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.