An April Shower of Thanks

Thank you for a fun month! We ran a poll, brought back the guest interview series, and enjoyed some spirited conversation as usual. I look forward to following up on Dr. Keith's insights, announcing our special guest for May, and continuing our dialogue.

My April thanks go to Todd Andrlik, Scott Baradell, Sherrilynne Starkie, John Koetsier, Michelle Golden, Boyd Neil, Rodger Johnson, Chris Mitchell, Jason Keeling, Andrew, Michael Kolowich, Patrick J. Lamb, Brian Keith, Kelli Matthews, and our guest interviewee Dr. Kent M. Keith.

On to May!

Servant Leadership in Dr. Keith's Own Words

To kick off our guest interview series for CSI Season 2, I'm pleased to present the client service insights of renowned scholar, author, and CEO of the The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, Dr. Kent M. Keith.

CSI:  What is servant leadership?

KK:   Servant leaders identify and meet the needs of others, rather than trying to acquire power, wealth, and fame for themselves. Robert Greenleaf described the servant-leader this way:

"The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions… "

"The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?"

CSI:  What prompted Robert Greenleaf to coin the term back in 1970?

KK:   Robert Greenleaf worked for AT&T for 38 years, retiring in 1964. Toward the end of his career at AT&T, he was Director of Management Research, which meant that he was involved in educating and training senior leaders and managers. After retiring, he worked as a consultant and continued to reflect on his experience. He concluded that the power model of leadership that he had seen at AT&T did not work well. There was a better way—servant leadership. He published his essay, “The Servant as Leader,” in 1970. That essay launched the modern servant leadership movement. Hundreds of thousands of people have read the essay and other Greenleaf writings.

CSI:   What do other leadership experts think of servant leadership?

KK:    Many experts understand the importance of servant leadership. Warren Bennis, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Max DePree, Joseph Jaworski, Jim Kouzes, Peter Senge, and Margaret Wheatley have all spoken at one of our annual conferences, and they have been very supportive of servant leadership. Other experts describe servant-leaders without using that label. For example, Peter Drucker’s “effective executive” is a servant-leader, as is Jim Collins’s “Level 5” leader.

CSI:   How can understanding servant leadership principles help us to better serve our clients?

KK:    Servant leadership is effective because it is focused on identifying and meeting the needs of customers or clients as well as the needs of the employees or colleagues who serve them.

One key practice of servant leadership is comprehensive listening—gathering a wide range of in-depth information about customers or clients to make sure the organization understands what people need. It is hard to meet people’s needs if you don’t know what those needs are! Another practice is changing the traditional hierarchical pyramid, so that the chief at the top is not isolated but is part of a team, and people in the organization look out at the customer as well as looking up at their bosses.

Servant-leaders also pay attention to developing their colleagues, coaching instead of controlling, and unleashing the energy and potential of others. They know that when you take care of your colleagues, they will be able to take care of your customers. These and other practices make it possible to provide superlative service to customers and clients.    

CSI:   Who would you identify as examples of servant leaders?

KK:    Servant-leaders can be found in many roles and occupations. There have been many famous servant-leaders, such as Washington, Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Most servant-leaders are only known within their organizations and communities. They are not trying to be famous, they are trying to make a difference—and they do.

Over the years, a number of companies on the Fortune magazine list of “The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America” have implemented servant leadership principles. Those companies include Starbucks, TDIndustries, Southwest Airlines, Synovus Financial, Men’s Wearhouse, and The Container Store.   

CSI:   How do you and the Center promote servant leadership today?

KK:    We promote the understanding and practice of servant leadership through an annual international conference, publications, workshops, newsletters, a speakers bureau, and our website, www.greenleaf.org. We work closely with affiliated organizations in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Singapore, as well as colleagues in other countries throughout the world.

CSI:  Thank you Dr. Keith!

You Want Convenience or Service?

We live in an age when we're encouraged to do everything online - pay our bills, book our travel, buy our holidays gifts, you name it. Of course in certain situations, we may be inclined to pick up the phone to access whatever product or service we require. When that happens, the friendly automated attendant is there to greet us, or should I say warn us.

Call any airline, rental car company, hotel, etc. and you'll hear the automated attendant tell you directly, "You realize you could be completing this transaction at xxx.com, don't you?" This is code for, "Get off the phone and fire up your computer. Words can't describe the excruciating experience we're about to put you through unless you hang up the phone NOW!"

Automated attendants aren't designed to replace human phone interaction; their sole purpose is to discourage telephone use - period. Only by embracing this fact will you find the mental strength to survive the automated attendant experience. It's a case study in the power of indifference. The more angry you get, the more even-tempered the automated attendant remains - it's totally infuriating.

So is this better client service? Well, it's hard to argue with the convenience of being able to access records and buy anything you need 24-hours a day. But convenience isn't service; for that, it usually requires the human touch.

So imagine Chris Brogan's surprise when he received a call from a live person - yes, an actual human being from Continental Airlines. Despite the fact that he was called just to be told he left a bag behind, it's nice to know there's an actual person out there still using the phone to service the customer.

