Your results are in!

Are employees thriving?

This is an opportunity area for you. Please keep in mind, that “what’s on the inside shows up on the outside.” Leadership is about enabling people to rise.

Here are some ideas for you:

• Consider bringing employees together to ask them what’s getting in their way of delivering value. But ask them by stage of your customer journey….or by customer goal. Then…do something about those things…and market your actions back to them to prove your commitment.
• Look at the way you hire – do you hire the “human behind the resume?”
• Take a look at my resources page, “Enabling People to Rise” for more help in your journey.

And I’m always here to help too.

Strengthen your skills! View helpful materials by visiting my downloads page.

Do our customers feel respected & honored?

This is an opportunity area for you.

Earning the trust and respect of your customers is earned first by respecting and honoring them. Here are a few ideas to help you advance:

• Consider doing a “Trust Audit.” Read all your paperwork and fine print. Is there anything in there that signals to customers that you are trying to protect yourself from them? Anything that gives you the upper hand?
• Also, consider doing a “Customer Time” review. Are you running your business on company time – your schedule or on customer time – their schedule?

There are many resources available for you here, and we will continue to add more.

Do we enable customers to
achieve their goals?

This is an opportunity area for you. The companies in the marketplace who are earning organic growth, and customer and employee admiration do so because they design their operation and how they work – from the customers’ point of view.

Here are a few ideas to help you advance this work inside your organization, and with your leadership:

1. Rethink the work of your business – bring people together and your customers to identify the top 5-8 goals that your customers want to accomplish with you. These can comprise your journey stages…. Or what I call your “business decision blueprint.”
2. Beyond surveys, consider other ways to get to know your customers’ lives and their goals. We are using ethnography and even “anthropology-driven” listening to understand the goals of those we serve. See my blog post where the good folks at St. Jude Children’s hospital show how they do this.
3. Rethink how your leaders ask for accountability. One big and actually fast switch could be changing the traditional CEO report out or leadership report out from silo-based report outs – to conversations by customer goal achievement.
4. Really examine your key performance indicators “KPIs”. Once you know clearly your customer goals, you may be finding that you are measuring the wrong things.

There are many resources available for you (link to general resources page and books pages ) here, and we will continue to add more.

I’m always here for you, too.

Do acts of leadership bravery make us stand out?

This is an opportunity for your company. The leaders who are choosing to reverse the trend on business practices that have defined their industries are creating a more balanced relationship between a company and its customers. Through transparency in communication, fearlessness in actions, and in fessing up when things go south, they are deliberately taking the risk to grow in a different manner than business as usual.

By honoring the people on the other end of their decisions they are establishing more balanced relationships where both sides win. Both customer and company are better off because they are in each other’s lives.

The high road is a choice. And while it’s not always the easiest choice, it’s the one you’ll be happiest about in the rearview mirror. It’s the stuff that earns admiration from customers and employees.

Here are a few ideas to help you advance this work inside your organization, and with your leadership:

1. Do a “transparency review.” Do you fearlessly let your customers know about everything relating to the conditions of your relationship with them? Are they ever surprised by add-ons or legal language or terms?
2. Try to identify and remove any “nickel and diming” with customers? “Opportunistic pricing” is using a customer’s immediate need or desire as an opportunity to make money in that moment. To customers it says, ‘they know I have no choice.” For example, Virgin Hotels has banned the crazy mini-bar pricing. Instead they offer guests the mom-approved “street pricing.” You only get charged what it would cost you to run down to the local mini mart or grocery store to buy that candy bar you’ve just got to have. Instead of making you wonder about their motives for making money – they build fans that are raving all over the Internet about this practice that bucks the trend.
3. Ensure your leaders lead with purpose and give people examples to emulate? Actions that align to purpose, more than words, are the hallmarks of leaders who can move mountains and grow it to the top of its category. For example, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly made a commitment that Southwest Airlines would no longer sell more tickets than it had seats. Not even one.

There are many resources available for you here, and we will continue to add more.

I’m always here for you, too.