did. Age gives perspective. I see the purpose in both times now.

DeathCare continues it long, accelerating decline. We (I) have obsessed about what is changing. But we have forgotten to take into consideration what is NOT changing. People will continue to die. Survivors will continue to have a need to reconcile that death emotionally and to honor the life of those they have lost. I was reminded in the movie “Lincoln” that it was Euclid that first used the phrase: “self-evident”. I would suggest that these things are self-evident.

If you are an owner or a general manager, partner…whatever… you have a moral obligation to yourself, to your staff, to the legal entity you lead and, most of all, to the public you serve to MAKE THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING.

SO WHAT IS IT?

I would prefer to have you think this out for yourself. But I have a moral obligation to at least help you get started…and it isn’t THE STUFF WE SELL. You don’t need to get into pet cremation or doodads and for all that is holy you need to get your nose out of the selection room if you still have one of those things.

No, depending on your circumstances, I see only two choices.

I didn’t sign up to oversee the demise of a profession. I am annoyed at the thought I might have to and I am betting that many of you are as well.

Given the state of the business, many of you are tired or approaching retirement or both. You love this business but you also know in your heart that what faces us may be a young man’s game. (I don’t think it is but it certainly is going to take time and energy and RISK). For you the main thing is to guide your firm, your family and staff into safe harbor by finding the right exit strategy. There is no shame in that. In fact, if we can take the recent Aurora sale as an example, it takes a good deal of courage and caring to lead that kind of initiative. I have been helping many do just that. I don’t broker. I don’t believe a broker is necessary in most cases. Most of you are smarter than you think. You and your advisors just need some good coaching and guidance. So, I can help you, but that is not where my heart is.

The second choice is to make a deliberate commitment to GET IN DEEPER. That isn’t just going to take reinvention it is going to take transformation. It will take work, risk and an open mind. It will require laying to rest some sacred cows and building some new paradigms. But based on what I am discovering among those who have found those new paradigms, I believe you will find new meaning in your work and even joy in your life.

What would it be like:

to look forward to going to work for a change?
What would it be like to not see that “phone shopper on line one” as a challenge but an opportunity to make a difference in someones life?
What would it be like to have people in your local community not just say “that’s the funeral director” but “That’s MY funeral director”?
What would it be like for price to be irrelevant in the context of choosing a caregiver?

If we can make all that happen…and I believe we can because I have seen it…the money will follow. But when it happens the richness of your career will overshadow the money. I promise. Am I blowing smoke?

Wait and see. Stay tuned.

Remember your two options:

Get you, your family and your firm to safe harbor

Get back in the game. Have fun, find meaning, help people and reclaim your future.

It may be darkest before the dawn but that only means it is the start of a fresh new day

HAMMERS, NAILS, PEWS AND HEARSES

Written by Alan Creedy on December 10, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, General Topics. 6 Comments on HAMMERS, NAILS, PEWS AND HEARSES

My discussion of reinvention / transformation has sparked more comment (online and offline) than most any other topic. Clearly it is on every one’s mind. As we continue to explore this topic it is important…maybe critical…that we realize that we have an obligation to ourselves and to the public to be conscious of keeping a balance between the radical and the superficial.

Almost all the responses, comments and in depth discussions have revealed to me a classic blind spot. A blind spot that inevitably appears in such a discussion. In addressing this blind spot it is essential that balance be at the forefront of our thinking or we will automatically tip in one direction or the other.

If the only tool I have is a hammer…

…then every problem is a nail. We have heavy investments in the past…financially, emotionally and culturally. A total break will be hard and that is not what I am suggesting will be necessary in all cases. But just because you have a facility, pews and a hearse does not necessarily mean that your future will need those things. Maybe it will…maybe it won’t. Or, maybe it will be in a different form.

In the past, transformation in our profession often occurred around the facility (call it facility-centric). In this new era that may be true…in some cases. But in others your facility and all its accouterments may prove to be a significant liability. From what I am seeing one of several scenarios may include “virtualizing” your facility or not having a facility at all. Additionally, current trade area assumptions may no longer be valid. The standard 3-5 mile city radius may no longer be valid as we see people willing to travel much longer distances to get what they want.

For Example: As I visit funeral homes today I always get a sinking feeling when I see “fixed” pews. Notice, if you will, that many churches built in recent years have abandoned these and replaced them with comfortable movable chairs. This turns the sanctuary into a multi-purpose room (we had basketball nets that rolled up in the ceiling in ours) that gives a more informal tone and also allows a high degree of flexibility.

Most families now forego the private family room. Opting, instead, to sit with their guests. I expect that future services may be set up in semi-circle or even circle format. I recently attended a quaker funeral set up in their traditional square with attendees facing each other. That would have been impossible with fixed pews.

I am not picking on pews. I am saying that EVERY item in our toolkit needs to be examined. Some of you will need to reinvest in that building even if you just redecorated because now you know things you didn’t know before. Some of you will learn that you can use your current facility as a “base of operations” and create a “virtual” facility by developing relationships with churches and banquet facilities in other communities outside your normal service area. Others will see opportunity in bi-furcating their business into separate service areas in order to expand outside the funeral business.

Oh, and about hearses…

I read an article a couple of years ago that said most “Boomers” were expected to “age-in-place”. Meaning they weren’t going to retire to Florida like their parents. They were just going to stay where they were. I have been in more funeral homes than normal this year. Is it me? Or are there a lot of hearses “aging-in-place?” My guess is that they are getting used less and less so people are keeping them longer.