Who is your customer?

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.

He is not dependent on us.

We are dependent on him.

He is not an interruption in our work.

He is the purpose of it.

He is not an outsider in our business.

He is part of it.

We are not doing him a favor by serving him.

He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so." 

- Mahatma Gandhi

Think about those words for a minute.  Think about all your daily interactions and how insightful we could all be if we lived all our interactions with that in mind.   I recently just completed reading the book, "The Servant - A Simple story about the True Essence of Leadership" by James C. Hunter, and around the time I started the book I came upon the quote from Gandhi on the website of a fellow blogger and I've found they go hand in hand.  In the book, Mr. Hunter uses a unique story about an executive and a retreat at a monastery to help spread the message about servant leadership, and in the quote Gandhi talks in a sense about letting go of your stereotypical thoughts about the people we serve and changing your mindset to look at service as an opportunity.

I found the book to be a great refresher on why we do what we do.  In it Mr. Hunter states,

"Management is what you do; leadership is the person you are and the influence and impact you have upon the people you come into contact with.

How often do we forget that leadership is not just about getting tasks done, it's about influencing and impacting others.  Gandhi in his quote doesn't define a customer.   Who is the customer to you?  When I first thought about that question, I thought about my wife, my children, my employees, my peers, essentially taking the definition of customer to mean anyone that I have contact with.   Did you?

Mr Hunter states:

"Everyone is a leader because everyone influences other people every day, for good or not so good, which is why you don't have to be the boss to be a leader."

To me this statement is the essence of how we need to think.   Imagine looking at your children as the customer, the person you're influencing; they have given us the opportunity to serve them to mold them to make them what they will become.   The same goes for our employees.  Which employee do you think will respond better?  The one that's being dictated to or the one that's forging their own path with your guidance?   It's the latter.  They are the ones that feel they have more control and ownership of the situation, and thus end up caring more about the outcome of it.   Critics may say that we cannot be servants to our employees or our children because chaos will ensue, but by being a servant leader, by being a person that treats everyone as a customer, you are not giving up your ability to lead or guide.  Those still exist.   I have two boys, and if I would let them have their way, I'm sure they would want to play Minecraft or some other type of video game 24/7, but that's just not going to happen.   Why, you may ask, if I'm their servant and they are my customer, wouldn't I allow them to do it?   As their father and leader, I'm going to balance their wants versus their needs.   They want to play Minecraft, but it's not something they need to do.   Mr. Hunter in the book describes this concept well.

"A want is a wish or desire without regard to the consequences or where the choice will lead....  Servant leadership is meeting needs, not their wants, being their servant not their slave"

Who wants to be a slave?   No one.   Who wants to be a servant and help others succeed?   We all should. As leaders we are still there to guide them.  Now, my sons may not appreciate me not meeting all their wants today, but someday, as most of us eventually do with our parents, we understand and appreciate the guidance we were given.  

In the world of employees and employers some of you may have heard of the Agile methodology.  In an overly simplified nutshell it is a number of principles people utilize to guide how they do their work in an efficient manner.  When companies start out with agile and the concept of self-managing teams is taught, people make the mistake of thinking self-managing = no leaders.  But the opposite is really true.  Leadership is always needed, but someone guides the team, and the teams just self organize how they are going to do things.   As leaders begin to figure this out, and figure out the right mix of what they are doing, they find they see more of the benefits that they were anticipating when initially going through this new track.

This isn't easy, although conceptually it is simple, execution takes practice and hard work.   We need to learn from our experiences.   In the book, Mr. Hunter spends a lot of time discussing a leadership model that can help one towards achieving success.    I will briefly highlight some of these points, but recommend you get the book (a very easy read) to get the full scope of his message.

Let's talk a little about what Authority means and how it contrasts with Power, both of which Mr. Hunter defined in the book.  Let's review those definitions and then discuss further.

"Power - The ability to force or coerce someone to do your will, even if they would choose not to, because of your position or your might 

Authority - The skill of getting people willingly to do your will because of your personal influence."

I don't know about you, but when I hear those definitions, I have trouble imagining someone that wants to be a leader through Power.   All of the best leaders that I have ever worked with I respected due to their Authority and Influence over me, not because of their Power.   It's talked about a little in the book, but think about it, does Power leadership change your behavior?  Does it help the situation the next time around?  I think you get trapped to always be powerful if that's how you lead, and you don't necessarily see the fruits of your leadership growing in others.   That being said, there is a time and place for everything, but in my opinion, Authority wins over Power, 9 out of 10 times.

