This funny little phrase reminds us that life is much easier if we keep things simple. When we make things too complicated, we freak out worrying how we’ll get things done, or how we’ll ever achieve the level of perfection we desire.

So to remind ourselves to lighten up, we tell ourselves to “Keep It Simple, Stupid!”

I think the order of the phrase is wrong. I believe it should be “Keep it STUPID Simple.”

This arrangement encourages you to not just keep it simple, but keep it as simple as humanly possible — stupid simple. If we can learn to keep things stupid simple, we’ll stay far, far away from over-complication.

Here’s a stupid simple idea that came up in my life recently. A friend asked me if I was drinking enough water each day. I said I’ve been trying, but a lot of days I know I don’t get enough. My friend said he lines up four bottles of water on his desk each morning, and he makes sure they’re empty before he goes home.

A simple idea would be to keep one water bottle handy on my desk and refil it throughout the day. A STUPID simple idea would be to keep four of them so I know exactly how much water I have to drink.

My initial response was, “Wow, what a simple idea.” My second thought was, “I’ve got to figure out a way to sneak this idea into a newsletter article.”

There are about a million places in my life where I can apply the new KISS philosophy. And when I think about how I interact with my team, there are about a million more places I could apply it.

Here’s a step-by-step method to apply the Keep It STUPID Simple philosophy on your team:

1. Ask yourself, “What seems complicated or overwhelming on my team right now?

2. Consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, it might be a little too complicated.

3. Forgive yourself for being human and over-complicating things.

4. Strip the complexity out of the situation and state the absolutely most simple way you could resolve the issue or solve the problem.

5. Take it one step further — to the “stupid simple” level. How could you make it really, REALLY simple?

6. Give your stupid simple solution a try. If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to the complicated way (but I doubt you will).

One more thing I like about the new arrangement of KISS is that, in a weird way, it’s a much more positive statement. The old version called me stupid. I’m not real fond of being called stupid, even if I’m the one saying it!Other articles you might like:

• What do the Ritz and Waffle House have in common?
• Stop disrupting your flow
• Educate your customers
• Little things can make a big difference
• What might happen if you treated everyone well?

Did my brain grow overnight? Was I the subject of a new government “smart drug” study? Did aliens kidnap me and inject me with massive amounts of knowledge using their telepathic powers?

Nope. I read a book last night.

Ok, so I didn’t read a whole book, but I did read at least a couple of chapters. I read almost every day. It’s one of the ways I get inspired, learn new things, and spark new thoughts. It’s part of my personal development plan.

Why do I do this? It’s simple. I love what I do, I want to keep doing it, and I want to be the best in the world at it.

Do you have a personal development plan? What I’m talking about goes beyond simple goal setting. You can say you want to lose 25 lbs, or that you want to become a leader in your company, or that you want to establish yourself as a world-class expert in customer service, but without a plan you’ll never get there.

A personal development plan doesn’t have to be difficult or complex. We have development meetings every month with each member of our staff. One of the questions each person has to answer (even me) is “What am I doing to develop myself in my current role?”

The answers may vary from learning new software to reading a book to attending a seminar that pertains to their role. I honestly don’t care what the answer is…as long as there is an answer.

As a company, we’ll do what we can to develop our people, but what I’ve discovered is that the real rock stars are the ones who constantly develop themselves.

When one of his employees asks for a raise, my brother (a much wiser businessman that I am) looks them in the eye and asks, “What are you doing differently or better than you were doing this time last year?” Sadly, many of them leave his office with their tails between their legs because they haven’t grown in any way. If you don’t grow, how can your contribution to the company grow?

If you want to be worth more tomorrow than you are today, you’ve got to start developing yourself.

If you want your team to be higher performing tomorrow than it is today, you’ve got to start helping your team members develop themselves.

There’s a quote that’s attributed to Zig Ziglar that says, “In 5 years, you’ll be the same person you are today…except for the books you read and the people you meet.”

I’ve also heard that if you read about a subject just 30 minutes a day for 5 years (probably less than that), you’ll know more about that subject than 99% of the world. There’s always going to be that freaky genius in every field who somehow knows more than you, so don’t worry about the last 1%.

Reading certainly isn’t the only way to develop yourself. Here are some other ideas:

• Try a new approach to an old problem.
• Take on a project that challenges you.
• Go to lunch with a mentor or potential mentor.
• Take a vacation.
• Take a longer vacation than normal.
• Take a working vacation related to your field.
• Study a competitor.
• Do an internship (yes, even if you’re not 20).
• Browse a bookstore.
• Do something you never thought you’d do.
• Apply for a new job that interests you.
• Identify your weaknesses and improve one.
• Identify your strengths and expand one.
• Turn off the TV and do…anything.
• Join an association.
• Start an association.
• Experiment without fear of failure.
• Take a class.
• Teach a class.
• Attend a conference, workshop, or seminar.