We shouldn't have to choose between convenience and service. We deserve both.

Don't Assume!

Here's another Fun Friday video. Enjoy your weekend!

Guaranteed Satisfaction

On April 15th interestingly enough, David Maister acknowledged Valorem Law Group for offering a practice David's been using for more than a decade - satisfaction guaranteed. Simply stated, if you're not completely satisfied with the services provided, then when you receive the invoice you're invited to pay what you believe the services were worth.

I encourage you to read the post and the comments. As part of the conversation, I noted that what I like best about it isn't just the guarantee to clients, but the manner in which the model helps a consultant take a measure of those clients. It inherently makes the consultant more mindful of whom he/she chooses to work with. One can see that trust is the necessary centerpiece of the relationship from the start. If it's not, then neither party moves forward.

I found the timing of the post interesting only because it's difficult not to contemplate what it would be like if the federal government offered the same guarantee - that when we filed our taxes, we could just pay for what we believed our government was worth for the year.

With just a simple amendment to Article 2, Section 1 of The U.S. Constitution, we could elect David Maister our President. I'd take satisfaction guaranteed over change or solutions any day!

Take Notes Or Just Listen?

I don't believe you can do both - at least not very well. When you're at a client meeting and the client is speaking, do you tend to be a listener or a notetaker? For my money, in a contest over recalling and understanding the entirety of the content, and truly connecting with your client, I'll take the listeners over the notetakers any day.

Try this simple experiment: Go to a meeting with a colleague and have one of you take notes. When the notetaker debriefs the listener, you'll be surprised at how much the notetaker missed. As notetakers furiously take notes, they work so hard at capturing everything, they always miss something. They can't help but focus on what they're writing while new content is whipping right by them.

I might also add that having the client talk to the top of your head doesn't exactly facilitate eye contact or help you assess one's demeanor either. The only notes one should ever take during a meeting are deadlines and lists of deliverables. (It can be important to most clients that they see you writing down this kind of information.) You want notes? Take a few moments after the meeting to jot down the most salient points for future reference.

Next time your client leads an input session for your team, rather than bury your head in your notepad, make eye contact and listen - really listen - to everything being said and how it's being said. You'll be surprised at what you take away from it.

Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough

Let me share one more of my favorite guest interviews from Season 1 before introducing our first guest for Season 2!

Living Loews! (Originally posted on March 21, 2007)

As part of CSI's executive interview series, Loews Hotels Chairman and CEO Jonathan Tisch was kind enough to answer some questions and offer his insights regarding great service as described in his new book Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough. Here's what he had to say:

CSI: Does the title of your book, Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough, refer to the importance of getting your core business right or to offering an even richer experience for your guests?

JT: The latter. I'm not saying that putting chocolates on the pillow of your guests is a bad idea, but it has become so expected that it no longer works to win the loyalty of today's savvy customers. All of us in every business have to think harder and be more creative about how we can make our customers feel like pampered guests who will want to come back for more.

CSI: Talk about the values your father instilled in you that drive your beliefs and practices about client/customer service?

JT: My father and uncle started what is now the Loews Corporation more than 60 years ago with just one hotel. I learned from him at an early age the art of hospitality, and how to treat people with warmth, openness, generosity, and respect. I noticed how much guests responded to attentive employees with an eye for customer service. And I also noticed how much good hotel
design can create a great customer experience. The Americana in Bal Harbour Florida, one of my family's first hotels, was designed by Morris Lapidus, who believed in delighting guests with architecture that entertained with swooping lines and grand open spaces.

CSI: Share with us one of your favorite outstanding service stories, as demonstrated by one of your employees?

JT: During Hurricane Katrina, the staff of the Loews New Orleans hotel ran out of cars to evacuate guests. One of my more creative employees remembered that SUV prizes were parked at the hotel for an episode of the TV show "Wheel of Fortune." They found the keys and were able to evacuate the last guests just in time. These guests will remember the creativity and
attentiveness of these employees for the rest of their lives.

CSI: Great service can be like beauty - it's in the eye of the beholder. If you agree with that premise, then what's the secret to pleasing ALL of your guests?

JT: Customization. There is no one cookie-cutter way to make everyone feel special. Smart companies know how to customize their product or service so that customers feel like they are the only customer instead of just one of the masses. Land's End does this well with their custom fit clothing technology. And Build-a-Bear lets children create a customized teddy bear exactly as they want it.

CSI: How do you build a team and create a culture that cares about great service as much as you do?

JT: At Loews we have a people skills training program called Living Loews. It's vital that leaders get their teams to focus their attention on their guests. Once all your employees have a customer-centric mindset, all the other pieces of the business will fall into place. We find our employees enjoy their jobs more when they understand that their role is to help and please others.

CSI: If there's one takeaway you'd like people to grasp after reading your book, what would it be? Is there an over-arching aha?

JT: Absolutely. Too often we think of business as the sale. But no customer wants to be sold to. They want great experiences. The more we think of giving our customers experiences that feel special, the more customer loyalty and profits will follow.

CSI: Thank you for your time!