For me, I relate to it best in the family.  Despite my best intentions, I fall into the trap with Power leadership with my children, Do this! Do That! Do it Now!, but all that really does is alienate me from them.   You see it occasionally as they get older, with the roll of the eyes, or the heavy sighs, and my kids are not even teenagers yet.   Power leadership is not good for relationships.   I want to be a teacher, I want to lead by example, I want to show them how to change, why they need to do things.   I want them to know that I have their back, and that all of these things that we do are to help them as they grow older.   As I mentioned earlier it will take time for them to know that, but for me to truly impact them, I need to continue to work on using Authority vs. Power to lead them.

I know of an individual that has an organization with the word Agape in its name, and at first I did not get it. I thought I did, I thought I understand it meant "Love", but I definitely did not get it and that was clear from reading the book.   But now, after reading this book, I understand that aspect of the leadership model better.  It makes more sense to me, as well as the message he's sending to the world about what his organization means, and now I appreciate his thought process in naming his organization much more.   The book helps define the word "Love" in the triangle.   It is not "Love" in the sense of feelings that we have for one another, but rather about the behavior we portray to one another without regards to the return.  As the mantra goes "Treat others, as you would want to be treated".   It's all about our actions and how we treat people that goes a long way in showing that we respect them, and that is essential in building the influence needed to support them.

Have you ever gone into your boss's office or for that matter the office of one of your peers and tried to have a conversation with them, but they keep looking at their monitor or their phone, as if they are half listening to you?   What do people take from that behavior?   Do you think they respect the conversation?  Do you feel like your time matters to them?   Probably not.   It's a completely different level of engagement that you get with a person, when they turn away from their distractions and give you your full intention.   Be that person, treat them as you would want to be treated, show others respect.   Show them agape love... the love of deliberate choice.

At the end of the day though, to truly change your mindset, to truly treat everyone as a customer, you need to change your behavior.   Mr. Hunter had a couple good takeaways on this point.

"You can learn about leadership by reading books and attending seminars, but you well never KNOW leadership doing these things." 

"Insanity  - continuing to do what you have always done and hoping for different results"

Changing your behavior is key.   Take a moment and evaluate the people in your life. Do you treat them as a customer?   Are you a servant to those that need your guidance?    It is great that you read this blog, but as stated in the book "Intentions - Actions = SQUAT", take your first step today, change one of your relationships. Don't be one of thousands of people that agree with what you've learned but don't change your behavior.  Do it slowly, do it intentionally, continue to work on it day in and day out... and you'll show that you have WILL.  "Intentions + Actions = WILL".  This is the pinnacle of that triangle, the one that all the other points are dependent on...  prove your intentions by your actions.  Don't make excuses that it is hard to do:

"Stretching and growing emotional muscles is much like stretching and growing physical muscles.  It is difficult at first.  With commitment and proper exercise - practice - however, emotional muscles, like physical muscles, stretch and grow bigger than you can now imagine."

Don't look back, don't think twice, start to determine who your customer is and start making small differences today.

Remember, keep your goals high, and you'll achieve greatness.   I'll leave you with this quote from Vince Lombardi that was in the book and I think says it perfectly.

"Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect.  But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence." 

- Vince Lombardi

Catch your Excellence... Know your Customer, Serve your customer, and Succeed.

Make today, the first day of your best life.

I recently listened to a video presentation by Robin Sharma, that was very motivational, in a way it was an advertisement, but at the same time it provided some concrete steps to help one create a new normal for themselves.

If you haven't listened to Mr. Sharma before, he strives to bring the best out of everyone, and provides tips and insights, inspiring quotes, and lessons to enable people to become world class.   I just recently came upon him and some of his teachings, and I look forward to reading and listening to more from him in the future.

He started out his lesson about "Making Victory your New Normal", with a poem from his child hood.

"Spring has passed.   Summer has gone.   Winter is here....
And the song I meant to sign remains unsung.  For I have spent my days string and unstringing my instrument." 

- Rabindranath Tagore

When I first heard the poem, the meaning didn't register for me, but he went on to explain its purpose and at that point it really hit home.    He explained that it is about a person whose heart is filled with regret over a life half lived and although he always wanted to sing the great song that his life was meant to be, he got busy being busy, so his potential died with him.