Other articles you might like:

• Customer Service Book Review: Super Service
• Customer Loyalty Book Gets Reviewed on AllBusiness.com
• Customer Service Book Review: Choosing Civility
• A simple four step plan for renewed success
• Plan your customer service improvement for 2010

You remember what happens, don’t you? That dumb, happy mutt develops rabies and poor Travis, the teenage boy who bonds with the dog the most, has to put him down with a shotgun.

Excuse me while I choke up a little even now. Darn you, Walt Disney!

I heard a reference to Old Yeller the other day and in addition to bringing back the saddest movie memory of my childhood, it also made me think of all the tough decisions we have to (or should) make every day. The day I heard the reference I was working on some customer service ideas.

Forgive me if the movie reference gives you horrible flashbacks like it does me. Stay with me for a minute, because there’s a good customer service lesson in this decades-old tear-jerker.

Here’s the lesson: sometimes you’ve got to pull the trigger and put an old customer service practice out of its misery.

We all have customer service practices that have served us well. In fact, there are some that have worked so well in the past that they have become completely ingrained in the way we run our businesses. They are so much a part of us that we can’t imagine life without them. Sort of like a lovable dog that plays with you, protects you, and licks your face all over.

These practices could be as simple as how you greet customers when they call or walk in the door.

“Welcome to (your company)! What can I do for you today?”

Some could be a little less obvious or more complex, like the follow up you do with clients through phone calls, comment cards, or surveys.

And in some cases, it’s our products and services themselves that have become trusted friends that we believe will never turn and bite us.

When was the last time you took a good look at your customer service processes, practices, and products? Are they really serving you and your customers the way they should? Or have they gotten weak and sick and you haven’t noticed?

Sometimes we’ve gotten so accustomed to our practices that we’ve developed an unhealthy love of “the way we do things.” So much so that if one of our beloved customer service practices develops rabies, we can’t take it out behind the shed and put it out of its misery.

In some cases – actually in MOST cases – pulling the trigger is necessary if you’re going to continue to grow, improve, and profit.

There’s an old saying that you can do anything you want to do, you just can’t do everything you want to do. None of us has unlimited time, people, and money to execute every customer service practice that we’d like to. So there needs to be a constant weeding process.

Take a look right now at your customer service practices. Which ones are serving you well, and which ones need a mercy killing? You’ll no doubt find some of both.

Constantly evaluate your practices and make sure you’re focusing on the ones that give you the biggest return on your energy.

And as hard as it may be, take the other ones out and pull that trigger. Once you do, you’ll likely find new ideas just waiting to be generated.

If you remember, once Old Yeller was gone, Travis was given one of Old Yeller’s puppies. And there’s nothing better than a puppy…except maybe an exciting new customer service idea.Other articles you might like:

• Three things you can do to improve customer service
• Lessons from Groundhog Day
• Never to part (with your customers)
• Customer Service Tip – Diffuse First Educate Second
• A New Tool to Improve Customer Service

But this can also be an obstacle to growth and improvement.

Too often our habits stop us from making internal changes in response to external changes the world had brought to our door. They can blind us to how the rest of the world has changed, which can affect our business.

Our habits can also prevent us from trying new things even when we know we should. There’s risk involved in trying something new. Will it work or not? How will I know? And there’s a cost of figuring out what to do and how to do it. Some days it’s just easier to put such decisions on the back burner and keep doing things the way we always have.

Many of us will only change when two things happen.

1. We get frustrated with how things are.

We finally understand or acknowledge things are not as we’d like them so we get upset, irritated or even angry. This is critical for motivating us to make a permanent change.

2. We believe we CAN change.

Frustration is usually not enough. We need one more element: Faith.

We need to know we can successfully make the changes we want to make. We need to believe we can do it. If we lack this belief we might never try. Faith is what pulls us through the fear of the unknown. It helps lead the way to our solutions.

So, to be better at making changes in your business, find ways to get frustrated and to have faith that you can make changes successfully.

The “frustrated” part really just means knowing what’s going on with your business and how it compares to what you want. It’s the difference between reality and your desire. Maybe there is no difference, in which case, maybe there’s no need to change.

Develop some key measures for your business and establish your goals for them. They could be simple like revenue, revenue growth, net income, net income growth, employee turnover, etc. Or, you might have more detailed metrics. That’s okay. Just make sure they are measurable. Apply them to your business on a regular basis and note the gap between your actual performance and your goal.

Do this without fail. It can be an eye-opener.

The second part is to get better at making changes. Do this by making changes a regular and frequent part of your business. I’m not talking about massive change. I’m talking about small, manageable things you can do on a regular basis.

For example, you wouldn’t fire all your sales people and put your whole marketing budget into Google ads. But, you might hold off on replacing a sales person and instead try some Internet advertising for 3 to 6 months. That would be a manageable change.

Larry Wilson talks about failing fast and failing small. This is a great way to think about it. When you try new things, do them small and fast. The faster you learn what works (and what doesn’t) the smarter you get and the less risk you have. And you’ll see more success this way. Most important though, you’ll start to create a method or process for implementing change.

