Why Your Employees Count as Much as Your Clients

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Success in business begins with your people. The model is actually quite simplistic although not always easy to execute. What effective managers and leaders must recognize is that it begins with caring about the people who drive your business. But what distinguishes success is the recognition that businesses are driven not just by customers but by employees as well. Developing a culture of caring within your organization to engage your employees is vital to the strategy to drive success to your business.

Building a Customer Focused Environment

As customer expectations are constantly changing, it is ever more critical that businesses are in tune with those trends. It seems that every day expectations are rising rapidly with every transaction and interaction. In order to leverage the power of customer care in your business, it must be integrated into all aspects of your business by recognising your internal and external customers. Superior customer care can become a powerful business driver that is not centered on major investments but simply an awareness of how you do business. Ultimately, the more that you increase engagement with your customers and focus on taking a routine interaction and making it something memorable, the better chance you will have of creating an improved customer experience. But the process must begin with your employees, also known as your internal customers.

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About the Author

Julie Bowen is a freelance writer and full-time mom. After graduating college, she put a lot of effort into her career as a businesswoman with several successful enterprises, but when motherhood came along, she decided it was time to pull back and take up her other passion, writing. Now she writes about business and finance and finds her work-life balance far more enjoyable. When not working and caring for her children, she likes to go for long walks with her dogs, though she is considering using Rollerblades so they can pull her.

Leadership actions that are not an option for leaders.

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“Where’s the action? Where’s the game?” is a line in the song “Oldest Established” from the immortal Broadway show (and my personal favorite) Guys and Dolls.

For the uninformed, the show is about a craps game and a leader named Nathan Detroit. The movie version stars Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando and won all kinds of awards.

The plot is about gambling, winning, attracting, and making it happen no matter what. It’s just a great show and movie with great music and a happy ending.

The theme is one of looking to the leader to make things happen. And it’s the same in your business – just without the craps game and the songs. BUT not without gambling. All business is a gamble and all businesses look to their leaders to ‘make it happen.’

Here are the actions I have observed about leadership that are mandatory for leadership success. They’re internal actions that build trust, earn respect, and create a team of inspired people – inspired to be productive and do their best…

  • Great leaders are value providers, not order givers. At the TOP of every employee’s list of job wants (besides more money) is to be appreciated and valued. When appreciation for a job well done is conveyed, positive environment thrives.
  • Great leaders tell the truth. Truth creates trust and confidence and a reliance on the consistency of message. All other leadership characteristics and outcomes fade if there is a lack of truth. (Same in life.)
  • Great leaders are in control and earn respect. Quick to decide and not afraid to make or admit mistakes, great leaders are respected because they take action and respected because they are vulnerable.
  • Great leaders focus on OUTCOME to ensure completed tasks. Don’t focus on task or project completion. Rather, think what will happen AFTER the project is completed. Outcome, not task. Outcome, not results.
  • Great leaders are responsible by example and expect the same from their people. Everyone ‘looks’ to and at leaders. Watches their every move. If the leader is slack, lacks work ethic, or is slow to decide, they have given tacit permission to their team to be and do the same. The best leaders are first in, last out, and work their ass off in the middle.
  • Great leaders value and display tolerance and temperance. First in themselves – then from others. I’m not a fan of leaders who rant. Lots of successful ones do rant, but there are rules to follow if you’re one of them.
    RULE 1 – Praise in public.
    RULE 2 – Reprimand in private.
    RULE 2.5 – Record yourself doing both praise and reprimand. See how you sound to others by listening to yourself. You may not like it.
  • Great leaders are excellent communicators that are listened to intently, and are clearly understood. The one characteristic that gets more productivity and generates more achievement and positive outcome is clear communication. Leaders have a responsibility and a challenge to be excellent at it.
  • Great leaders train WITH their people, continuously. If training is to have a lasting value, it must have leadership support AND participation. Leaders must train to be better leaders. Start by rating yourself 1-10 on the qualities I have listed here. Anything less that a 7 (out of 10) requires immediate attention.
  • Great leaders are wide open to new ideas and innovation. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is a recipe for failure. Leaders are readers, constantly searching for new ways to be better.
  • Great leaders are tech-savvy. Leaders need to be tweeters, and need to lead the way by communicating value and ideas through social media. A leader’s example can create an avalanche of great service, goodwill, loyal customers, increased sales, and better reputation – or not.
  • Great leaders concentrate on and think BEST. It always takes extra effort to be or strive to be ‘best,’ that’s why so many people fail. Failure occurs when people (leaders or not) fail to do their best and be their best – daily.
  • Great leaders remain committed. The best leaders never waver. They’re loyal, steadfast examples of what and who others aspire to be and be like. They’re not just mission driven; they’re also ‘personal mission’ driven. They are respected and followed because of their commitment.
  • Great leaders encourage. They build pride with a ‘you can do it’ philosophy and communication style. They encourage their people to succeed, and do so with a helpful, positive attitude. A coach and a teacher, not a manager or a boss. Big difference, both in results and morale.

Did I just define your leader? Did I just define how you are inspired to be and do your best every day? I hope so, but I doubt it.

