What’s your hot button? What inspires you? What keeps you up at night? What are your dreaming about while you’re wide awake?
Have you discovered it yet?
Without finding your hot button, you could possibly die of frost bite – or send everyone around you to sleep. We were born to push our hot button. We were born to add value to our family, our friends and our world. We weren’t born to be put on ice.
We were born to be red hot, to be ablaze with a burning passion and a fiery desire to make a significant difference every single day that we live here on planet earth.
So what are my words to you today?
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When it comes to giving, if you can’t give of your best then refrain from giving.
Throughout the years I have been the recipient of some wonderful acts of generosity, but then there have been some occasions where I have been on the back end of some ordinary giving.
If you’re led to give your car away to another, then polish it, clean it, do some repairs to it, and make sure that it’s in perfect working order.
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There is one particular aspect of the American way of life that I really enjoy, and that is the fact that it is expected, by those who serve you, that you not only pay them for their service, but that you always add some extra money to the bill in the form of a tip.
Now for those of us who live in Australia, this is not a normal practice.
However, at the end of my trip this time, I needed to spend an hour in the lobby of my hotel as I waited for the shuttle bus, that was booked to take me to the airport. It was then that I noticed the bellman for the first time. He had a great attitude and seemed to make everybody he served laugh. At one point he even did a little jig on the hotel floor. I appreciated that, and I know that the rest of his customers did too.
He was somewhat surprised though as I thrust some dollars into his hand before leaving the hotel foyer. He asked me, ‘What was that for?’ I responded, ‘For making me happy.’ In my books this fellow was not just receiving a tip for having a great attitude. He was TIP-TOP.
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Exceptional service is service that is out of the ordinary and relates to or forms an exception. It is unusual,remarkable and superior.
Exceptional products stand out from the crowd. They perform at a higher level, last longer, give more value for the dollar, provide comfort or convenience to our lives and are the ones that we will purchase time and time again.
Exceptional people are the type of people that I like to hang around. They are givers. They are achievers.They speak good words. They never quit. They pursue excellence in all their endeavours and choose to walk the extra mile while smiling the largest smile.
These people are exclusive because they are an exception.
Their lives are ‘an exception to the rule’ because they rule their lives differently to the mass of humanity who choose to follow the crowd.
And that, I propose, is what makes them exceptional…
The older I get the more I expect excellence from my own life, from those who work for me and from those who work around me.
Where would McDonalds be today if they let 15 year olds flip a burger any way they’d like, without the systems and without the training?
The major reason we fail to see consistent excellence in businesses and organisations is because there is often a failure in the systems area. Quite often it’s not a people problem. It’s a system problem. And that means that there is a leadership problem.
Fix the system, train the people to use the system and excellence will remain constant. Continue to review, analyse, check that system and you can expect only one thing – and that is excellence.
So many leaders blame their followers for the problems that occur, but I’m a firm believer in the fact that ‘the buck stops with me’. If something’s not working down the bottom then there is something that needs to be corrected at the top.
And one way to make sure all is well is to conduct surveys – to allow your staff or members to communicate without fear of recrimination.
I’ve been known to ask my staff….’Give me the good, the bad and the ugly…’ and when the ugly has been delivered we have set about immediately to turn the ugly into beautiful. If my staff win, I win and we all win. There is no room for ego here.
But getting back to surveys, here’s one I handed out to my staff recently..
- Do you believe that your current role in OE Design fits your strengths? If so how? If not, how could we help you with this?
- Do you feel that you are given enough liberty in your role to be creative and innovative? If so how? If not how?
- Do you feel that the systems in place for your role in the company are working? If so how? If not how?
- Do you have any suggestions for what would help you do your job better?
- Do you receive sufficient support from the leadership within the company? If so how? If not how?
- Do you have any suggestions that would help your department do their job better?
- Is there something that really bugs you at OE Design? If so, please offer a solution that you feel would help us squash that bug together?
- What do you love about working for OE Design?
- Do you feel that you have received enough communication throughout the year so that you can take ownership of the vision for OE Design – The Web Designers? Or can we help in anyway to make you feel more part of the team?
- If there was one thing that could help you do your job better and make your job more satisfying, what would it be?
- Do you have any other things that are not covered in the above 10 questions that you would like to suggest or raise?
The responses were awesome and now I’m armed with great material to help my people become even better at what they are already doing.
Good enough? No we’re heading for OUTSTANDING!
