Best Practices

Depths of personal commitment allowed the great leaders to execute well in all aspects of their business, as well as to overcome any barriers and adversities they encountered. Sam Walton (Walmart) noted, "I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you will be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around you will catch the passion from you - like a fever."
Admiral Hyman Rickover (U.S. Navy) supported this perspective when he stated, "When doing a job - any job - one must feel that he owns it, and act as though he will remain in that job forever...

How do you retain and prepare your best talent to lead? Mentoring programs are one of the most effective tools in achieving business results. The authors of the book, War on Talent reported, "Of those who have had a highly helpful mentoring experience, 95 percent indicated it motivated them to do their very best, 88 percent said it made them less likely to leave their company, and 97 percent said it contributed to their success at the company."
Many organizations have discovered providing a mentor for high performing employees not only helps them settle into their job and company environment, but also contributes to a lower employee turnover rate and greater job satisfaction.
A mentor is essentially someone who serves as a counselor or guide...

Let me get right to the point. The keys to success in any business are: (1) the quality of the products or services you offer, and (2) your employees' ability to deliver outstanding customer service. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
When 555 CEOs of mid-sized to large firms were asked to name the most important source of competitive advantage, product or service quality and customer service came in neck-and-neck at 45 and 44 percent, respectively.
Ted Levitt, former editor of Harvard Business Review, summed it up this way: "The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer." And the best way to keep customers is through exceptional customer service. Yet, customer service specialists report the average business loses half of its customers every 5 years and doesn't even realize they lost the customer or know why...

One of the questions I hear most often from executives is "How do I motivate my employees to do the things I want them to do?"
The answer is: You don't!
We can't motivate people. They are already motivated. But we can determine what motivates them and use this knowledge to channel their energies toward our company goals.
From my 20 years of helping executives solve their people challenges, I've learned a few basic principles about motivation. Let me share them with you:

1. All People Are Motivated.
Some people are like water in a faucet. They have the motivation; all you have to provide is the opportunity. The water is already motivated to flow. But it doesn't have the opportunity until you open the tap...

Customer service is mostly average, mediocre, or worse. I find it amazing that the delivery of high quality customer service is so uncommon even with all the talk and focus on the topic. When speaking to groups of CEOs recently, the attendees indicated that customer service is "not rocket science." The reality is many of their employees are not delivering the basics. It is tough to move on to a discussion of "customer experience" when the basics are not the standard.
Here is my list of the 12 fundamentals of customer service. The list is short and to the point - no need to elaborate on simple steps that should be the norm for all teams interacting with your customer.

At the recent Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators Conference, Service Management Group (SMG) conducted interviews with executives on how their customer satisfaction efforts are working. These conversations ended with the question, "What's next in customer experience management?" Here are four key trends that emerged from our study.

Trend 1: Executives are looking for more than just scores from their customer satisfaction measurement programs; they want to know how to improve the customer experience.
Multi-unit managers know unit-specific improvement plans are needed. These plans should be based on improving the customer experience where those improvements will have the biggest impact on raising average transaction amount, driving frequency, and stimulating intent to recommend...

Steve Jobs was a master at many things. He built Apple into a multi-billion giant, and he did it in large part because of the people he hired. His goal, he said, was to hire people who were creative, wickedly smart, and slightly rebellious to help him build "the company that would invent the future."
To say that he met his goal would be a gross understatement. In Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson quotes his subject as saying, "I've learned over the years that, when you have really good people, you don't have to baby them. By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. The original Mac team taught me that A-plus players like to work together, and they don't like it if you tolerate B work."
Bradford D. Smart, Ph...

