Last week I was at the EO San Francisco event. Ken Blanchard was the keynote speaker. In his engaging speech, Ken talked about one topic that resonated with many in the crowd. It is the concept of “ducks” and “eagles”.

Ken said it’s easy to notice ducks. They are always quacking. Examples

“The computer says that quack quack”
“It’s in the rule book quack quack”
“I don’t know quack quack”
“quack quack quack quack…”

We had a good laugh and remembered our own experiences with ducks in the past.

Actually, we didn’t have to go back to our past.

Next day Paul and I were in Los Angeles to meet with our potential partners and customers for Rawsugar and we got to see ducks in action. Paul had booked a rental car with Avis but unfortunately had forgotten to get his Avis Membership Card. We wanted to get down at the Preferred Member counter but the shuttle car driver wouldn’t stop the bus. When Paul requested him to stop, his response was

“I don’t work for you. I work for Avis. I am told to follow the rules”

Really, fresh from Ken’s talk, I heard it as:

“I don’t work for you quack quack. I work for Avis quack quack. I am told to follow the rules quack quack”

Paul and I ignored it and moved on to our meeting. The same evening we returned the car and for the next fifteen minutes there was no sign of a shuttle car to take us back to the terminals. One person was getting anxious (probably because she was getting late for her flight) and asked one of the Avis employees about the shuttle car. The response, as you can guess

“I don’t know”

and I could hear

“I don’t know quack quack”

I had read about the positioning genius of Avis “We try harder” and now it all makes sense to me. With shuttle car drivers and employees like this, they HAVE to try harder 🙂