Creative Thinking During the CoronaVirus Pandemic
This is an example of great creative thinking from O’Connor mortuary. CLICK ON THE PHOTO BELOW
Tag: critical thinking
The Intentional Funeral Director
What is an Intentional Funeral Director?
Some years ago I attended a Men’s Retreat at my church.
The plan was that we would all ride to the camp on the church bus. What the pastor told us before we climbed on board set the whole tone.
He said:
“Some people rise above their circumstances and some people see themselves as victims… for the next two days…no matter how real or reasonable the reasons for our circumstances we will make no excuses.”
That’s a lot harder than it sounds. Things happen and sometimes we really don’t have control but here is what we all learned:
When you allow yourself to make excuses you don’t take personal responsibility. When you don’t take personal responsibility, after a while, you start to see yourself as a victim…the result is often anger, self – pity, and, because you have self – identified as a victim, you begin to think you have no hope. And when you think you have no hope, nothing is your fault, you actually begin to learn to like your circumstances.
Intentional people act with intention. They never let themselves think like a victim. Yes, they get angry and experience disappointment and frustration. But they are deliberate and intentional about their future. They may not know what to do or, even, how to do it but they know that they can’t stay where they are.
Intentional people tend to be learners. They may or may not seek higher education. But they are always learning… what works and doesn’t work. They seek mentors and read and ask questions. They ask why and why not?
Intentional people see assumptions and paradigms as challenges. Are they true? if so, ok. If not what else can we do?
Intentional people tend to see from an “abundance” perspective: “What can I gain.” Scarcity is the prevailing perspective in funeral service: “What can I lose.” It is interesting that intentional people tend to be generous with others and love to see others grow and succeed too.
Intentional people want to have a plan. Even though they understand that plans rarely survive contact with reality, plans help them compare and contrast so they can make adjustments.
Intentional people want to have goals, short and long term. They want to know they aren’t standing still.
Intentional Funeral Directors are the ones who keep us moving in the right direction
How To Stop Customers From Fixating On Price
Equalize Price Points to Crystallize Personal Relevance.
This is the first recession to show a measurable impact on DeathCare. Most surprising have been the many reports from rural and “rustbelt” funeral directors that cremation has recently spiked, not because people in their markets want cremation but BECAUSE THEY CAN’T AFFORD BURIAL. YIKES!!!!
A recent article in Harvard Business Review entitled “How To Get Your Customers to Stop Fixating on Price” outlined 4 strategies. I found the most appealing strategy to be: Equalize Price Points to Crystallize Personal Relevance. The article’s authors pointed out that in :
“most mature markets customers have become unresponsive to marginal changes in value. They have lost interest in how each product option might serve them… [so] they default to price minimization. In fact, (and this was interesting) a list of options at different prices doesn’t make [consumers] examine the relative merits of those options, it activates their predisposition to pare the price.” [emphasis mine]
Not a week after reading the article I found myself experiencing the very strategy I liked the most and it was exciting.
I encountered a funeral director who had courageously narrowed his casket price offerings from a low of $1,100 to a high of less than $3,000. As I stood looking down a row of caskets I actually found myself saying (as if I were a consumer): “Wow, I can pretty much have anything I want.” Having been in so many selection rooms over my career, at first I was shocked. Then I found, to my amazement, a feeling of relief. Here is a picture:
1. Solid Mahogany Urn shaped, Velvet Interior $2,650 2. Brushed Copper, Velvet Interior $2,995 3. Solid Cherry, Urn shaped, Velvet Interior $2,550 4. 18 Ga round end brushed, Velvet $1,740. 5. Oak Veneer, Velvet Interior $1,845 6. 18 Ga two tone blue, square corner, Crepe interior $1,495 7. Stainless brushed velvet interior $2,150 8. L 98 Mandarin $1,150 9. 18 Ga Blue round end, crepe interior $1,575 10. Solid Cherry, Velvet Interior, $2,600.
As I surveyed the selection room above I found myself moving from thinking about what I could afford to which casket I liked best and which would be a good fit for me (just like the research said I would). And, as if I were an actual customer, I felt relief. Some years ago I picked a Pembroke Cherry for my prearrangements. At the time it sold for under $4,000. I watched it creep up above $5,000 but just figured that was inflation. When it went over $6,000 I made a mental note to find something cheaper.
Once a consumer realizes they can get pretty much whatever they want for just about the same price they move from thinking about what they can afford to what they want. The research found that this allowed sellers to price above their normal average.
The implication is this: Let’s say that your average casket and service sale is running about $7,500 and the range of caskets you are currently offering to reach that average is from $2,500 to $15,000. The concept of equalizing your price points would suggest that as you narrow your price range you could accomplish two things:
First, you would change the playing field for handling price shoppers and likely increase volume.
Second, you would (as the research found) be able to realize a higher over-all average casket and service sale on what you are currently serving (say from $7,500 to $8,000 for traditional burial).