Along with the existence of positive and constructive team roles, negative and destructive agendas can emerge that undermine the ability of individual teams to function and perform adequately.
Negative and destructive roles emerge for a variety of reasons, including personal agendas, resistance to change, immaturity, and lack of motivation and/or team leadership and management.
One of a leader's major roles is to observe individual team members and watch for destructive and negative behaviors. When problems surface, they need to encourage the team to collectively recognize and handle them within the team environment. If this fails, it is up to leaders to take specific action with the offending individuals.
Leaders need to be watchful for the following negative roles and behaviors within their individual teams:

Aggressor
The aggressor criticizes everything said within the team environment, and is in effect an active naysayer...

Sunita Sagar got her first shot at franchising in 2007, when she was given the chance to buy an underperforming Denny's in Campbell, Calif.
"That restaurant was going downhill," she recalls, "and we turned that restaurant upside down. We turned the people around, we turned the operation around, and we turned the sales around. We started staffing the restaurant with the right people, and then we had an opportunity to purchase more. So we bought three stores in Fresno in 2008."
Sagar stepped in on each, where she could see for herself what needed to change. "We took over those three stores and managed those stores for a few weeks," she says. "We made some staffing changes, found people right for the business, and took a few months to bring those stores around...

Since national health care reform was signed into law in March 2010, it has generated strong reaction from multi-unit franchisees and small-business owners across the nation. Among its provisions, the law ("Obamacare" to its opponents and critics) requires employers with more than 50 full-time-equivalent (FTE) employees to provide healthcare insurance or face harsh penalties. However, when it comes to the actual impact of the law, the sentiments of many franchisees can be summed up as, "There's still more that we don't know than we do."
Misty Chally, deputy executive director of the Coalition of Franchisee Associations, agrees there's still much to be learned about the law. "But as of today, in 2014 there will be a mandate for all employers with 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees to provide health insurance coverage," she says...

When we talk about customer service, we usually think about how we deal with the people who walk through our doors--both physical and virtual--to purchase our products and services. What we often fail to realize, however, is that we also have customers within our organizations; those customers are our coworkers. 
Customer service means being responsive to a customer's needs and being resourceful in meeting those needs. Customer service is many things: knowledge, communication, skill, attitude, efficiency, integrity, reliability, knowledge, and helpfulness.
How you interact with coworkers and supervisors has a huge impact on the effectiveness of the team. When Dan asks for your help, do you tell him that it's not your responsibility, or do you eagerly offer to do whatever you can to help him meet his deadline? When Bethany points out an error, do you get defensive, or do you view her comment as constructive and vow to improve your performance?
When you treat coworkers with respect, when you help them solve their problems and meet or exceed the demands of the job, your value increases dramatically...

Effective leadership is based on ongoing input and feedback. Where 20 years ago managers rarely asked for input, today effective leaders are regularly seeking and receiving employee feedback. Leaders elicit cooperation from employees and other individuals when they listen to them. To move employees forward, leaders first identify their needs by asking for their feedback. Identifying employee needs through feedback allows leaders to modify their behavior to serve the best interests of their employees and unit.
Feedback is an effective communication mechanism that enhances productivity and motivation. Leaders use it to create a positive sense of direction that increases efficiency and reduces stress among employees. It empowers employees and gives them ownership in both the ideas and direction driving the organization...

Getting team members to understand customer service facts

Serving customers is not a punishment; it is a privilege. That's how I want my team members to think. Customers form the foundation of how my employees make money to support their families. The more delighted customers we have, the more opportunities my team members have to take care of the people most important to them. That's why we never stop talking about customer service. Here are some tools we use to continually remind our team about how important the customer is to all of us.

Customer Service: The Facts

Organizations can expect obvious results when they implement an empowered environment. However, many people fail to realize the impact of the hidden effects of the empowerment process. These hidden benefits can have a more dramatic impact on profitability than a leader might imagine. When one considers the issue of the effective use of resources, the hidden impact of empowerment clearly demonstrates how leaders can effectively marshal the resources they are responsible for.
Many traditional managers fail to understand and comprehend how empowerment can impact their bottom line, as there are a number of hidden costs associated with restricting employee abilities and capabilities. Most are focused on their power and authority and concentrate on ways to maintain their personal power base...