How many times have you put off being the person you could be, only to be wrapped up in busy work?  Or mindless activities?   I think back to when I wanted to get to be a better speaker, or when I wanted to get in better shape, or when I got home tired after work and the kids wanted to play;  I didn't just get up and sing my song.  I let meaningless things get in my way, and watched a TV show instead of playing with my kids, or surfed the internet rather than going and exercising or looking for speaking engagements.   I continued to just miss opportunities to "sing my song".

Mr. Sharma thought process was that there were really two things that we'd be concerned with on our death beds  1) Who did you become?  2) Did you leave the world better than how you found it?   After taking in that simple prospective, I found myself questioning why I haven't sang my song.   Why do I let myself continuously get buried in the busy or mindless activities rather than something that could make me even better, stronger faster?

Luckily for me, he gave five different executable tips during this video to help any of us become better people overall.

1) Know that the single fastest way to transform your thinking is to transform your behavior.

If you think about it, actions are always more powerful than words.   As he put it "Ideas without action are fantasy, Inspiration without execution is pure delusion".   The principle here relates a lot to the Be It, Do It, Have It principle that I spoke about in a previous post.   Rather than sitting around and thinking and strategizing about how to be a better writer, start writing.   Rather than thinking about reading more books, just start reading more books.   Make it a habit.    He sited a study by the University College of London, which indicated if you practice things as a habit for 66 days, it ends up becoming automatic, and at the end it actually becomes easier to do this new habit than not do it.

He gave this prospective as another way to look at the first tip

"Practice being spectacular long enough and being spectacular will become your default mindset and regular way of being" 

- Robin Sharma

I don't know about you, but for me, this first tip was very enlightening.   I by nature, get caught up in over thinking things, and my take away here is I just need to move forward with the behavior I want to emulate, and it will eventually help me exercise my mind enough that my thinking will come along.

2) Remember that transformation is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.

He stressed on this point, that if things weren't hard, you really weren't making a change or progress, and if things didn't get messy than you probably are not striving for the genius or the mastery that could exist.   He talked about the myth that exceptional people waited till the right time or when they were inspired to do amazing things, but in fact that all they did was just started.    They didn't fear things getting hard or messy, they knew the secret of winning, is just beginning, and they wanted to take that first step so they could get to the end sooner.

I remember, teaching my son to ride his bike, he really didn't want to do it at first.  He found it hard to peddle, he crashed a few times, but each time he got up and tried again and again.   Eventually overtime, even this transformation step became gorgeous at the end.   He was riding his bike all around the block without no worries in the world, full of elation at his accomplishments, and built up confidence to tackle whatever next transformation came his way.

Mr. Sharma said it well "Everything you now find easy, you once found hard".     Although simple, its a very true statement, and a great reminder as we face any challenge, that we've already defeated or destroyed thousands of challenges on our way to this point in our life, and we'll face many more moving forward.   Need to just continue to work through it, until we get to the end.

3) Live your future and dismiss your past.

When I first saw him lay out this point, I immediately wondered what it was about.   At least I've always learned, learn from your past, don't repeat your past mistakes.   If I dismiss my past, how will I get better?   In this context though, he isn't truly talking about dismissing your past, he states the sole purpose to look at your past is for the reasons I've stated, avoiding past mistakes, and learning from things done before to potentially improve upon them in the future.

His goal here is just to get one thinking about where they want to be in the future.  He suggested having a five minute fantasy every morning, where you would sit down and write a paragraph about where you wanted your day to go, or how would you want to be to living at your best, or about who you always dreamed about being, etc...   Focusing your mind, your goals, and your objectives to those things day in and day out, so that you instinctively change your behavior and your mindset.

4) The words you speak predict the future you will live.

This one is really simple, and easy to implement, don't talk or be negative if you don't want to be in a rut.   People who constantly talk about problems, other people, or create drama, all they are doing is creating a self fulfilling fantasy of having more of that in their lives.   But people who are working at being world class talk more about possibilities, dreams, how grateful they are for things, ect...   Attitude means everything in this world, and having a positive attitude does wonders for all of us.

5) To double your success, triple your dedication to personal development and professional learning.

Although, I agree 100% with the principle of this particular point, at least in this video this point really seemed to be setting the user up for signing up for one of Mr. Sharma's classes.   That being said, everyone needs to continue to better themselves, they need to look at the opportunities to learn, and not necessarily focus on the costs of that learning, but the return on investment they can get from being more educated on a subject.   As Mr. Sharma indicated, all it takes is one new idea or piece of information to elevate ones confidence, performance, or influence in the world.

