Service – Encouragement is Personal

Serve others first…

Tim Ferriss asks a question of most of his podcast guests:

“If you had a billboard that millions of people would see every day, what would you put on that billboard?”

Tim’s guests have given answers ranging from the comedic to the serious. Some have talked about a cause that is their passion, or an inspirational passage they’d like people to see.

Each time I hear the question, I come up with the same three words:

Serve others first.

Serving others first means:

taking others’ needs and desires into account before our own
looking out for their best interest first
our decisions are more thoroughly considered because we’ll be taking time to think about how our decisions impact others
trying to make someone else’s job easier and more rewarding
showing someone gratitude for the work they’re doing
minding our manners (as my mom used to say when I was a kid)
listening to, and respecting others (even if we disagree with them)
looking for ways to improve a situation rather than making things worse
being the first to forgive.

It’s easy to focus on our own interests and challenges first. It’s easy to think everything happening in the world is directed toward us, personally. This “me first” mindset is hard-wired into our DNA…our DNA is selfish about 99.99% of the time.

The tougher path?

It’s the one that leads to serving others first. It goes against our wiring, which takes significant effort.

None of us will be perfect on this path. We’ll stumble, and we may even wander a bit. But, we can be a blessing for others along our journey, and that’s what we should be seeking.

The good news is that following this path gets easier with practice.

Photo by Adrià Crehuet Cano on Unsplash

Service…It’s Everyone’s Advantage

Customers always have an alternative. If your organization isn’t committed to making their experience an excellent one, they’ll figure it out quickly and choose an alternative. It’s that simple.

Take a good look at that picture. Let it burn onto your consciousness.

As the world becomes smaller, and yet, more remote; as customers become closer, and yet, more distant; as you begin to blend in with everyone else…

Service is all you have to actually differentiate yourself.

When anyone can provide what you provide, do what you do, be what you want to be, your focus on service is all that matters.

How does an individual compete against a huge, well-entrenched company? By providing better service. Being more responsive, more flexible, and more personally accountable.

How does a huge, well-entrenched company compete against the scrappy upstart individual? By providing better service. Being more responsive, more flexible, and more personally accountable.

Sound familiar?

Who has the advantage in this battle to provide the best service?

The one that actually lives a service-first mindset. The one that considers the customer’s perspective before their own. The one that delivers excellent service…every time. The one who knows that no company can survive or thrive if it forgets about creating an excellent experience for their customer.

It all comes down to execution, which comes from your uncompromising mindset toward service excellence.

Service is your only advantage. It’s the same advantage everyone else has if they choose to execute on it.

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com—Mike Wilson

Your Employees Don’t Work for You

Who works for whom?

The following is an excerpt from my book, Leadership Starts (and Ends) in Your Head…the rest is detail.

Chapter 3. Employees Don’t Work for You

Ask employees to list the things they “work for.” I guarantee managers will not be at the top of that list, if they make the list at all. The following is generally what employees are working for:

To earn a paycheck
To make a living for myself and/or my family
To experience the challenge
To grow
To have fun with my coworkers
To create something bigger than myself
To be a part of an organization that shares my values

Ironically, if you ask a lot of managers to describe their organizations, they will often tell you how many people they have working for them. Really? How is it that employees are working for a whole list of things other than managers, yet managers list how many people are working for them? How can this basic premise of the relationship between management and employees be so disconnected?

Is it just semantics to say that employees don’t work for their managers; they report to their managers? Quite the contrary. It’s critical for managers to realize that their employees merely report to them. Employees take direction, seek motivation, look for clarity, look for support, and often look for permission or forgiveness from their managers. But they don’t work for their managers.

Great managers actually work for their employees. The managers’ focus should be creating environments where their employees, and by extension, their businesses can be successful. This means that managers are, first and foremost, service providers to their employees. Managers are responsible for ensuring that any obstacles to great performance are removed from their employees’ paths. These obstacles may come from outside the organization, or, as is often the case, the biggest obstacles will come from within.

What are some obstacles to great performance? It can be as simple as the climate control in the office. It may be too cold or too hot for employees to concentrate on their work. Employees may be struggling to get their jobs done with faulty or worn-out tools. How about the work environment that has an employee who disrupts the rest of the team or isn’t pulling his or her weight? All of these are examples of issues managers need to be aware of. Not only that, managers need to take swift action to eliminate these barriers to performance, in service to their employees.

And that’s just it, if managers are paying attention to the needs of their employees, they will be able to move quickly to help their employees succeed. After all, an employee’s success is the key to the organization’s success, and, in turn, the manager’s success.