When that happens you’ll be able to see faster what’s working and what is not, according to a measurable standard. Then you’re well on your way to building a stronger business.Other articles you might like:

• Here’s an Easy Formula for Change
• What is Leadership?
• How to Beat the Recession – Part 3
• Is Your Company Delivering the Right Experience?
• 8 Reasons to Feel Good About the Economy

Is it possible that the very thing that makes you an asset to your company can ultimately be a source of limitation? Can the best part of your efforts toward attracting and retaining customers backfire? And if so, what can you do to minimize or eliminate those limitations?

Let’s take a closer look:

Suppose your strength is relationship building. You are the one your company sends in to smooth over the most extreme cases of customer upset. You see it as challenging, maybe even exhilarating, holding the attitude, “You may be unhappy now, but I’m going to turn this situation around and have you loving this place.” Your coworkers think you’re a bit of a magician. Nice talent to have, yes?

Or suppose you are a visionary leader for your company. You are the person who sets the next level of goals. You have a natural ability to point the ship in the right direction, get everyone rallied to set sail, keep the vision forefront in people’s minds while continuously hitting your marks.  Most would say your contribution to the workplace is priceless.

Or maybe you’re the Guru of Measurements. You understand numbers, facts, and statistics like no other. Your ability to zero in on the operational end of things keeps your company in the black while your competition is dipping in the red.
What can possibly be limiting about owning and using those fine attributes of yours? How could it limit the growth of your company? How could it ever have a negative impact on customers?

Consider this:

Success is a long-term proposition. You don’t want one-time customers, you want long-term customers.  You don’t want short-term success for your company, you want long-term success. To sustain long-term success, you need to step back and view yourself from a distance. Take a piece of paper and draw a small circle in the center of the page. Place a line through that circle. The line to the left of the circle is the past. The line to the right of the circle is the future. And, you guessed it – the circle is you in the present moment in time.

In the circle, take a good look at your talents.  Notice how your strengths contribute to customer satisfaction and the overall success of your company.  Notice what things you are responsible for that no one else in the company can do quite as well. Now look at the line to the right and move forward in time.  What possible limitations do you see for the company, your customers, and yourself as you move forward?

What happens when you are not there? Suppose you want to take a vacation, a leave of absence, or perhaps you are struck with a new and fascinating avenue of the business that you feel passionate about exploring, but that would require you to step out of what you’re currently doing? What if you won the lottery and decided to travel the world for a year? How would it impact your company and customers if  you weren’t there for a while?

Here are three points to consider:

The need to control : Note the difference between being in control and needing control When you are working from your strengths and passionate about what you do, you become a natural leader and role model. You are in control of yourself and adaptable to change. On the other hand, needing control is limiting.

Parents experience this to the extreme while raising children. There comes a phase when it’s time to give up control and have the children do for themselves that which was once the parent’s job to do. It’s not particularly comfortable to watch someone do a poor job as part of the process of learning how to do something well. But, allowing them to do it themselves is a way that children are empowered to learn and grow.  Plus, the parent is freed from doing day-to-day tasks that the child can manage.  Refusal to think long-term leads to grown children who are ill-prepared to live on their own at college and beyond.

The same is true at work. It could very well be that you have brilliance at creating instant rapport with customers. You put them at ease like no other.  It may seem a total waste of resources to have anyone but you deal with the most challenging customer service issues. But therein, you discover the limitation.

When you become indispensible at work, there are certainly good feelings that come from being needed. There may also be a certain sense of importance – but is that really good for you or your company? That need to control and be indispensible is also confiding and limiting.  For you (and your business) to grow longterm, you need to empower those around you to handle things when you are not available.

Long-term planning: It’s both easy and logical for you to be put in charge of the activities at which you are brilliant. As your company grows and you feel the effects of economic rebound, there will be more demands on your time and energy.  Be aware of the impact that new growth is having on your company and employees. Have a longterm succession plan that allows your star players to stay vibrant and excited about their job. Without it, burnout and resentments emerge.  When key people leave the company, and no one is groomed to replace them, your customers will feel the impact. And today’s customers are less tolerant of companies that disappoint them. They know they can find someplace else to take their business when they don’t feel as if they’re being served by the best talent at your company.

What you don’t know, you can discover . . .  if you want to: While interviewing the management at Paul Reed Smith Guitars, for our “Who’s Your Gladys?” book, one of their leaders said something quite profound. He said, “The more you want to know, the more you’ll find out.” He was referring to customer feedback. The same can be applied to yourself. Look at your current contribution to the longterm success of your business. Look at your long-range plan for customer retention and attraction. The more you want to know about sustainable success, the more you’ll find out.