This has always been the place, right? America, I mean, where anybody can start with nothing and turn it into something. Every multi-unit organization started with a dream, and many with just a single location. And for those who have kept their promises to customers and delivered great service, success has often followed.
Let me tell you about Lenny's Sub Shop, founded in Bartlett, Tenn., in 1998 by Len and Sheila Moore. Lenny's is a Philadelphia-style sub shop that has grown to about 200 franchisees across the country. They serve their own unique brands of potato chips and thin crisps, and they make a signature hot cherry-pepper relish, just one way they make their subs unique. Their sandwiches are terrific. Why? They provision top-quality products, slice meats and cheeses to order, and adhere to their recipes religiously...

Small business owners frequently juggle a variety of roles within their companies. Creating a balance and effectively managing available time is extremely important to most small businesses. In order to economize and make the most of the available time, you should implement a time management plan.
Get Real. Set realistic goals that are not unreasonable or unattainable. It can be very demotivating to consistently feel as if you have not accomplished anything, simply because you regularly fail to meet unreasonable goals that you've set for yourself. By setting more realistic and attainable goals, you will feel a sense of accomplishment, and often be motivated to work harder.
Know Yourself. When are you most productive? Use the hours of the day when you are most productive to tackle the more difficult tasks...

In 1996, Michael Ansley and his former college roommate asked their fathers for loans to buy their own franchise (Buffalo Wild Wings, then known as BW3) unit near Ann Arbor, Mich.
"We were young and didn't know what we were doing," he recalls. "But we learned how not to run a restaurant and where not to put it." Within a decade, Ansley had grown to 22 Buffalo Wild Wings units throughout Michigan and Florida. The entrepreneur is also involved with the franchise side of Bagger Dave's Legendary Burger Tavern in Michigan.
Ansley's business endeavors generated $45 million in revenue in 2010 and close to $60 in 2011. But his markets have faced difficult and challenging times during the past couple of years. Still, he's optimistic and offered this insight on the economy, his markets, and how he comes by capital...

What gets rewarded gets done, so recognize and reward a lot! This is especially so if you want to learn how to change company culture.
First, reward all the traditional categories: sales achieved, goals accomplished, customer compliments received. Then add some spice to really promote efforts on how to change company culture.
Celebrate new accounts, repeat orders, projects completed under budget, money-saving ideas, increased efficiency, and of course, improvements in customer service. To learn how to change company culture, you need to reward the actions you want to become ingrained.
Acknowledge achievements of individuals: most productive person, most consistent performance, most outrageous extra effort. This can also help in efforts to learn how to change company culture...

When I was 19 years old, I was promoted to passenger service manager for Capital Airlines at Midway Airport in Chicago. I had no college degree, no supervisory or managerial training, and there I was in charge of a shift with about 20 employees in customer service and 20 flights per shift. My experience level consisted of growing up on a farm in Iowa, being a baggage handler, and then a ticket agent for 18 months.
Kind of scary.
How do you know whether you are going to do a good job or not?
Everyone else was at least 10 years older than me in experience. So, I just asked them. I didn't know any better than to be open and honest and ask for their feedback. Wow, did they give me helpful and outspoken feedback. It was very eye opening...

"I'm sorry, but this just isn't working, I think it's best if we part company."
Have you been on the giving or receiving side of that statement? Do you recall the unpleasant sense of regret, the foreshadowing and worry that led to those words?
A performance-based dismissal is typically preceded by a period of discomfort when everyone realizes there's a bad fit to the job. Remedial steps may be taken in the interest of fairness, but there's a sense that the situation will not improve. During this interim period, productivity dives, momentum is lost, and morale deteriorates as fellow employees watch and wait for the inevitable.
Since dismissals commonly play out like this, it is paramount to simply put the right person in the right place from the start...