Of course, this implies that you have exercised some aggressive tactics to control the wholesale cost of your caskets.
This post first appeared in The Creedy Commentary on June 22, 2010
FUNERAL SERVICE : YOUR FLY IS UNZIPPED
OR WHY FUNERAL DIRECTORS ARE NEUROTIC
A pastor friend once told me: “The test of love is whether or not you are willing to tell someone their fly is unzipped.”
Funeral service I love what you do and I love many of you. Your fly is unzipped.
My phone rings: “Al, this is Ron.”
Me: “hey Ron.” (That’s how we talk in the South)
Ron: “I just got home from trying to make my prearrangements at the funeral home and I am totally confused. Can you go back and help me? and by the way, I want you to do my eulogy.”
Me: “Well, gee, thanks Ron. I am honored. I’ll be glad to do it. Are you Ok?”
Ron: “I’m fine. I just need to get this done. As for the eulogy, you’re the only one who will tell my story the way I want it.”
This is a true story. Ron is one of my best friends. 7 years older, he is a graduate of West Point (class of ’65) and a nuclear engineer. He is retired from a prominent career in the nuclear power industry and is considered an international expert on quality control. In other words he is smart. I have known him for 28 years. He is a man on a clock. This story occurred when he had turned 65 and 65 was when you took care of your funeral arrangements. 45 was when you took care of your cemetery arrangements.
We arrive at the funeral home at our appointed time and are ushered into the arrangements office. A few moments later the funeral director enters. I know him. Approaching retirement he has had a long successful career, serves on a national committee and (I think) has served on the board of his state association. He is someone I both like and respect. We will call him John (not his real name).
John (setting down a legal pad and a folder): “Ok. What do you want?”
Ron and me (exchanging glances): “Well, what do you have?”
John: “It depends on what you want.”
We go back and forth like this for a few minutes and finally I take over. I am not a funeral director and I was careful not to break any laws but I know enough to lead a discussion. (Operative word: “lead”)
Me: “Ron, I know you have already bought your cemetery plots so I am assuming you plan on having something approximating a traditional funeral.”
Ron: “Of course.”
Me: “would you like a visitation the night before the funeral?”
Ron: “yes.”
Me: “john, would you write that down?”
Me: “Were you planning on a military style funeral”
Ron: “Of course. My roommate (a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff), if he is still living, is going to do the flag presentation. It’s a West Point custom.”
Me: “Great, do you think you might like a bagpiper at the gravesite?”
Ron (surprised look on his face): “Can I have a bagpiper?”
Me: “John, can you arrange a bagpiper?”
John: “yes”
Me: “good, write that down too, John.”
I won’t go through the whole scene but that was the way the conversation went. We ended up with a funeral somewhere in the 5 figure range.
Let me repeat: I am not a funeral director! But I know when someone needs me to put my expert hat on.
At the time of this post I am 63. This happened 4 or 5 years ago. I have now assisted 3 other friends with their prearrangements and two with at need arrangements. All but one with different funeral directors. People I know and respect. All with 30 to 40 years experience. Exactly the same experience each time.
I don’t know about you but I am alarmed!
For the 33 years of my career in funeral service I have assumed that once you had around 5 year’s experience you were pretty much on top of your game. These experiences caused me great concern. So, I began experimenting and it went like this:
I would be at an industry gathering either speaking or facilitating and I would create an opportunity to ask:
“let me ask you. You graduate from mortuary school, you go to work. Maybe you are a first generation funeral director or you go into the family firm. It doesn’t matter. You start out working visitations, assisting with body prep, doing removals, embalming, mowing the lawn. You’ve been there a number of months and one day the funeral home gets really busy and without warning someone hands you a file, says: ‘The Smith Family is coming in at 2:00 to make arrangements. Good luck.’
and there you are…on your own. Is that what happens?”
The responses, dear readers, shocked me and I hope they will you as well:
“Exactly. But they didn’t say good luck. They said: “Don’t Screw it up.”
“Yup. That’s how it is. But they didn’t say good luck. They said: “Don’t worry. It’s only a cremation.”
“Yeah, and it was a saturday and the family name was Jaworksi” (this was 40 years later)
“So, let me get this straight.” I query further. “You’ve been doing this 25, 30, 40 years and you have never been trained on how to make arrangements.”
“nope.”
“Have you ever observed someone else making arrangements?” “nope.”
“Has anyone else ever observed you and offered suggestions.” “nope.”
OMG!!!! Holy Cow!!!
IT ALL MAKES SENSE
After doing this for several months with different groups ranging in size from 9 to over 50 all the inconsistencies:
The unwillingness to defend ourselves, the capitulation to cremation, the preoccupation with prominence over significance fell into place. I had, for years, been confused by these things. Now I understood.
We won’t defend ourselves.
We won’t address and adapt to change.
We won’t do anything that even hints of upsetting the customer even when we know what they are doing will hurt them in the long term.
We are frustrated. Maybe even despairing.