Since the human brain is bombarded by a tremendous amount of input, it has a natural mechanism that filters out anything considered unnecessary. For example, you may be completely unaware at this moment of your nose, because you’ve filtered it out as you’re reading this article. When you put your attention on a particular issue, (or your nose for that matter) your filters start letting through information about it. You’ve probably experience this phenomenon when buying a car. When you think about buying a blue Ford Fusion, you start seeing them everywhere.   Start adding questions to your mind’s filter to let in new information.

Are your talents being utilized in a way that will lead to long-term customer retention and company-wide success? The more you want to know, the more you’ll find out. Take a close look at your succession plan. What would best support the overall success of your business and your professional growth as you look out 5 years, 10 years, 25 years? Notice what you can be doing now to support your growth and the sustainability of your company’s success over time.

What do you think? What did you discover about yourself and your company from reading this article?Other articles you might like:

• Business lesson from The Caine Mutiny
• When Customers Tweet – Do You Listen?
• Amazing Customer Service Means Focusing on What Your Customer Wants, Not What You Want
• Good Customer Service Can Grow Your Business, Even in a Down Economy
• How to behave so your customers will too

I once worked for an agency with an unofficial motto of failure is not an option.  The mindset of eliminating failure as a outcome was incredibly liberating — the things we achieved were incredible and often unbelievable.  But from within the agency, our achievements were the norm.

If failure isn’t a possible outcome, the worst you face is a temporary setback.

I’ve always thought mindset is the key to all success — family, professional, athletics, etc.  Yes, there are limits we often have to deal with that go beyond desire and sticktoitness.  But I sincerely don’t believe there’s any greater element of success than dedication, hard work, and relentless pursuit of achieving whatever it is you’re chasing in life.

What promoted me to write this post is a highly interesting article I found via SmartBrief — an article titled The truth about grit, published on the Boston Globe’s website.  The article is about research and associated conclusions that indicate grit is the most essential ingredient to success — more than intelligence.

While researchers have long focused on measurements of intelligence, such as the IQ test, as the crucial marker of future success, these scientists point out that most of the variation in individual achievement — what makes one person successful, while another might struggle — has nothing to do with being smart. Instead, it largely depends on personality traits such as grit and conscientiousness. It’s not that intelligence isn’t really important…but that having a high IQ is not nearly enough.

Here’s the link to the article. I encourage you to read it and think about the work you do in your business and success you pursue in your personal life.  Do you have grit?

What do you think?

What role does grit play in your success?

Other articles you might like:

• Use grit to improve your customer service delivery
• A simple four step plan for renewed success
• Establishing superior customer service is a PROCESS, not an event
• Attracting Loyalty from the New Customer – Part 3
• Unemployed man makes generous donation to service dog agency

Treat everyone well.

It’s a simple lesson but easily forgotten. Or maybe, for some, it was never learned. I admit to neglecting this rule more than once in my career. Maybe because it’s so simple, we disregard its value and its power.

I have been fortunate to witness this rule in its full glory. The best examples have been given by my parents and my wife. They have always taken the time and effort to treat everyone they meet with courtesy, respect and warmth. And they do it with great consistency, so I know it comes from their hearts and not their heads.

This never fails to impress me.

But there is a another group of people who have made a similar impact on me. These people are complete strangers to me. At least they all started that way.

I’ll explain.

I’m the kind of person who reaches out to others. I never think about it, I just do it. I read an article I like and I email the writer to tell them. I comment on blog posts. If I read about someone or some organization that impresses me, I’ll often send them an email.

Most of these people never respond. That’s okay. I don’t expect them to. They don’t know me (to them I’m literally a nobody). They’re busy. They have plenty of other things to deal with. I get that and it’s okay.

But some do respond.

What surprises me is how many of the “big-name” people respond. People like Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, Harry Beckwith, Jeff Fox, David Meerman Scott and Chris Brogan just to name a few. These people have big audiences, best-selling books and (I assume) busy schedules.

Because of their success, these people have a lot of people who know who they are and who read their stuff. Some of them measure their audiences in the millions. They have climbed to a lofty place in our business world’s hierachy.

As a result, they have a lot of people knocking on their doors. The Internet makes all of us more accessible. The impact to most of us is big. The impact to people like Guy Kawasaki is huge.

Yet, a while back, when I sent Guy an email asking his opinion about something, he responded right away. I mean, within a few minutes!

When someone who has a million readers will take the time to respond to a complete stranger, I see a lesson there. I see a value in that person’s actions that I admire. I see someone who values others without judging them. I see someone who understands what makes the world tick.

They take the time to treat everyone well. And maybe that’s why they’re so successful.Other articles you might like:

• How do your customers see your business?
• Social media elevates the power of Nice
• Be a better customer
• What kind of customer are you?
• Customer Service Example: Meet your customers where they are

Pause

When things aren’t going as they should – life’s not treating you well, business is lacking, and you’re underperforming against your best hopes and expectations – you need to pause. We wish we could stop, but it’s impossible, time and life marches on. A pause is where you reflect on what you’re doing, what’s going wrong, and where alternatives could have been taken. It’s the act of reflecting on the path you’ve taken and analysis on why things aren’t working as they should.

