Through The Eyes Of The Fish

One summer, I went fishing with a friend. We rented a canoe and ventured out into a lake at dusk. If truth be known, I was mostly watching, not really fishing. But my friend was very serious about it. As dusk turned to darkness he opened his tackle box and began searching for a new lure. I watched, curiously.

Up until that moment he’d been using a yellow lure. He explained, “It’s time to switch to a black lure.” This mystified me almost as much as what I was doing in the middle of a lake, in the dark, fishing.

I had to ask, “Why would you use black lure in the dark, in what now looks like a black lake?”

Details
Articles, Tips
Oct142010
Isn’t it ludicrous to believe that we could ask workers to care about customers if they don’t feel cared about? Isn’t it crazy to think that we can ask people to take “ownership” of the customer and the customer’s problems; if we don’t take ownership and create a workplace where people can feel their sense of self-worth grow? And where they can learn and develop as people as well as performers?

Customer Care and Employee Care Go Hand in Hand

I just returned from speaking at another Inc. Magazine Conference on Customer Service Strategies. I enjoyed three days of learning and networking with some of the best and the brightest minds in the field, and in the entrepreneurial community. There was one thing in particular that was so rewarding for me this year. The absolute recognition and affirmation in almost every session that I attended that without creating an environment where the workers feel valued and good about coming to work, you cannot even hope to deliver a level of service that will build true customer loyalty.

Details
Articles, Customer Service, Happiness, Happiness at work, Leadership, Tips

Use Values to Pull Your Team Together

No doubt today’s leaner organizations can benefit from the power and synergy of teamwork but all too often it’s become fashionable to call every group a team. Organizations rush to anoint departments and committees alike, “teams”, and then sit back to wait for the results, which, without the right kind of training, are disappointing. Fact is, few people really know the difference between a group and a team, or, for that matter the difference between a team, and an effective, high performance team, which takes full advantage of the combined intelligence, energy and enthusiasm of its members to reach their agreed upon goals.

Details
Articles, Tips