I think it doesn’t take long when somebody picks up your book and reads it to really know that 1, the personality of the individual who wrote this book immediately comes across. Number 2, we’re inundated with customer service books, you know, how do you provide the customer experience and so forth. I think what you hit upon is really something that’s completely different than the practical theory that’s out there. You really have hit a chord of here is how it works in action and here is what you can do. I’m interested in just diving in with you and trying to explore some really important things that I’ve uncovered in here that I think will be very valuable for everyone else.
Terrific, I’d love to do that
Let’s take this love letter. In the beginning of the book you say that the common denominator amongst the successful and beloved companies is that they consistently find their way to weave their humanity into the way they make decisions. I stopped when I read that. I said, you know that makes so much sense but yet, it’s so difficult for people to do especially a lot of these businesses out there. Since I’ve read your book, I’ve just been much more conscious of how the services in the world that we’re living in today. I’m just curious as to your perspective, why when it’s so simple and it makes so much sense, why is it so difficult for companies small and large to implement?
Think about your day. Think about all of our days are not comprised of thinking and considering the lives of the people we’re introspecting with. Instead, our days are comprised of tasks and actions lists. Those tasks and action list accidentally cut out the people on the other end of those tasks. We’ve become so focused on getting the action done that we block ourselves from the overall impact or effect of the action it’s supposed to have. Even in small business.
I love the small entrepreneurs and even the medium sized companies that are constantly in contact with their customer because it’s a constant reminder that there is a human being, a person at the other end of these decisions. It becomes more difficult inside of large corporations because a lot of times the people in the middle of the company who are making the engine and the wheels of the engine turn are so far from the people at the end of those wheels that they lose sight of why they are doing the work they’re doing.
Let’s assume we’re at the top of the pyramid now and we’re dealing with the executives of a company whether it’s a small company or whether it’s a larger company. This is really more of a common sense decision from the standpoint. When I ran my organization, it wasn’t significant by any means but I had about 550 financial advisors. One of the first things that I felt is that as a leader of an organization, the lives of these 550 people and everybody that they touch is really critical for me. So how I treat them certainly is going to have an impact on how they treat their people. So from the top of the pyramid, do you see that that’s still not a common denominator?
I don’t think it is a common denominator. You’ve got two ways of thinking about how you can grow your business, you can cost cut and try to drive profit into a business that will earn you fast top line growth or you can make decisions that are right for your customers and employees that you know long term will earn you a sustainable pack of profitability and growth. It’s a different kind of decision. It takes a more specific deliberate and really conscious choice to say, I’m going to grow my business by understanding at the end of the day, I’m here to serve customers.
And prior to that, at the end of the day, I need to hire people, honor them, and enable them to serve those customers versus how can we do it cheaper, faster, better, and not think about the people who need to deliver it and the customers you’re delivering it to. So that’s why I connected it back to the humanity because it’s about being sure and constantly being passionate about the fact there is people at the end of the each of those processes that we need to help and support.