Reset

One of the most important things to keep in mind is unless you do something different today, tomorrow is going to be the same. You can wish and hope things get better, but they won’t unless you change. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future returns. That saying is wrong in this case. If what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, it won’t miraculously work today, tomorrow, or likely any time in the future. You need to change. Resetting yourself is admission you need to regroup and start a new plan. You need to get to a safe place and renew your efforts, doing something different than what you’ve done before.

Think

Building on what you concluded when you paused, you need a new plan. This time write it down. You don’t need a 100 page, chart laden, detailed manuscript…you just need what you now plan to do put on paper. There is something magical about writing goals, objectives, and plans. Documenting what you plan to do makes you think. Don’t get elaborate – just a simple outline is fine. Be sure to put a time-line against it. This is your roadmap for your next travel in life. Use your plan to calculate your next step and measure the time taken to get there.

Play

Everything in life is execution. None of the prior steps count if you don’t execute on your new plan. Do something today. Stop procrastinating. Take a step forward in earning your planned success. We all have times in our lives when things aren’t working for us as they should, as we feel we’re deserved. Truth be told, the world doesn’t owe us success, we have to first earn, then take it.

To your success.Other articles you might like:

• Here’s an Easy Formula for Change
• Are you smarter than you were yesterday?
• Tell them yes
• How to Beat the Recession – Part 3
• You’re One of the Best. Are You Acting Like It?

Even so, I’m a little overwhelmed with how to achieve all the wonderful things I want to achieve this year. I’m also overwhelmed at the volume of self-help information intended to help me set goals and get motivated. So I’m going to keep this simple this week, but I do hope this single spark helps you as much as it is helping me think differently about this new year.

Forget what you need to DO to achieve your goals. Instead, focus on who you need to BE. If you become the person you need to become, the “to-dos” will suddenly become much easier to do, and many will magically start taking care of themselves.

For example, if your goal is to become “fit like an athlete,” you already know what to do: eat right, exercise a lot, stay hydrated, and get the proper amount of rest. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’ve probably done those things before in hopes of losing weight or becoming more physically fit. Yeah, I’ve done it, too. So why aren’t you and I Olympians? Face it, most of us are more like Oompa Loompians than world-class athletes.

It’s because we work on what we need to DO instead of who we need to BE. Someone who is fit like an athlete is disciplined, committed, and maybe a little bit crazy (have you seen those people who run in the snow????). They put their health and fitness FIRST, before entertainment, hobbies, and even before friends and family. I’m not saying they don’t value these things, but they will sacrifice some of the time others might spend with friends, family, and American Idol in order to achieve and maintain the level of fitness they desire.

So are you working on eating right, exercising, staying hydrated, and resting properly, or are you working on being disciplined, committed, and maybe a little bit crazy?

This applies to more than fitness, too. It applies to any kind of goal you strive for. If your goal is to become a better leader, build a better team, or create a culture of world-class customer service, take some time to think about who you will need to be as an individual or an organization first. Then, work on the ways you can develop into that.

If fitness is your goal, you may realize that to create the time you need for exercise will require you to become a master of time management. Take a class or read a book (or two or three or ten) on time management.

Becoming a better leader might require you to become a motivator of people. Learning what makes people tick would help you become the kind of person you need to be to become a great leader. Go learn what makes people tick!

If doubling your sales is your big goal this year, you might need to become the best sales organization on the planet.You won’t do that by simply checking off a to-do list. You’ll have to develop your entire organization to be fanatically crazy about your product and seizing every opportunity to add amazing value to your clients.

This whole article really boils down to two questions (sorry you had to read all the other stuff…I couldn’t help myself):

1. What do you want to achieve this year?
2. Who do you need to become as an individual, team, or organization to make that happen?

Oh, yeah, one more thing: start today. It’s really the only day you ever have.?Other articles you might like:

• 1% Improvement
• Chubby middle aged guy skates 1300 miles for charity
• Are you smarter than you were yesterday?
• How to make customer service a priority
• Is Your Company Delivering the Right Experience?

During one of the trainings, Jack introduced a success pie chart that had a huge impact on me. It originated from Jim Bunch. (If you don’t know about Jim, look him up!) The chart shows that 50% of success comes from your environment, 40% from your mindset, and only 10% from skill.  If 50% of success comes from creating environments that support your goals, how can you upgrade your workplace environment to attract and retain more long-term customers?  As I looked at the weight that environment plays on success, example after example sprang up based on our year of interviewing successful people.

50% of success comes from your environment, 40% from your mindset, and only 10% from skill.

One example comes from Sky Lakes Hospital. Its customer satisfaction scores raised from the 41st percentile to the top 10% in the nation after a three year customer service culture change. Custom Learning Systems was hired to give the leaders at Sky Lakes tools to support service excellence. One wonderful tool that Sky Lakes adopted was the “Six Foot Rule.”