We feel trapped.
We are relentlessly being marginalized by the public.
Our businesses…our livelihoods are in jeopardy.
BECAUSE
We have no way of knowing what we are doing is right. We are making it up as we go along hoping it will turn out alright. We judge our effectiveness and accomplishments solely by the reaction of others. If they like us, life is good. If they don’t, life is very, very bad.
We think it’s just us. Surely other funeral directors know what they are doing. So we say:
“If I rigidly follow the rules, meekly acquiesce to every request, sacrifice my family over-serving my customer, throw in a free video tribute maybe no one will find out that I don’t know what I am doing.”
This revelation creates in me simultaneous despair and wild optimism.
If this is the root and core of our low self-image and unwillingness to stand up for what we believe the consequences of doing nothing are plain for all to see.
At the same time, “We Can Fix This.”
The only question that remains is: “Will we?”
Let me say this: “I believe this is a noble profession. I can quantify my belief and I can stand for it publicly without reservation. As a profession it is eminently defendable. Yes, I fully understand that not everyone in it is noble. But ask yourself:
How noble would I be, could I be, if every day I had no way of really knowing if I were doing it right?.”
In my mind, (and I concede it may only be in my mind ;)) this travesty is a potential lynchpin for turning this industry (sorry, you can’t call untrained people who aren’t able to stand for what they believe professionals) to turn itself around.
I use strong language here deliberately to startle you and maybe to make you say “No More”. In your hearts you are great people. You serve a noble profession but your self doubt is a significant stumbling block.
Now you know you are not the only one. In fact, you are in the majority. Now you can see the king has no clothes. What are you going to do about it?
You may want to read more about my beliefs here.
EXPERT OPINION: 5 Tips for Positioning Your Funeral Home for Success in the New Year
Did your funeral home achieve all of its goals for 2012? Does the increasing number of families selecting cremation with no services have you concerned? 2013 is a new year that brings a new set of goals to help reboot you business and your team. The New Year is the perfect time to create new success and raise the bar for your funeral home. As you reflect on the changes you have experienced, success you have maintained and the concerns that lie ahead follow these simple truths.
1) Acknowledge the problems that you face
Whether that is lost revenue or declining employee morale, it is important to acknowledge the situations you are facing in the New Year in order to move toward a solution. To gain trust and build authenticity with staff, funeral homes should provide open channels for communicating about challenges within the business. Employees who feel engaged in the success of the home funeral home will be more motivated, and empowered to contribute to innovation and decision-making.
2) Remember you are not alone
Funeral Homes across the country are experiencing similar challenges. The funeral industry is adjusting to changes in cultural and market trends beyond the control of any single funeral home. It can be overwhelming to take on the magnitude of these industry shifts. Defined strategies and a prepared staff can help homes accept all situations and respond to the unexpected. Also, use resources available to you, like vendor support and professional groups to tackle obstacles that are more manageable for you and your team. Do not get weighed down by issues that are having affect nationwide. Shared brainstorming and conversation with other professionals who understand the challenges can pave the way to smarter, faster strategies for overcoming the big issues.
3) Don’t make excuses
It is easy to blame the economy or a low death rate for loss of revenue or sluggish growth. Funeral industry professionals have an especially difficult job in a slow economy, where financial constraints are of great concern for many grieving families. It is the responsibility of homes to provide the best possible solutions for families, whatever their situation. It is easy to make excuses for shortcomings, but the most successful homes over the next year will be the ones that embrace the challenges and take responsibility for overcoming them. Turn the setbacks encountered in 2012 into opportunities for your funeral home to move forward and build.
4) Explore the professional needs of your team members:
It is a smart investment to take care of your team members. Supporting them in goals for a healthy lifestyle and a better work-life balance are great for motivation. Perhaps even more impactful is an investment in their professional development. There are many ways a home can support staff in professional development. Encourage time each week for reading industry publications and blogs with helpful, up-to-date information. Send high-performing staff to seminars and support them in earning certifications in areas that can help expand service offerings. No single man or woman can do it alone. Investing in the success of a supporting staff can build strengths and talents that you do not have. That investment goes back into the success of the home.
5) Focus on the future
Learn from past successes and failures, but don’t dwell on them. Remember that a whole network of people share the achievement of new goals: staff, vendors, suppliers and families served all have stock in a home’s success and ability to provide excellent service. Create the future of your funeral home with a shared vision and opportunities for everyone to participate in the achievements of 2013 and beyond.
Although it might feel like many things in business are uncertain, one thing the funeral industry can count on is that there is no going back. Change can be difficult and there has been a lot of it in recent years. 2013 will continue moving in this rapid progression of the industry and all of its moving parts. Funeral professionals have two options: 1) Go kicking and screaming and be left behind. 2) Embrace the New Year with all of its changes with greater success this time next year.
