Bad Management=Bad Service

Don’t wait for customer service to get bad before you do anything about it. By then it’s too

late. The damage has been done. Now you’re into damage-control mode – which takes a lot more effort.

Monkey see, monkey do, here’s an easy activity to do (didn’t mean for that to rhyme, but I’ll take it). Go to a few local retail stores or restaurants. Spend just a few minutes in each one, just observing the employees. You’ll be able to tell what the management is like within just a couple of minutes because the employees walk the leader’s talk.

No matter how good the stores’ customer service “program” is, it won’t be successful unless the leaders walk the talk.

You can’t just focus on the everyday business stuff – products, marketing, sales. In his book, The Customer Rules, Lee Cockerell goes on to say that, “Managers have to recognize that sustained profits depend on their ability to generate consistent, ongoing, excellent service”.

 

You have to keep good service in the forefront of everyone’s mind if you want it to be consistent.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Most people have always thought that if we work hard, we’ll be more successful, and if

we’re more successful, then we’ll be happier. Well that just may not be the case at all.

That’s where Shawn Achor comes in. In his book, The Happiness Advantage, he refers to “rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe” when he says that “happiness fuels success, not the other way around”.

Happiness is contagious, just as a bad attitude is. Try it. Walk into a room of your peers or staff with a big smile and just be basically courteous. With few exceptions, very soon everyone will have a smile.

Just as your bad attitude affects the people you work with, so will a good attitude. And as an added bonus, it could very well bring you more success.

For those of you who don’t think there’s anything to this notion of happiness then ask yourself why Shawn Achor’s TED Talk has had over 7.5 million views.

“Okay, so what if I’m happier at work? What’s in it for me?” I’m glad you asked. Your trickle down happiness is going to directly affect your staff, which in turn will result in:

• better quality of work
• better customer service
• conscious acts of kindness
• teamwork
• openness
• innovation
• cooperation
• fewer sick days
• higher motivation
• achieving potential

Should I keep going?

Abraham Lincoln once said:

“People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Walking the Legacy Talk

So many people can talk the talk.  But how many people can actually, truly, walk the

talk?  I love Mark Miller’s analogy in his new book, The Heart of Leadership.  He uses the example of an iceberg:

As you look at the iceberg, you only see about 10% of it.  The other 90% is below the waterline. The portion you see above the waterline represents leadership skills – reproducible by many.  Below represents leadership character – practiced by few.  The people who talk the talk represent the 10%.  The people who walk the talk represent that, along with, the other 90%.

I’m going to use my favorite example again . . . Disney.  Walt Disney passed away from lung cancer in 1966, before his vision of Disney World in Florida was realized. After much mourning and wondering where to go from there, his brother and business partner, Roy O. Disney, postponed his retirement to oversee construction of the resort’s first phase.

Walt had vision and plans for the company that extended for years.  And, to this day, things are still being developed from Walt’s original visualizations.  In fact, it wasn’t decided until well into the construction process to name the resort WALT Disney World, in honor of the man whose ideas and visions brought it to life . . . five years after he passed away.

A positive legacy is going to require leadership character and vision.  What do you need to do to get it going?

For more on your leadership legacy, see my entire article on Linked2Leadership.com - http://linked2leadership.com/2013/11/15/on-leadership-and-leading-a-legacy/.