Cross-Culture Celebrations!

Mind Tools Newsletter 36 - 29 November 2005 This newsletter is published by Mind Tools Ltd, of 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email us from this page. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. To unsubscribe, just click the link at the bottom of the email se sent you. If you are not already a member and you would like to subscribe, please visit http://mindtools.com/subscribe.htm.

Contents: In This Issue... What's New? Kano Model Analysis Cross-Culture Celebrations Mind Tools Store Diversity During the Holidays A Final Note

We hope all of our newsletter readers have taken a minute or two to check out the "What's New" section recently added to the Mind Tools website.

As we explained in the last newsletter, we are posting new articles to this section every week (with more than 300 different topics to be covered).

See below for a schedule of recently added tools and to read a fascinating article on Kano Model Analysis, written for the recently debuted "What's New" section.

The Kano Model Analysis article was added to this section on the Mind Tools site on Nov. 17th and is sure to be a hit with anyone who strives to deliver profitable goods and/or services that spark excitement in their customers, while simultaneously improving their business' bottom line.

Also in this issue, we celebrate the holiday season by providing our newsletter readers the unique opportunity to learn how the holidays are observed in various cultures across the globe. In the article entitled "Cross-Culture Celebrations: How Do You and Your Family Celebrate the Holiday Season?" we share information that you are sure to find intriguing.

This is followed by a guest article on how to respect and appreciate cultural diversity during the holidays. Written by Simma Lieberman, who regularly helps organizations create environments where people can do their best work and be successful, this article is the perfect match to our own article that details the different holiday dates and celebrations going on across the globe throughout December.

And the holiday theme continues in the Mind Tools store: We're offering prizes of $100 of holiday gift certificates to three customers who place an order before 14 December. We'll "pull the names out of the hat" in our next newsletter!

All part of bringing some sparkle to the holiday season!

So, best wishes for a truly special holiday season, one that includes cultural awareness and appreciation.

Enjoy this issue!

James & Kellie

What's New - 29 Nov 05

New tools on the Mind Tools site

• 25th Nov - The Delphi Technique - Achieving well-thought-through consensus among experts
• 22nd Nov - Emphatic Listening - Going beyond active listening
• 17th Nov - Kano Model Analysis - Developing a product that delights your customers (see below)

Kano Model Analysis
Developing Profitable Products or Services that Genuinely Excite Customers
by James Manktelow.

Kano Model Analysis is a useful technique for deciding which features you want to include in a product or service.

It helps you break away from a profit-minimizing mindset that says you’ve got to have as many features as possible in a product, and helps you think more subtly about the features you include. This can be the difference between a product or service being profitable or unprofitable.

More than this, it helps you develop a product that will truly delight your customers.

Explaining the Kano Model:
According to the Kano Model (developed by Dr Noriaki Kano in the 1980's), a product or service can have three types of attribute or property:

• Threshold Attributes: Which customers expect to be present in a product
• Performance Attributes: Which are not absolutely necessary, but which are known about and increase the customer’s enjoyment of the product
• Excitement Attributes: Which customers don’t even know they want, but are delighted when they find them.

Threshold Attributes affect customers’ satisfaction with the product or service by their absence: If they’re not present, customers are dissatisfied. And even if they’re present, if no other attributes are present, customers aren’t particularly happy (you can see this as the bottom curve on the graph below).

Using the example of a cell phone, the ability to store people’s names and telephone numbers is a Threshold Attribute. While a cell phone without this function would work, it would be grossly inconvenient.

It's on Performance Attributes that most products compete. When we weigh up one product against another, and decide what price we’re prepared to pay, we’re comparing Performance Attributes. These are shown as the middle line on the graph.

On a cell phone, Performance Attributes might be polyphonic ringtones or cameras (although to a teenager, polyphonic ringtones may be Threshold Attributes!)

Excitement Attributes are things that people don’t really expect, but which delight them. These are shown as the top curve on the graph above. Even if only a few Performance Attributes are present, the presence of an excitement attribute will lead to high customer satisfaction.

For the right person (and at the time of writing!), a free Bluetooth headset might be an Excitement Attribute on a cell phone.

(There’s also a fourth type of attribute: Things customers don’t care about at all.)

Using the Tool:
To use Kano Model Analysis, follow these steps:

1. Brainstorm all of the possible features and attributes of your product or service, and everything you can do to please your customers.
   
2. Classify these as “Threshold”, “Performance”, “Excitement” and “Not Relevant”.
   
3. Make sure your product or service has all appropriate Threshold Attributes. If necessary, cut out Performance Attributes so that you can get these – you’re going nowhere fast if these aren’t present.
   