Every employee, hospital-wide, is required to look up, make eye-contact, and say something pleasant when  they pass within six feet of anyone – a patient, visitor, or even a fellow employee. This rule has changed the environment at Sky Lakes. The expectation was non-negotiable. People were held accountable. What happened? For some, the workplace got a whole lot friendlier and much more enjoyable. Unfortunately, for some of the Sky Lakes staff, this new rule was intolerable. In fact, some of the employees actually quit their jobs because they didn’t want to follow the new rule. It didn’t match their cynical dispositions. The upside? This new environment organically weeded out those who didn’t fit the new service excellence culture.

This serves as a great illustration of the power of your environment in creating success. Just imagine being an employee of this hospital. Let’s say your name is George. You’re not great with customer service but it’s okay because your particular job doesn’t require customer contact. According to Jim Bunch’s pie chart, your environment counts for 50% of your success. Put in an environment where there are no expectations that George socialize, he won’t. However the Six Foot Rule changed the expectations and the environment. The environment George works in now calls forth a new degree of interpersonal warmth and connection. His coworkers are his internal customers and are positively effected whenever George looks up and greets them. This rule improves his coworker relationships and delights the occasional patient that he passes in the halls.

Brian Lee, the President of Custom Learning Systems explained that the moment you take your eye off of customer service, it reverts back to the way it was. When he first told me that, I felt some resistance to his statement. But then I started thinking about it from a personal standpoint. You don’t just put gas in your car, shower or eat a meal once. You do it on an ongoing basis, monitoring your levels of fuel, cleanliness, or hunger, and taking action to keep things running effectively. You don’t just organize your office once, you need to keep your eye on it, or it won’t take long for it to revert back to chaos. Are you keeping an eye on your workplace environment? Is it supporting all the time, money, and training efforts you’ve invested in service excellence?

If 50% of your success with customers comes from the environment, what can you add to it, and remove from it, to draw out the best in yourself, your coworkers, and staff? Here are three quick tips to upgrade your environment. Please feel free to add your tips to this blog entry. Your contribution may just impact the way our readers approach their workplace environments.

1. Observe your workplace. Walk through your company as if you had absolutely no ties to it. As a customer, what would make you want to do business with this company? What might push you away? As an employee, what would make you want to get up in the morning and come to work each day? What might be hindering your enthusiasm?

2. Be accessible – consistently. Create an environment that encourages management to communicate with staff. Make a habit of walking around on a regular basis, specifically to create opportunities for casual conversation with your staff. Offer a customer service box that employees can use to leave anonymous messages to management. Set specific time aside to ask your employees what’s working and what’s not working. Encourage them to share what might be helpful to them as they do their jobs.

3. Set expectations and make every department accountable for their service excellence scores. You get what you measure. Whether you use a secret shopper, an outside customer rating system, or your own internal reviews, make sure your people understand what you expect from them. Spend time focusing on what they are doing right. Clear expectations combined with a positive focus draws the best out of all concerned.

What do you think? What can you do – right now – to enhance the customer service environment at your workplace?Other articles you might like:

• 5 things your customer service training should cover
• Customer Service Quote for June 2, 2009
• For Better Customer Service, Affirm Your Company Values
• Black Jack Pizza Should Win a Customer Service Award
• 23 Ideas to be a better boss

- Fernando Flores

I use to be envious of great people.

By “great”, I mean people who have achieved things so noteworthy they become famous for it.

Some do it early in life, like athletes. Tiger Woods is a great example.

Others take more time reach their success through business. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have both risen to the top with their business achievements.

Still others achieve their prominence through service to others. The Reverend Billy Graham and Mother Teresa are living legends for their service to people.

Our world is full of people who have accomplished greatness with their lives. It’s easy for any of us to name five or ten great people we admire.

Like I said, I used to regard them with envy. But, the older I get, the more I realize why we have great people in our world. They exist to teach us.

Here are things I’ve learned from these teachers.

Sacrifice

Great people make sacrifices to achieve their greatness. Too often we consider sacrifice bad.

It’s not.

We make sacrifices with every decision. Even if we do not decide we still make a sacrifice. It’s a basic law of reality; you can’t do or be everything. You need to choose.

When you choose one course of action, you automatically sacrifice the opportunity to choose any other course of action.

That’s all right. It’s better to make a bad choice than to never choose. When you fail to choose, you’re saying nothing is important enough for you to make it a priority. If nothing in your life is important, what kind of life is that?

You risk an empty life if you spend too much time failing to choose.

Faith

Great people make choices because they believe they are the right choices. They have unyielding faith in the path they choose. Don’t think they’re always right, though. Great people are probably wrong more often than the rest of us. This is because they take risks without fear of failing. They know failure is not bad. It’s simply a way to learn. So, they take more risks.

Faith that you’re making the right choice will help you make the choice. That’s the first step.

Persistence

Once you choose a course of action, you will face obstacles. You will face resistance.