The challenge for you, whether you’re a leader or a team member, is to study these qualities, and talk about them openly. One of the tragedies of leadership is that the (overrated) 360-degree feedback process, usually only goes 180 degrees.

Great leaders don’t just lead by example – they set the standard. What kind of standard are you setting?

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Key Leadership Strategies to Identify, Manage, and Prevent Office Idiocy

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Office Idiots are those individuals whose actions, inaction, antics, and ridiculous behaviors generate widespread dissatisfaction and undercut the performance and productivity of fellow employees near and far and at any job level. Importantly, an organization’s leadership plays a critical role not only in terms of identifying office idiocy, but also from the standpoint of taking corrective and preventive action. The overarching theme is that when management ignores, tolerates, or even enables office idiocy, the outcome is destined to be a continuation and expansion of these counterproductive antics.

Not surprisingly, when managers and leaders act like office idiots, the population of office idiots in their departments tends to increase. There is no question that employees learn from their managers, and it is well understood that managerial behaviors and actions serve as models for the employees to emulate. As a result, when you find a manager who sits in meetings while texting and surfing the Internet on his smartphone, you will also find that his or her employees are far more likely to engage in the exact same idiotic behavior. And what should you do if you are trying to have a serious discussion with your manager or colleague and he or she is texting, glancing at the computer screen, and pecking away at the keyboard at the same time? You should say something, lest you are actually enabling this behavior. Tell this individual that you need his or her attention in order to discuss an important matter. And if the glazed look continues, simply suggest that the two of you meet later. In terms of the bigger picture, leadership assertiveness is a key element in dealing with most forms of office idiocy.

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About the Author

Ken LloydKen Lloyd, PhD, is a nationally recognized Southern California management consultant, author, speaker, and newspaper columnist. He has taught numerous MBA classes at The Anderson School at UCLA and lectures at many other universities. He is the vice president of planning and development at Strategic Partners, Inc. and a frequent television and talk-radio guest, as well. He has authored several books, including Jerks at Work and Performance Appraisals and Phrases for Dummies. A member of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, he graduated from UC Berkeley and received his MS and PhD in organizational behavior from UCLA.

Recommended Resources – AMA Business Boot Camp

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AMA Business Boot Camp book reviewAMA Business Boot Camp: Management and Leadership Fundamentals That Will See You Successfully Through Your Career
edited by Edward T. Reilly

About the Book

AMA Business Boot Camp edited by American Management Association (AMA) International CEO Edward T. Reilly is a reader’s digest of fundamental management and leadership skills. Within this book, Edward compiles leading practices garnered from AMA’s ninety years of research and observation of the world’s top performing managers. This book contains essential insights for newly promoted and aspiring managers to:

  • Define their role as a manager; creating a healthy and productive workplace environment
  • Identify employee motivators; delegating for development and coaching for superior performance
  • Adapt to a changing organization; recruiting, interviewing, and selecting the right person for the job and the organization
  • Manage projects; from setting scope and selecting a team to delivering on-time, on-budget results
  • Develop a personal leadership style; building power and influence and motivating ‘difficult’ people while avoiding the pitfalls of office politics

Benefits of Using this Book

StrategyDriven Contributors like AMA Business Book Camp for its solid focus on management fundamentals. Edward thoroughly covers the foundational principles and practices every manager must embody in order to be successful. Additionally, the book contains many useful templates that newly promoted managers can add to their personal ‘tool kit’ so to further accelerate their growth into well performing leaders.

While thorough in its discussion of management basics, we found AMA Business Boot Camp to lack the vivid real-world examples that would have brought the application of its concepts to life. This lack of examples diminished the book’s actionable nature; challenging less experienced managers to determine for themselves what the recommended implementation would look like in the workplace environment.

AMA Business Boot Camp contains the complete set of solid management principles and practices every aspiring and newly promoted manager should embody. As such, we believe this book would serve these individuals well as they start their management journey; making AMA Business Boot Camp a StrategyDriven recommended read.

StrategyDriven Leadership Conversation Episode 7 – Sixteen Sources of Leadership

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StrategyDriven Leadership ConversationStrategyDriven Leadership Conversations focus on the values and behaviors characteristic of highly effective leaders. Complimenting the StrategyDriven Management & Leadership articles, these conversations examine the real world challenges managers face every day that are not easily solved with a new or redesigned process and instead demand the application of soft leadership skills to achieve a positive outcome.

Episode 7 – Sixteen Sources of Leadership examines the sixteen leadership practices and how these help individuals at all levels become more effective leaders.

Additional Information

The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge FableComplimenting the tremendous insights Robert shares in The Offsite and this leadership conversation podcast, are the additional Leadership Challenge materials and resources found on his website, Leader Inside Out.

Robert has generously made available a document listing the sixteen sources of leadership that can be downloaded by clicking here.
 
 
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About the Author

Robert Thompson, author of The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable, is the founder of Applied Performance, a leadership and personal communications services company for entry-level through chief executive officers. For the past 25 years, he has worked with a distinguished group of clients that include AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Sony, and Sun Microsystems. To read Robert’s full biography, click here.

 

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

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