4. Where possible, cut out attributes that are "Not Relevant".
   
5. Look at the Excitement Attributes, and think how you can build some of these into your product or service. Again if necessary, cut some Performance Attributes, so that you can "afford" your Excitement Attribute.
   
6. Select appropriate Performance Attributes so that you can deliver a product or service at a price the customer is prepared to pay, while still maintaining a good profit margin.

Tip: Where possible, get your customers to do the classification for you. Partly this will keep you close to your market, but partly it will keep you and even the most out-of-touch people in your company up-to-date with people’s changing expectations. Using the example above, only a few years ago, polyphonic ring tones (and even phone number lists!) were Excitement Attributes on cell phones. Also, make sure when you choose customers to do the classification, that you choose customers who are typical of the market you want to sell to.

This is only one of the practical creativity techniques available on Mind Tools. Visit the Mind Tools creativity section for more.

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Seasonal Tool:
Cross-Culture Celebrations

How Do You and Your Family Celebrate the Holiday Season?
How Does Your Neighbor, Your Colleague, Your Friend, Celebrate?
Take the Time This Year to Understand, Respect and Observe.

This time of year, we focus on the holiday season, savoring the company of loved ones and closing another calendar year. Across the globe, various cultures mark the season in their own special ways, be it Kwanzaa or Pongal (a Jan. 14 Hindu holiday).

In recognition of this, we recently asked our newsletter readers to assist us as we work to enlighten our international audience to the various holidays and cultural celebrations taking place during this special time of year. We got some fascinating responses and have added a bit of information from our own global team to provide an interesting look at the holidays (shown in date, then alphabetical order) as they are celebrated throughout the world.

[Note from James: We should really have published this article in our end of October newsletter: Diwali and Eid ul-Fitr have already passed. Apologies - we’ll take our own advice, and get this right next year!]

Diwali (Nov 1 2005, celebrated in India)
This five-day Hindu festival is perhaps the most well known of the Indian festivals. It is celebrated throughout India, as well as in Indian communities throughout the Diaspora.

Diwali takes place 18-20 days after the festival of Dusshera and is known as the "festival of lights", for the common practice is to light small oil lamps (called diyas) and place them around the home, in courtyards, verandahs, and gardens, as well as on roof-tops and outer walls.

Because there are many regions in India, there are many manifestations of the Diwali festival. In at least one area, the festival begins with Dhanteras, a day set aside to worship Lakshmi.

In north India, Diwali celebrates Rama's homecoming, which is his return to Ayodhya after the defeat of Ravana (symbolizing the victory of good over evil) and his coronation as king; in Gujarat, the festival honors Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth; and in Bengal, it is associated with the goddess Kali. Everywhere, it signifies the renewal of life, and accordingly it is common to wear new clothes on the day of the festival; similarly, it heralds the approach of winter and the beginning of the sowing season.

Eid ul-Fitr/Hari Raya Puasa (Early Nov 2005, celebrated by Muslims)
Ramadan is the month-long Muslim celebrating the revelation of the Koran to the prophet Muhammad. Devout Muslims fast each day from sunup to sundown for the month and then break the fasting period with a three-day festival. Because the Muslim world spans many countries and cultures, the celebrations and even the name of the festivals vary from place to place.

In Arab countries, it is called Eid ul-Fitr and in Malaysia it’s called Hari Raya Puasa. The dates change from year to year, depending on the Islamic calendar and the part of the world.

Shab-e Yalda (Dec 21, celebrated in Iran)
In Iran, the winter solstice, which falls on Dec. 21, is hailed with Shab-e Yalda, the birthday of the sun. It is a celebration of the triumph of light over dark, good over evil. It is thought that on the longest night with evil at its zenith (the point of celestial sphere that is directly over the observer and 90 degrees from all points on that person’s horizon), light needs help to overcome the darkness.

Because of this, Shab-e Yalda is traditionally celebrated with the family by building a bonfire outside and gathering around a brazier inside until sunrise. Entertainment is aplenty with lots of dancing, poetry and storytelling.

Summer foods are preserved throughout the year for Shab-e Yalda, when winter foods are mingled in to symbolize the balance of the seasons.

Boxing Day (Dec 26, celebrated throughout Britain and Canada)
The tradition of Boxing Day began in 19th-century England under the reign of Queen Victoria. It is not known where the name for Boxing Day originated; however, one theory connects it to the tradition of clergy opening the alms boxes on the day after Christmas to distribute money among the poor. Another suggests that the Boxing Day name came from the practice of merchants handing out boxes of clothing or food to apprentices the day after Christmas as a Victorian-era bonus. While the exact origin remains unknown, what is known is that Boxing Day is a tradition of charity.

Boxing Day is celebrated on Dec. 26, unless this date falls on Sat. or Sun., in which case the holiday is observed the following Mon.