Lacy Robinson, CFSP
Senior Professional Development Trainer
Lacy Robinson is a Kentucky licensed funeral director/embalmer and a certified member of the Academy of Professional Funeral Service Practice. She is a graduate of Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky holding a bachelor’s degree in Communications. She is also a graduate from Mid-America College of Funeral Service, Jeffersonville, Indiana. As Senior Professional Development Trainer for Aurora Casket, Ms. Robinson specializes in helping funeral directors partner with families to create funerals that honor both their basic and personal needs at the time of loss. She presents continuing education programs on both the local, state and national level. Ms. Robinson is an active member of the Funeral Directors Association of Kentucky and Bluegrass Toastmasters Group. She is also a Certified Funeral Celebrant, certified Wilson Learning Facilitator and serves on the Advisory Board to the Association of Women Funeral Professionals.
A Model For Change Within Your Organization
Here is an interesting perspective on implementing change within your own organization.
Most funeral homes and cemeteries are at level III. One or two are possibly at level IV. To my knowledge, I have never been exposed to a level V.
Where Do You Fit on The Scale?
Will it be your tribe that changes Funeral Service For Your Community?
Funerals As Counter Culture
Are we rapidly moving toward a “Post-Funeral”culture?
I don’t think so.
After 50 years of steady decline in public attitudes towards funerals the pendulum is swinging back our way. Like Croci in the spring, the signs are poking through the frost if you will just look and this week’s post is one excellent example.
30 years ago a handful of brave pastors ignored the then-prevailing cultural surface signals and the revival we have come to know as the “mega-church” movement began. The common belief at the time was that people just weren’t religious any more. The actual reality was that many people had a deep need to grow in their faith, they just weren’t getting that need met by the traditional church. Those churches that reinvented their form to meet the need for a deeper relationship with god experienced both dramatic growth and equally dramatic cultural impact. If you are close to that movement you know that the founders changed the form while making the substance even stronger. They demanded things of their constituents who willingly responded that no mainline denomination pastor would dare ask.
I believe we have that same opportunity now as the anti funeral movement begins to lose its voice.
My friend Grant Mckenzie of Sarnia, Ontario shared an amazing article with me last week that illustrates my point well.
In response to the decision of a beloved elder to forgo a funeral, Pastor Edwin Searcy of University Hill United Church of Canada decided to conduct a study group on death in his church in Vancouver, BC. The results will surprise you. With his permission it is reproduced in PDF format in its entirety at the bottom of this page.
As a Christian Believer I found this a profoundly insightful article and a personal challenge to examine my own response to funerals in my church. It both strengthens my faith and challenges me to support my fellow believers in their time of need. Even if when I don’t know them or their family personally. Here are some excerpts from Rev. Searcy’s experience with his study group I think you will find interesting:
“They spoke of how empty it feels when there is no opportunity to gather to grieve…”
“Speaking about death in this way was a new experience in the congregation.”
“What really captured the interest of the gathered group were questions of how we as a congregation will deal with death when it occurs. It was as if we recognized intuitively that in the marking of death we are confronted with powers that seek to erase the church’s memory and entice it to abandon its daring witness.”
“If it is no great loss when someone dies, if it is possible to die and make no noticeable impact on the fabric of the church and the community, then the claims made at baptism are false. It is critical to the church that every death of one of its number be grieved.”
“A voice in the group questioned the way in which we decide whose funeral to attend…Death is not a private matter that affects only those who are friends and family. It is a public event that affects the whole church and calls the whole congregation together to grieve and to witness to the good news of god in the face of death.”
“Caring for the dying and for the dead is a practice that disciplines the church to wash the feet of the poorest of the poor.”
“Our elders need to unlearn their fear of becoming a burden, so that the whole congregation has the opportunity to respond to the call to serve and to carry our cross.”
“We noticed that by ignoring and silencing conversations about death we had unwittingly simply absorbed the assumptions of the culture we inhabit.”
“Our study group discovered we have simply adopted the ways in which our culture figures death out.”
There is a nascent global movement afoot to “bring death out of the closet”. As the last taboo subject “Boomers” the world over are determined to make death a healthy topic of conversation. Rev. Searcy’s study group is an excellent example of this movement.
So, here is what I would do:
- I would print out copies of Rev. Searcy’s article and give copies to each staff member and leave copies in my lobby for the public.
- I would make an appointment with every Christian clergy in town and share this article with them and offer to facilitate a discussion group with their church. (You can see a copy of the outline for the first session by clicking here)
- I would stop looking down on those funeral practitioners that view their job as a form of ministry because it appears that it really is.
I believe the public wants to talk. They will find an outlet. If not you then who?
Reverend Searcy publishes a blog called The Holy Scribbler I encourage you to subscribe.
Click the red lettering below to download the PDF file of Dr. Searcy’s comments.
Liking What You Do Is Not The Issue
I was visiting with a friend last week and the conversation went, briefly, to some mutual acquaintances. We noted how angry they had become as their careers had progressed and concluded they were really frustrated with the career they had inherited from their parents. Disappointment is a normal part of life. Some respond with increasing frustration and anger others make lemonade out of lemons. It is not the card you are dealt but what you do with it that matters, it seems.