Whether you’re learning a new skill, developing a new relationship, building a business, starting a new job, you will always face “speed bumps” on your journey.

Willie Jollie likes to say “Murphy has a piece of paper with your name and address on it and he WILL be paying you a visit!” Willie is right and that’s okay because that’s simply how life works.

Persistence is what keeps you on task. It reminds you that you made a choice for the right reasons so a few obstacles shouldn’t stop you. Persistence helps you keep doing what you’re supposed to do so you accomplish what you want. It keeps you motivated and energized every day so the speed bumps don’t knock you off course.

Great people understand the power of persistence. They use it every day.

Courage

When you choose a course of action and you follow it, you often are doing something new. Maybe it’s new and strange to you. Because it’s new and strange it seem dangerous. It might cause you fear. One of the biggest reasons we don’t try new things is our fear of the unknown and fear of failure.

We have fear, which is good because it causes us to examine and evaluate before we jump in. Diving headfirst into shallow water might be a life-threatening decision. Fear of splitting our head open keeps us from jumping in without checking first to make sure it’s safe.

But fear can be an obstacle too.

Fear is the foot that applies the brakes. Courage is the foot that presses down on the accelerator. It keeps us moving in the right direction.

In great people, the foot with courage is much stronger than the foot with fear.

Focus

Many people get criticized for not multi-tasking. “You have to learn to do several things at once” they’re told (usually by a supervisor or manager). Too often we fall into this trap. We think we can accomplish more by doing two, three or more unrelated tasks at the same time.

So, we talk on the phone while we drive to work. We eat lunch at our desks while we work on an important project. We watch TV while we chat with our spouse or kids.

Great people understand the flaw in this.

When you try to do too many unrelated things at once you do none well. Your attention is split among many tasks. The power of your focus is watered down because it’s spread over too many things that demand your attention.

Think of focus as a ray of sunshine through a magnifying glass. On a sunny summer day it’s easy to burn a piece of paper with a magnifying glass if you hold it close enough. By focusing the light on a tiny area, you intensify the amount of energy applied to the paper. This increases the heat and can cause the paper to smolder if you hold it there long enough.

If you pull the magnifying glass away, the focal point spreads out. It becomes less intense. It never produces enough heat to burn the paper because the light is spread too thin.

When you focus on one task instead of many, your energy is just like the sunlight passing through the magnifying glass. It intensifies and has a greater effect on whatever you’re doing.

Great people understand this. They focus. And it works.

Purpose

People who accomplish great things have found their purpose in life.

We all have a unique set of skills and talents. Part of our purpose is to use our talents and skills the best we can. Our challenge is to discover what our talents are and how we should use them.

Great people have a knack for discovering this.

They figure out what they’re good at and they do it. I think most come to this discovery naturally and without much thought. It’s instinctive.

This is the most important lesson for anyone to learn. We need to find and follow our purpose. A man whose intellect is far superior to mine once said: “You gain points by following your unique purpose. You lose points if you follow some else’s purpose.”

Proof

The above lessons are helpful. With them, we can understand better how great people are able to accomplish so much. They give us a road map to help us on our own journey.

So, one reason we have great people, who become famous, is to help the rest of us understand some of these “lessons of greatness”. They help us understand how they accomplish great things.

But there is another, more important reason.

Great people show us what is possible. They show the power of human potential. They give us real life examples of the potential our world has to offer. They are flesh and blood just like us, yet they have done things most people don’t even dare to dream of.

Here’s an example:

For centuries, people assumed the four-minute mile was impossible. The “experts” believed humans simply did not have the physical ability to run that fast.

Then in 1954, Roger Bannister did the impossible. He ran a mile in less than four minutes.

Six weeks later, another person broke the four-minute barrier. Since then dozens of runners have done the same thing.

Once one person broke through the magical barrier, it was easier for others to do the same thing. They knew it was possible because another person had already done it.

We put great people on pedestals. We do this so they can remind us we can all be great. They are real-life examples that we all have a purpose. We all have unique talents and skills. We all have the ability to accomplish great things in our lives.

They help us see what does not yet exist for us. They help us see our dreams by achieving theirs. They help us have the faith and courage and persistence and focus we need to make our dreams happen.

The great people in our world do a great service to the rest of us.

So, next time you meet someone famous who has accomplished great things, shake their hand and thank them. I know I will.Other articles you might like:

• What is Leadership?
• How to Beat the Recession – Part 1
• For More Loyal Customers, Focus on What You Do Best
• To improve customer service: Understand your purpose
• Use faith and frustration to improve

It’s a weekend that all of us looked forward to all year. And after 30 years of staying at the same lodge, we got to know the owners and staff there too. They’re old friends with whom we share a special bond, even though we only see them once a year.

But, this year was different.

For a variety of reasons, we decided to not go on our annual fishing trip this year. At first it was a hard decision. None of us wanted to be the first to suggest we break a 30-year tradition.

