How do you react when someone unexpectedly cuts you off when you’re driving? Do you pause and think about why this happened? Perhaps the driver didn’t see you or had some emergency. Or, do you react emotionally, instantly uttering some obscenity? For most of us, option B prevails, because our brain’s first reaction to any stimuli is always an emotional one; and, we’ve evolved to react more strongly to negative inputs than to positive ones. …
Each person in your business is a source of energy, with a unique set of gifts, experience, and insight. And unlike other forms of energy, the energy your people invest in their work is infinitely renewable and expandable. Individuals have consistently demonstrated their capacity to contribute energy, and then quickly recharge. When properly nurtured, a person’s capacity to contribute energy can expand, drawing on a nearly inexhaustible reserve of potential energy and creativity. Leaders can …
If customer service impacts the value you create for your customers, then you’re confronted with the service investment dilemma. On one hand, if your judgement is that customer service is a necessity that creates little additional value, then you might structure your customer service operation as a cost center. Making cost control the highest priority often ensures that your customers speak with some of your lowest paid employees, who are not empowered to provide solutions or make …
Urgent issues and changing priorities – these are the daily experiences of leadership. That’s why this insight from Viktor Frankl, offered by David Noble and Carol Kauffman in their book “Real Time Leadership,” is valuable: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” This space between a stimulus and a response provides the time for leaders …
For leaders, there are always problems – a parade of challenges that command urgent attention, most with defined characteristics and threats. There are always opportunities – innovative ideas or new relationships that could create value or accelerate progress, waiting to be embraced, but needing clarity and appraisal. And there are always limits – limited time, energy, money and other resources. How you prioritize where to invest your limited resources directs your actions and shapes your …
In a market where customers have many options available to them, “promising” an outcome, and then delivering it, is a differentiator. A promise is more than a commitment to produce products or services. It’s intimate and specific to each customer. It conveys an obligation to put your customer’s needs and aspirations ahead of your own, based on an appreciation of their circumstances and what they value, as well as your probability of success. Fulfilling a …
Increasingly, the discussions I’m having with leaders focus on how to better leverage their culture to improve performance. We’ve experienced more change in the past few years than we’ve ever seen before. The work to be done is evolving, it’s different; so, the way we get it done must be different. Culture is how a business gets things done. It defines who you are as a company and what you believe. While your purpose or …
The work of leadership is to improve the business – its culture, its practices, and ultimately, its results – by transforming self-interest into shared commitment. To succeed, leaders must convince those they lead that they can make a difference, creating an environment that asks what’s possible, rather than what’s wrong. Before people will believe in a mission, they must believe in their leader. No one follows a leader from ‘me to we’ unless that leader is authentic. Trust grows …
Appreciating the significant impact of accountability on performance, many leaders seek to augment the individual accountability of each team member with an overall team, or shared accountability, in which all team members are responsible to one another, as well as to the leader, for achieving team goals. While the overall responsibility for an outcome is still the leader’s alone, establishing a culture of shared accountability places an expectation on a team that they are likewise …
Generosity is the genesis of trust. When enduring relationships drive your growth strategy, then earning trust is foundational. And often, the seed of that trust, the critical first impression of your company, is planted by those in your business who are your customer’s initial contacts. Your culture is revealed in these first connections. When generosity is a core value of your culture, your customer’s time has priority over yours. It’s more about listening than talking, …