In this thought provoking video interview with acclaimed author and Harvard Professor, Clayton Christenson we learn a new way of looking at our circumstances. A way I think we in DeathCare have a unique opportunity to exploit.
To Read a copy of Dr. Christensen’s original article “How Will You Measure Your Life?” click on the title.
Expert Opinion: Game Changers
Game-changers are those events that intervene in our lives, on athletic fields, and in our businesses that forever change everything.
In our personal lives we identify marriages, deaths, and moving to a new city as the easiest examples of game-changers. In baseball, a homerun changes everything. In business, innovation is the most thought-of example. Look at Sony [and digital photography] or Apple [and their iPads and iPhones]. And speaking of digital photography, that innovation was certainly a game-changer for Kodak, too.
Sometimes, however, an unmet wish that customers have about the current status quo will change the game. This is especially true in fundamental businesses like ours. Starbucks changed the way coffee is served, even though coffee has been served the same way for years. SouthWest changed the airline industry, even though airplanes and airports are the same. Since the 1920s, every house in America has had a bathtub because Sears sold cleanliness.
And what about funeral homes and cemeteries, where we are accustomed to things staying the same for generations, or when they do change, having the changes carried on the backs of snails? Are we, too, being slapped with some express game-changers?
Reflecting on this point, I believe as an industry [lumping together funeral providers and sepulcher suppliers] we are in the mid-innings of a game-changer right now. Here’s my evidence:
- Over-capacity: Look around. Most funeral homes could easily perform twice as many funerals as they do now. The hearse runs two hours per week. Cemeteries still measure their undeveloped lands in acres [that are mostly a big non-producing asset], when those vacant corners near the front gate are the most valuable of all. And all those anchors add layers of unavoidable cost.
- Mature consolidation: The big funeral guys already own most of the major brands in the country’s metro and growth areas, and don’t have any good prospects to buy more. Yesterday’s flagships are struggling with margins, their historic names long ago milked of their original brand values, and most of those formerly esteemed community stalwarts are now losing market share. The new ones they can acquire, scattered here and there, are generally small and don’t add much value.
- Profitability challenges: I sold my shares in Stewart Enterprises for $6.10 per share in 2001. Friday, those same shares traded at $6.26 [more than 10 years later!]. And STEI is not suffering alone. The other publicly traded funeral companies have found it difficult to grow their share prices. I speculate that their trading prices have stagnated due to narrow capacity to cut their costs, to increase retail prices, or to acquire large and agile operators.
- Limited opportunity for personnel: Industry owners must find fresh ways to align shareholder and employee welfares. Corporate directors cannot expect employees to work against their own best interests. Board rooms must engage local management and pay them to build shareholder value, and then pay them a bonus when it materializes. A message similar to that sent by the ‘Arab Spring’ will need to be heard in the big chairs.
- Most industry participants haven’t noticed: Interestingly, all over the country, business owners are acting as if nothing has changed. Their commercial models are the same ones employed by their grandfathers. At the same time, the memorial preferences of their customers bear little resemblance to those of their grandfathers’ customers.
- New eyes are looking for opportunities, building on the back of the old and failing model: As over-capacity lingers, consolidators struggle with shareholder value, margins compress, employees struggle with employer loyalty, and board rooms ignore marketplace realities, new eyes are seeing opportunity. Be on the lookout for emerging industry names that you’ve never heard of before – ones that don’t carry the old baggage.
Yep, this writer thinks we are seeing the acknowledgment of a number of powerful game-changers that are likely to create unparalleled opportunity during the next ten years, as the innovative replaces the obsolete.
Let me know your thoughts on changing the game in our town. Write to me at rbaldwin@urgelborugie.com.
Sincerely yours,
Disenthrall Yourself of Your Dogma
“The Dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country.”
Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress 1862
We are held captive to our own dogma: “The only good funeral is a ‘traditional’ funeral.'” (Except, we no longer know what a traditional funeral is.) “Healing can only occur when the body is present.” is yet another. We hold so tightly to these truths that we consider them to be self-authenticating and sustaining. If people would just accept these things as we know them they would see the error of their ways. While Our dogma may, in fact, be true and accurate it is “now inadequate to our stormy present.”
Instead, we must see our role as expanding the world view of our clients. In their world view the evidence is not self sustaining. After all: “Jim Smith’s body wasn’t present when we went to his memorial service and no one seemed to be hurt.” It is our job to understand that we must begin with their preconceptions. My friend, Paul Seyler, points out that the best way to disrupt someones preconception is to surprise them. But we make another mistake when we imagine that we know what their preconceptions are. In listening to funeral directors it seems that there is widespread belief among the profession that the public sees funerals as irrelevant, too expensive, unnecessary, etc. But, in truth, at the individual level, we don’t know that. So, preparing a defense along those lines will frequently fail.