Many Brits observe Boxing Day with family gatherings and the sharing of Christmas leftovers. This custom is also tied to Victorian England, when servants worked on Christmas and headed home to their families the following day with boxes of the upstairs family’s leftovers.

Hanukkah (Dec 26, celebrated by those of the Jewish faith)
More than 2,000 years ago in Palestine, Judas Maccabee and his followers triumphed over the tyrant Antiochus and his army, despite overwhelming odds. But when they returned to Jerusalem, they found their temple decorated with pagan idols. In order to purge the temple of its defilement, the Maccabees rebuilt the altar and cleansed the temple, rededicating it during eight days of ceremonies.

According to tradition, there was only enough sanctified olive oil to light the temple for a single day, yet it burned for the entire eight-day celebration.

Today, those of the Jewish faith celebrate this victory during an eight-day holiday that begins on the 25th of Kislev (in late Nov. or Dec., beginning this year on Dec. 26). Each night of Hanukkah a candle is lit on the menorah (an eight-branched candle holder used during Hanukkah) in memory of the miracle of the oil.

Kwanzaa (Dec 26, celebrating African American unity)
Kwanzaa is a relatively new holiday rooted in ancient customs. First celebrated in 1966, Kwanzaa was created for those of African descent around the world to reconnect with their common heritage. The name is derived from traditional harvest celebrations in Africa called matunda ya kwanza (meaning fresh fruits) which included seven days of gathering, reverence, commemoration, commitment and celebration, the principles around which the Kwanzaa holiday has been molded..

Beginning on Dec. 26 and lasting for seven days, modern Kwanzaa celebrations esteem one of the seven core principles of African American unity, the Nguzo Saba, on each night. Karamu, a lavish feast of traditional foods from the African cultures around the world, takes place near the end of the holiday.

Makar Sankrat/Pongal
(Jan 14, celebrated in India – in the south of India as Pongal, and in the north of India as Makar Sankrat)

This Jan. 14 Hindu holiday celebrates the new solar year, considered to be the new day for the gods and the end of their six-month night. It is observed quite differently in each region and has a different name depending on where it’s celebrated (celebrated in the south of India as Pongal and in the north of India as Makar Sankrat).

Most festivities include a common theme of ceremonial cleansing, offerings, and celebrations of the harvest, with food playing an important symbolic role.

The following list provides some additional holiday information on celebrations observed in Dec. across the globe.

01 - Independence Day in Central African Republic
01 - Anniversary of the Restoration of Independence in Portugal
02 - National Holiday in United Arab Emirates
03 - National Holiday in Laos
06 - Independence Day in Finland
07 - Independence Day in Ivory Coast, Panama
07 - Prophet Mohammed's Birthday in Fiji
08 - Mother's Day in Panama
08 - Blessing of the Water in Uruguay
08 - Our Lady of the Cacupe in Paraguay
09 - Independence Day in Tanzania
10 - Thai Constitution Day in Thailand
10 - Foundation of Worker's Party in Angola
11 - Independence Day in Upper Volta
12 - Independence Day in Kenya
13 - Republic Day in Malta
15 - Statue Day in Netherlands Antilles
16 - Constitution Day in Nepal
16 - Day of the Covenant in South Africa
16 - National Day in Bahrain
16 - Victory Day in Bangladesh
17 - National Day in Bhutan
18 - Republic Day in Niger
23 - Victory Day in Egypt
23 - Emperor's Birthday in Japan
25 - Christmas Day in Australia, France, Germany, Macau, Phillipines, Singapore, South Korea, USA.
25 - Constitution Day in Taiwan
25 - Children's Day in Congo
25 - Birthday of Quaid-i-Azam in Pakistan
26 - Family Day in South Africa
26 - Feast of Our Theotokos in Greece
27 - Constitution Day in North Korea
27 - Public Holiday in Lesotho, Zimbabwe
29 - Civic Holidays (3 days) in Costa Rica
29 - His Majesty, the King's Birthday in Nepal
30 - Anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar in Madagascar
31 - Proclamation of the Republic in Congo
31 - Feed Yourself Day in Benin

We will provide a list of international holidays observed in Jan. in an upcoming Dec. newsletter.

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The Mind Tools Store:

Special Holiday Prize Draw:
Place an Order Before 14 December, and Enter Our US$100 Gift Certificate Prize Draw!

Continuing the holiday theme: We’re offering prizes of $100 of holiday gift certificates to three randomly-selected customers who order a Mind Tools product before 14 December. Gift certificates will be for luxury stores of the winners' choice (just as long as we can buy them online.) We’ll “pull the names out of the hat” in our next newsletter!