Instead of driving to Canada this Memorial Day weekend, I drove to Park Rapids with my wife and dogs and two nieces.

We had a great time.

So, even though I am somewhat saddened by breaking a 30 year family tradition, I was thrilled to spend time with my wife and nieces.

It’s easy to get caught up in our traditions, our habits and our usual routine. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

But, at the same time, change can be a good thing.

Breaking out of our routine and our traditions can help us experience new things we might have otherwise missed. It can help us see new ways to do things more effectively and often with more fun.

Every time we make a decision, we make a sacrifice. The sacrifice is all other paths we might have chosen.

But if we hold too tightly to our traditions and routines, we also make a sacrifice. We give up many opportunities that can enrich our lives and the lives of people we serve.

So, be willing to make some sacrifices in your routine so you can learn and experience new things. Break out of your habits and traditions once in awhile and walk a different path.

You’ll be glad you did.Other articles you might like:

• Connect with your customers on their terms
• Be in the present
• Lessons from Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and More
• Social media elevates the power of Nice
• Soldiers Show us What Service Means

1. Do the Right Things Every Day.

The best way to accomplish anything is to put the power of action and time to work for you. Just like interest accruing on an investment, when you invest the right actions on a daily basis, you accomplish your goal much faster.

So, whatever you’re doing, figure out the actions you need to take on a regular basis to accomplish your goals. Then do those every day, every week, every month, whatever it takes to get it done.

2. Be Good to Yourself.

Being successful in business, as in life, takes energy and work. And it’s a lot harder when you’re tired, stressed out or otherwise in poor health. So, set yourself up for a win by taking care of yourself. Keep your body and mind well-tuned and in good shape so you have the physical and mental energy to be all that you can be.

We’re all different so we all have things that help us stay healthy and balance. Find what works for you and do them on a daily basis.

3. Keep Swinging the bat.

Being in Minnesota, I was a fan of Kirby Puckett when he played for the Twins. Kirby was well known for being a consistently good hitter. A reporter once asked him what his secret was. He said it was simple. He swung the bat as often as possible. Every opportunity he got, he’d swing at pitches. He said the more he’d swing, the more he’d hit.

The more times you try, the more opportunities you have to succeed. And, the more you do something, the better you get at doing it. So, your success rate will probably increase.

4. Read the Signs.

We all get busy. Our personal and business lives are full to the brim with things to occupy our time and mental space. So, it’s easy to zip through life and miss things.

Like signs.

The world is constantly telling us things. Whether we believe it or are even aware of it, we have signs all around us, guiding us.

I think of the movie, L.A. Story (1991) starring Steve Martin. While trying to find meaning in his life, Steve Martin’s character discovers the highway signs in Los Angeles are sending him messages. (They’re written in plain English so it’s hard to miss them.) In time, he learns to pay attention to his signs and his life becomes more purposeful and less chaotic.

The older I get the more I realize the importance of reading the signs the world gives us. Maybe this is because I’ve gotten better at reading them and I’ve seen the impact on my life.

When several independent things happen in my life that point in the same direction, I take that as a sign. When I try to avoid or ignore something and it keeps coming back, I see that as a sign. When I keep making the same mistake over and over and then someone or something helps me pull my head out of the sand so I see the error of my ways,

I take that as a sign.

The more you learn to read your signs, the better you will be at making the right decisions in your life.

5. Manage Inputs and Monitor Outcomes.

Since we cannot control outcomes why spend much time worrying about them? Sure we need to monitor them but that’s all. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to control something you can’t (like outcomes.)

Instead, focus on the inputs or the actions that will lead to the outcome you desire. Manage that well and you’ll see the outcome you want.

6. Don’t Try to be Perfect.

I’m always amazed at how many of us fall into the perfection trap. We can’t start something until we think we have the whole thing planned out. Or we don’t finish things until they’re done to our level of perfection. I’ve done both, more than I care to admit.

Striving for quality is great. So is meeting standards. But we should never strive so much for perfection that we lose sight of our goal. That is wasteful.

Nobody is perfect. Nothing is perfect. It’s simple human arrogance to assume we can achieve perfection. It’s just not possible. So, get over it. Set your standards to a level that is appropriate to your goals and resources. Then get it done!

7. Know Yourself.

In 2002, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton published a best-selling business book called Now, Discover Your Strengths. In it, they espouse the strategy of managing better by understanding people’s strengths and enhancing them.

This is good advice.

We accomplish more if we use our strengths. Our strengths and our talents make us unique. They give us abilities to do certain things very well. As such, they help define who we are and what we should spend our time doing.

We will be more successful at things we do well than at things we do not do well.

The more we know ourselves, the better we can understand our individual and unique talents. This helps us focus on what we do well.Other articles you might like:

• Don’t try to be perfect
• Never Ask for Referrals
• Here are Three Steps to Handling Stressful Situations
• 5 things your customer service training should cover
• Five Ways to Improve Customer Service Starting Today