If you find yourself, leaving this blog overwhelmed with ideas, just do me a favor and focus on one thing.   Start changing your mindset today, change your behavior don't wait to think it through, if its right to do, just make the change.   Hopefully when its all said and done, you'll know the impact you've had on the world and what you became and you'll be glad you made today, the first day of your best life.

Do you hold hostage your best efforts, or do you lead where you are planted?

I can still remember when I first read Robin Sharma's blog "Lead where you are planted".  I was immediately impacted by his words.   I not only related to what he said personally, but I had a few employees at the time that were going through a similar mental struggle, and taking his perspective was eye opening and helped all of us adjust our mindset.

"All too often, we wait until ideal conditions appear before we show up at our best. We promise to display more initiative once we get the promotion, become a superb teammate once we get the raise and do world-class work once we receive the applause. But true leadership is about doing your absolute best under imperfect conditions. And leading where you are planted. "

- Robin Sharma

Think about that quote for a second.   Have you been in a situation where you have waited for things to be ideal before you move forward?   Are you holding hostage your best efforts because you haven't gotten that promotion you deserved?  Did you wait to start that diet until Monday or the new month?   Are you going to start going to the gym after New Year's?    Do you have situations where you will only do the work if you receive recognition?   Truth is, although all of those questions may not have fit your situation, we all do things for recognition.   There are a number of things we do that we should just do because it's the right thing to do, not because you're going to be recognized for it.

I remember working at a job where we were regularly bringing on new hires, but we did not really have a departmental on-boarding process.   We did not batch our hires, so we would spend multiple days with new hires getting them familiar with our systems, office environment, organizational hierarchy, functional specifications, ect... Inevitably, a new hire would end up learning a number of things on the job that they could have learned on day one, delaying their ability to have a more immediate impact.    Having recently networked with a peer at another organization in town, she told me about what they did for on-boarding, and I saw that as the perfect solution for our group.   Rather than wait for someone else to take the initiative, I compiled all the information that was most important to our new hires into a single document and after a few reviews with my peers and my director we had a document to use for future new hire on-boarding.   Now, within a half day, we could sit down and walk through the document with a new individual; it included organizational structure, team definitions, expectations, tips and best practices,  map of conference room, escalation information, and even a glossary of terms.  The new person could keep the document as a reference, and they immediately became better day one than they would have been in the old process.    I didn't do this for recognition; I did this because there was a need, and someone needed to step up and fill that need.    It wasn't my job, it wasn't something that I was going to be measured against, I just wanted to improve the inefficiencies we had developed.   It was purely the right thing to do.   At the end of the day, it freed up current resources, gave a better on-boarding experience to our new hire, and allowed all of us the ability to focus our time on more valuable items for the organization.

"Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching."  

- CS Lewis

As leaders, we can find ourselves in a number of different situations.   Everything we do, every action we take is a way for us to make a difference.   Robin's point about leading where you are planted helped solidify a belief I had always had but never expressed well.   He stated:

All work is a platform to express creative potential, offer value and make a unique contribution. But we each face a choice each day as we walk out into the world: we can play a victim or we can step up to leadership.  

- Robin Sharma

As leaders, do not allow things to be beneath you.  No task or activity that is done by someone in your organization is menial.   No matter how high in the organizational chart or how low on the organizational chart you may find yourself, you are still a leader at your core and still have the ability to impact someone's experience.  Robin in his blog talks about a bathroom attendant, but lets think of a real world experiences you may have had.  Do you remember that flight where the flight attendant greeted with you with a smile, radiated customer service throughout the flight, and wished you well on your way out?   That flight attendant was leading where they were planted.   Their job isn't to be the CEO of the company or to fly the plane, it's to make your customer experience excellent and your journey in the skies as safe as possible.   The simple act of greeting you with a smile, and wishing you well on a way out, is just one way to lead by example.  The flight attendant could have been a victim, complaining about the schedule, about the destination, or about other passengers, but instead they choose to step up to leadership in the area they were planted.  Take the role you've been asked to do, and excel in it, make it the best that you can be.

"Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better do better" 

- Maya Angelou

When all said and done, leading where you are planted is about doing your best in whatever position / role you are asked to do and not making that effort to greatness conditional.   We all have the ability to make a large difference in the world, if we all just start to lead where we are planted.