Order now, and enter the draw. But don’t miss the deadline!

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• The Mind Tools E-book: All of the tools on the Mind Tools website in one convenient, easily-downloadable, easily-printable PDF file. We have excluded advertising to enhance clarity and have formatted sections to be easy to read, print and use. More >>

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Guest Article:
Appreciating Diversity During the Holidays
It’s About More than Just a Simple “Happy Holidays”
By Simma Lieberman

Guess who's not celebrating Christmas this year? Millions of people in the US.

That's right. Tens of millions of Americans don't celebrate Christmas religiously, either as followers of non-Christian religions (Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews) or as individuals with no religious affiliation. Because many stores tap into the cash value of Christmas with their plethora of Santas, ornaments, and Christmas fanfare at your nearby mall, we can easily overlook the depth of the diversity present in America during this season. In reality, many different events, both spiritual, religious, and tradition based, are being celebrated in many different ways during these times.

It used to be that being inclusive meant sending out "Happy Holidays" greeting cards and changing Christmas office parties to "holiday parties." Today, it's about more than just changing labels and titles. It's about using time to be with friends and family to build understanding and awareness about others.

Three Ways to Build Your Awareness and Create an Inclusive Holiday Environment:

1. Learn about other celebrations. Carve out some time from online shopping or a Holiday TV show to learn about another culture's celebrations during this time. Watch a TV special on other celebrations, do a Google search on a holiday, or check out books at your local bookstore while gift shopping. Share your learning with others, and use it as a chance to expand the conversation at parties and at the dinner table.
   
   
2. Make no expectations. Realize that people celebrate a variety of holidays during this time of year, and some people choose to celebrate none. Be respectful of these differences by taking interest in other people's traditions and making them feel welcome. Don't be afraid to ask people what holidays they celebrate. Find out what they do during this time of the year that is special. Let it be an opportunity to learn about different cultures and religions and the traditions that accompany them.
   
   
3. Mark your calendar and your address book. If the calendar or PDA you use does not list holidays like Kwanzaa, Hanukah, Ramadan, and Diwali, find out the dates and record them as reminders. Many programs like Outlook (Tools… Options… Preferences… Calendar Options… Add Holidays…) allow users to add calendar dates for celebrations from different parts of the world automatically, making this task quick and effortless. Take a few minutes to mark your address book with the holidays that people celebrate. When writing holiday cards, recognize their holiday, and include a little hand-written note acknowledging their celebration.

A Note for Employers:
Here are a few extra things employers can do to make their workplaces more inclusive during the holidays:

• Make sure your Holiday party isn't a Christmas party in disguise. Decorations and food should be general, and non-specific to any religion.
  
  [Editor’s note: Use common sense here: Different situations need different approaches. On one hand, and particularly in this new, globalizing world, organizations are much more multi-cultural than in the past - it’s easy to forget this in the excitement of event planning. On the other, many people are tolerant of (and curious about) others’ traditions. As ever, it’s a matter of finding the right balance.]
  
  
• Consider having a New Year's Party instead of a Holiday party. This type of party can get everyone on board with the company's mission and vision for the New Year.
  
  
• If appropriate, post holiday greetings on your webpage and intranet for many religious holidays.
  
  
• Be respectful of these special dates, and plan events and meetings around various holidays.
  
  
• Display a multi-cultural calendar to help all employees stay aware of important cultural events for the rest of the year.
  
  
• Be flexible with the needs of different employees.
  
  
• Encourage employees to share their celebrations through stories, decorations, and foods that they can bring to their workplace.

Simma Lieberman helps organizations create environments where people can do their best work and be successful. She specializes in diversity and inclusion, diversity dialogues, and eliminating fear and self-doubt. She is the co-author with Kate Berardo and George Simons of the book "Putting Diversity to Work." She can be reached at http://www.simmalieberman.com.

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A Final Note From James

We hope you enjoy this first holiday 2005 edition of the Mind Tools newsletter. As the leader of a global team, I know firsthand how important cultural awareness and respect is (and I’m “kicking myself” for not publishing the “Cross-Culture Celebrations” article a month earlier!) All at Mind Tools continue to learn more about cultures and traditions from every other member of the team, and we hope that the information we have provided you on this subject is as intriguing as it is useful.

As we mentioned before, we want to hear from you this holiday season. Let us know about your culture, your traditions and share with us any tips you have for ensuring cultural awareness throughout the holidays. This is an important time for us all and by showing others the respect they deserve, we make sure the holidays are enjoyed by everyone - in our office, on our team, or even in our neighborhood.

The next issue of the Mind Tools newsletter will include more information on the holidays, including information on time management and stress management – something important to us all - especially during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

As always, thanks for reading. Best wishes, and until next time!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler

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