When we encounter resistant people it is always tempting to tell ourselves stories to explain what is happening. Our failure to verify those stories is what leads us down unsuccessful paths. Second to the apologists command of his subject matter is his / her ability to listen and probe. To set the context and lead the conversation by introducing insights that his audience may not have considered. All of this while making sure that he is creating and protecting a safe environment. By listening we uncover both preconceptions and real needs.
A word of caution:
I think the reason we are where we are today relative to the decline in memorialization is our fear of creating tension and awkwardness in the arrangements conference. That is why I believe our problem is cowardice. If you are really trying to help people it will frequently be your job to create tension, to risk a relationship. Learning and undoing false knowledge is sometimes awkward. That is why creating a safe environment is so critical. You are to teach not tell. You are to facilitate enlightenment not judge. You are offering options to meet a real need, not force-fitting people into some kind of standardized system.
I think the mistake we all make is that we think everybody in the arrangement conference likes us and that we need them to like us. Heretical? yes. But look at it this way:
If you are an order taker and later they have regrets it is highly unlikely they will like you for being a doormat. People rarely accept the blame for their own mistakes. On the other hand if you help them explore options that enable them to find an alternative or compromise that mitigates regrets you will not only earn their respect but they are much more likely to like you.
Principle #1:
People don’t know what they know or don’t know, they only know what they think they know. We are all wrapped up in our prejudices, preconceived notions and biases. The job of an apologist is to allow his audience to become aware that their biases may be “inadequate to the occasion.” Jesus did this through the use of parables, questions and stories. Those same devices work today.
For example: A family may enter the arrangement conference believing you are going to try and sell them something. (I wonder where they could have gotten such an idea?) They also may believe that they must follow dad’s wishes and simply dispose of his body with no service whatsoever. So, they begin the process in a resistant frame of mind.
As an apologist you must be sensitive to their emotional state but you must also remember that you have a purpose linked directly to your value system. I won’t pretend to tell you what your value system is. But, for me, it is the fundamental belief that every life deserves to be honored. I have a lot of ideas how that should be done, but, in the end, that is an individual decision. I am not the person making that decision I am only a guide.
Principle #2:
An apologist must care more about the needs of his audience than he does his own.
“And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful” 2 Timothy 2:24
What you say must be part of your DNA. If you are attempting to manipulate for your own purposes there is a high potential for backfire. But, if you truly are trying to help…to teach, people will allow you to be far more assertive than you might imagine. This is where the professional is separated from the tradesman. Professionals take responsibility and that responsibility sometimes entails risk but their purpose is their goal not some imagined relationship. They have no predetermined outcome except that the client is better off than they were before. The conscious thoughts people bring to a high stress / high risk situation are rarely their real thoughts. They are only reacting to what they think they know.
Pool of Shared Meaning: Creating an Opening Framing Statement
Patterson, Grenny, McMillen and Switzer, in their book “Crucial Conversations,” refer to the necessity of creating a “Pool of Shared Meaning.” What this means is that when engaging in high risk conversations the leader (you) must first establish something that everyone agrees on. For instance, a marriage counselor might gain agreement from a couple that the most important thing is preserving the marriage. That becomes a pool of shared meaning.
This is especially effective when you are working with more than one person. You develop the “Pool of Shared Meaning” by beginning with a framing statement. This is, effectively, a “trial balloon.” If it were me, once rapport were established, my framing statement would be something along these lines:
“Before we begin, I want to share with you that it is my belief that every life is sacred (I would use that word even with atheists) and that everyone deserves to be remembered. But, at the same time, I don’t believe that everyone needs or wants to do that in the same way. So, it’s an important part of my job to help you explore ways in which you can honor your ??????’s life. I am fully prepared to help you figure that out whether it includes our services or not. Is that alright with you?
Notice that I make an affirmative statement: every life is sacred. I realize some of you may not like using that word. But, please understand that it is my personal belief that no matter how resistant a family is to the idea of a funeral, the vast majority consider the body of their loved one to have a sacred quality. Regardless of your religious perspective I see it as both a cultural archetype and a personal unconscious belief. You may not agree, but I emphasize it because it is part of my DNA.
I have also declared my role as expert and guide and finally I have asked permission which gives them the opportunity (if I pause for a moment for response) to redirect me if I am off base.
The framing statement is critical to the process not only because it sets a tone and expectation, but, if things get tense, it enables you to calm it down by going back to it: “Remember, the most important thing for us today is for you to honor your ________ in a way that best meets your needs now and in the future.”
Remember, also, I am not attempting to persuade but to inform. You know hundreds of ways to honor their loved one. They know only what they have seen, experienced or imagined. You also know the pitfalls of decisions they might make. As a professional you have an obligation to help them work through those choices. Even if they still choose something not in their best interests there is a chance they may remember you told them it wasn’t a good idea. Again, sewing seeds for the future.
