Five Keys
to Creating an Uplifting Service Culture
You
can unleash superhuman strength in your company's culture by following simple
instructions on a safety poster, says consultant Ron Kaufman
Recently I
was walking through a distribution warehouse to meet a client. Hanging on the
wall were safety posters instructing employees how to lift heavy boxes. Most of
us have seen these posters many times. This was the first time I stopped to
read one.
"Ron,
are you ready to get started with the meeting?" asked the vice-president
showing me around the building.
"I want
to read this," I replied. "Can I take a second?"
As you can
imagine, the VP's facial expression registered confusion over my interest in a
standardized safety poster. Soon I was
seated in the boardroom with a table full of executives. The conversation
focused on an obvious lack of performance that was affecting the company's
bottom line. "Mr. Kaufman," said the chief executive. "You're a
service guru. We already have a fantastic service department. And we don't get
many customer complaints. But this is a cultural issue. Is this really
something you can help with?"
Don't Leave
It to a Department
I've heard
these types of comments for more than 20 years, in all corners of the globe and
inside some of the world's most recognized heavyweight organizations. The
perception of many companies is that service is something handled by a
department or a specific job title. It's something only necessary to customer
satisfaction.
"Would
you mind if we talked about your safety posters?" I asked the CEO.
My seemingly
odd question captured the CEO's attention. Safety posters offer a simple, best
practice to lift anything heavy, like a package, a tool—or even an entire
culture. The posters instruct employees to stretch properly, position their
body carefully, and use their strongest muscles. Plus, they tell employees to
study and practice proper habits continuously.
When it
comes to uplifting a culture—engaging people, motivating people, building
loyalty, increasing performance, and creating a sustainable advantage—many
companies pass by service as a solution, because somehow the concept has been
improperly labeled.
I define
service like this: taking action to
create value for someone else. Those are powerfully simple words. So consider
the impact of an uplifting service culture, a shared purpose within every
aspect of your business, interaction, and transaction, from the boardroom down
through the front line, where everyone focuses on creating value for someone
else both internally and externally. Imagine the effect on performance,
engagement, customer loyalty, employee retention, value, and competitive
advantage.
"Let's
talk about the basic instructions for lifting anything," I said to the
group. "Let's use the instructions of a safety poster to talk about
building an uplifting service culture."
1.
Stretch. Yes, there are
calisthenics for your culture. Stretch your mind and your old habits. Get the
creativity flowing. Ask the big questions of why: Why do we need to change? Why
service? Why now?
2.
Position yourself. Lifting
a culture requires proper positioning and support from all levels. Leadership
must lead service. And everyone else must make himself or herself a service
leader.
3.
Use your strong muscles.
The architecture of your company is akin to physiology. Muscles need flexing.
Blocks need building. The building blocks of your culture, such as
communication, recognition, vision, and metrics, need shaping. Analyze each
block to understand which needs improvement.
4.
Study. Educate your team
with continuous exercise and understanding. Just because I read the safety
poster once doesn't mean I will perform properly. True education means I can
perform based on the knowledge I have acquired and the practices I have
learned.
5.
Practice. Results really
pay off here. Practice is the action of continually seeking improvement. It's
the correcting, steering, and adjusting to find continued success.
There is
superhuman strength in every culture. Look at the heavyweights in the world,
such as Ritz-Carlton (MAR),
Nordstrom (JWN),
Disney (DIS),
Singapore Airlines (SIA),
Southwest (LUV),
Nokia (NOK),
Apple (AAPL),
Amazon (AMZN),
and Zappos.
What's their strongest muscle? It's a culture based on service—an uplifting
service culture.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Ron Kaufman is a global consultant who
specializes in building service cultures. He is the author of UP! Your Service and 14 other
books. His firm, UP! Your Service,
has offices in Singapore and
the U.S.
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