If they ignore me that’s ok. I have sewn a seed that may bear fruit in the future…and maybe not. But if I don’t sew it it will be definitely not. This is NOT a win / lose encounter.
Tune in next week for “Don’t Confuse Me With the Facts”
See other “Funeral Apologetics” posts in this series:
Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair
Funeral Apologetics 101A: 8 Principles of Successful Optimism
Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair
[Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, “speaking in defense”) is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information.]
Much of my career has involved business turnarounds. This experience serves me well as a funeral home consultant. Over the course of more than 30 years I have learned a lot about human nature. Here is a simple elegant expression of one of the most significant lessons you must accept if you are in trouble:
“If you think you can, or
if you think you can’t
You are right!”
Henry Ford
There is an anomaly in human nature that appears during prolonged stress. In recent years it has been the attention of much study. These studies have all concluded that their is a specific attitude or mindset that correlates directly with the ability to survive bad situations and another that correlates directly with failure. But more on that later. What I found in my experience, and became subject to myself, is the propensity for people to give up, to become cynical and actually embrace victim mentality. I realized from some of the comments to last weeks post, “The Problem is Not Cremation”, that a few of those who responded had given in and given up. So, rather than begin this series in the middle I think it best to begin at the beginning and lay the foundational steps you must embrace for an effective business turn around.
How I overcame my own victim mentality.
Some 20+ years ago I was leading a protracted turnaround. It seemed to take forever and was beset by passive agressive resistance from the staff. 
(Life Lesson: “when you emerge from the phone booth to fly to the rescue don’t be surprised to find the very people you are trying to help standing on your cape”) I found myself feeling increasingly depressed, demoralized and hopeless. Then during my daily quiet time one day I felt compelled to write out in my journal everything I was afraid of. There were 6 items. They included such things as never being able to retire, not being able to send my kids to college, the shame of failure, etc. Then I felt led to identify that which I was MOST afraid of and it changed my whole perspective. The thing I was most afraid of was simply this: “Nothing would ever change.” Well, I decided that if that was my greatest fear then sitting around clinging to my despair was going to guarantee that would happen. I deliberately stopped caring about the naysayers and critics and self-styled experts.
To shake off the victim mentality and take control of your future demands you do two things:
- Look beyond your circumstances
- Ignore those who are clinging to their despair
For some reason people find comfort in convincing themselves that it’s not worth the effort. I don’t pretend to understand this mindset, but I found that I simply could not afford to pay attention to hand-wringers. Overcoming adversity takes an awful lot of emotional energy. Trying to convert the unbelievers takes too much out of me or anyone else and is a distraction anyway. Besides these “happy failures”, as I have heard them called, have learned how to be discouraged and they like it. Their type is not unique to DeathCare. They exist in every walk of life. They find some kind of meaning in their misery for sure, but, still, I can’t afford that kind of thinking.
So I decided to leave the conversion job to Billy Graham. What this means in your case is this: those who say it’s all about money and that no one cares anymore are simply making excuses for their failure. Personally, I think it is way too early for that. People who study organizational dynamics all conclude that effective people must believe their work has meaning and purpose. That is how I overcame my own discouragement. I came to believe the profession I am in (DeathCare) makes a rock solid contribution to society. The only problem, as I said last week, is that there are a lot of unbelievers in our profession. But Before you get upset, unbelief, given all we have been through and are currently experiencing, is to be expected. It’s just that unbelief will never get you into the promised land (to borrow a biblical metaphor)
Think about what I have said, and if you are old enough, you will remember that this is exactly what Ronald Reagan did for us as a nation. He adopted a new attitude…a can do attitude… and after Jimmy Carter’s Malaise Era he changed our direction, gave us hope and the rest is history. In fact, for a long time Reagan had to “lend” us his hope and beliefs while we struggled to overcome our own despair. Franklin Roosevelt did the same during the dark days of the Great Depression and Winston Churchill stood alone during the early days of World War II. You will have to do this same thing for your business and your employees and your family until they catch on. But there is another human anomaly that will help you. People don’t like despair and if they see a way out they will start moving toward it.
How To Look Beyond Your Circumstances and Find The Soul of Your Passion:
Throughout my career, and especially now that I am involved in funeral home consulting, I have found the first step…the step that must be taken before any other…is to understand the “why” of what I am doing. It is this grasp of the “Why” that enables me or any one else to become a “Funeral Apologist”. It’s easy to see the “what.” Not easy to understand the “why”…and, yet, that is the very essence of any product or service. Finding the “why” is an iterative process and can take months. The why is very personal but when you finally find it it becomes the key to everything else.
I know in asking you to start at the beginning instead of the middle that I run the risk of losing many of my readers because most people are not comfortable with the patience it takes for this step. But please bear with me. It will be worth it. In fact, I can help you with it. (a shameless allusion to my work) Through my relationship with The Center For Creative Leadership I have access to resources that can significantly accelerate this process by extracting the core value system from the unconscious mindsets of your team. This enables you to build on the intrinsic strengths of your firm.
How to get leverage
The video below explains this concept better than anything I have seen. At about 12 minutes into his talk the presenter uses a bell curve chart. Later in this series I will write about why you must narrow your focus. For now, this chart will serve as an illustration. In any turnaround my target audience is always represented by the two segments on the far left. I know from experience that if I can reach them and they begin to experiment and find success then the rest will follow. This leverage is how you get organizations, societies and even industries to change. Remember, I leave the conversions to Billy Graham. Later the presenter uses the example of TIVO. As you listen to this you might think about parallels to our profession.
The Problem is Not Cremation…
…The problem is cowardice!!
There, it’s been said. Plain and simple: We have been unwilling to stand up for what we believe and now we are not sure we believe it any more. After all how long can you get beat up and still try to stand? So, instead of taking a stand we assume the “Bunny Rabbit” Position: we blame them. Society is going downhill. It’s not our fault. If they just understood… We are victims of society’s decline. And there it is… in a nutshell…we have come to see ourselves as victims.
Why do funeral professionals spend so much time fighting among themselves and never fighting for themselves? Why is so much time spent on fence building only to find ourselves fenced out instead of in? Why is so much emotional energy spent on not-losing-a-call and none spent on getting 5 more calls? Why so much antipathy among funeral directors and cemeterians? Why, so much anger toward the public “who doesn’t understand us” and no attempt to stand up for ourselves? Why obsess about the handful of families who don’t appreciate us like we would like while we ignore the dozens of families who sincerely appreciate how we have helped them? We have become “approval junkies!”
Everywhere I go I find funeral directors burned out, frustrated and in emotional pain. But I don’t find many who are willing to take responsibility and take a stand. We are confused and belittled by the growing rejection we feel when people “opt out”. But, I have come to believe that we are only telling stories to ourselves that we have never verified. Stories that help us explain what is happening to us. Stories that position us as victims and explain away our responsibility to fight for ourselves. These made-up stories, unfortunately, are self destructive and, worse yet, self fulfilling. We wonder why society seems to be rejecting, more and more, what we believe in and what we do for a living. Yet, who are we allowing to tell our story? We are so addicted to our “Mr. Nice Guy” image and so afraid of offending just one person that we allow people like Jessica Mitford and Lisa Carlson and a plethora of ill informed journalists to tell our story for us. In fact, I have come to believe we no longer know what our story is. Adding insult to injury, our behavior suggests that we agree with the stories our enemies (YES, they are enemies) are promoting and we must, in fact, be the type of people they say we are.
For more than thirty years funeral directors have told me that they are uncomfortable telling strangers what they do for a living so they “euphamize” their responses to hide their vocation. “it gets awkward,” they say. Or, “people don’t like to talk about it.” I have come to believe it is they who are awkward about it. I am personally proud to be associated with this profession. I believe we make a real contribution to society. So, when people ask me what I do I tell them I am in the funeral industry. In all these years that disclosure has never once resulted in awkwardness or discomfort. Many of my local friends have no idea what my true background is. They assume I am a funeral director. You know what? That’s OK with me. In fact, in almost every instance the individual who asks me what I do engages conversationally with questions or stories and frequently those close by get involved. My conclusion: PEOPLE HAVE QUESTIONS, THEY WANT TO KNOW MORE.
In the Christian World there is something called “Apologetics”. I have often thought that an unfortunate word. It connotes that we are apologizing for the faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. A Christian Apologist is someone who DEFENDS THE FAITH. They stand strong and they stand up. If you want a debate they will take you on. Where are the Funeral Apologists?
Many years ago I was exposed to a statement that literally changed my life:
“You are where you are…because that is where you want to be!”
What that means to me is that we, alone, are responsible for impacting our lives. No one can afford to be a victim. Yes, I recognize there is comfort in a victim mentality. But there sure isn’t any hope in it. If you look closely at our critics you will find they are either opportunists or they are bullies and frequently both. You can tell this because the support they offer for their opinions (and they are rarely more than opinions) is too often anecdotal. More important, they almost exclusively focus on attacking character. It is well known among debating circles that when an opponent attacks your character it means they have no substantive support for their position.
The average sale in our profession has been in steady decline in terms of real dollars since 1997. Today’s profit margins are literally half what they were 30 years ago and if we calculated profits over time in terms of “real” dollars it would be fractional. WAKE UP! If you think people will like you because you are their doormat (which they don’t) they will like you a whole lot less when you are a public failure. Your livelihood is in jeopardy. Your wife and your family’s livelihood is in jeopardy. What do you want? Platitudes? Website pictures of your overbuilt facility? A new hearse? The false comfort of a victim mentality? Or…. would you rather see the sales curve stop going down and start going up?
Call to Action: Let’s stop fighting among ourselves and start fighting for ourselves.
Next Week: Some steps that will take us there. I become a Funeral Apologist