doug smith training

Empathy is at the heart of... Superior service Centered leadership Better relationships Happiness... When leaders scale up on empathy, when they learn how to understand other people's feelings and situations and then respond with kindness, they make better choices. Strategies last when they include empathy. It's not always easy. At any given time we can find devilish barriers to caring about others. We can always uncover selfish motives and evil actions. But we don't have to do any of that. We can choose. We can develop caring and continue to care. Caring about each other makes defeating anyone unnecessary. Isn't that better? How do you feel about it? -- doug smith  

Productivity is a loaded word that is thrown around as if it means unlimited quality. It's not. Like most words, productivity is a relative term.  While you can always improve productivity (if that means doing more with less) there will also be a cost. That cost is usually in quality. Unless you develop a completely new way of doing something (or at least revolutionize the process) when you do more of it you inevitably reach a capacity limit. Approaching that intersection, the traffic heads for trouble.  We see it all the time: a relentless race to the bottom to make things cheaper and more plentiful at the huge sacrifice of quality. That loss feels like a real human loss. Yes, a phone-cue is faster than waiting to speak to a human, but there has been a significant loss in human contact in the business world. Long before AI started doing work for us, we let customers do their own heavy lifting. That results in a lot of dropped balls and a lot of unhappy customers. How you meas...

Delivering excellent service is tough enough and sometimes it's not enough, according to our customers. With some customer wanting a miracle, or a policy change,  it mean that even when we do our best it may not be perceived as enough. We could have always done more. We should have somehow changed the world in order to change their outcome. Other times, customers are generous in their thanks. Our extra steps are appreciated, our efforts are more than enough, and our customers are happy to do business with us. We should work as if the second group of customers -- the real appreciators, the happy ones, are the norm and hold onto the joy they share. There are no guarantees that our service will be appreciated, but that's not why we do it. We serve because that's where the joy lives, in helping others. -- doug smith

Is giving easy for you, or do you find it hard? Do you serve gladly, or with resentment? Do you give conditionally, or unconditionally? What if we are made whole by giving ourselves away? That just might change a lot of answers... -- doug smith  

How do you feel about being cranky? Probably, cranky. It just leads to more crankiness. Yuck. We're better than that and our companies and organizations can be better than that, too. It's never to much to ask (and expect) us to: Keep our promises Provide excellent service Make customer transactions easy Smile Solve problems cheerfully Great service creates happiness. Bad service pushes crankiness. When service is poor, customers are cranky creating a cycle of needless agitation. We can skip all that. Let's just provide excellence services. -- doug smith  

When you need service, do you really want it to feel like a chore to the person providing that service? Do you flinch just a little after a "thank you" when the other person says "no problem"? I'm glad it wasn't a bother. I do wish it had a little heart in it. Maybe even a little fun. The best jobs at their peak appear to be fun for those observing. "How interesting!" "How magnificent!" "How effortless!" and yes, "How fun!." The best service feels more like play.  Instead of the all-too-common "no problem" what if we said a heart-filled, fun-boosted "my pleasure!" And, don't lie about it, make it fun. -- doug smith  

How do get your staff to provide the best possible service? It is complicated and yet also simple. Here's a good place to start. Hire people who like people and you won't need to beg them to serve. It's already what they do. -- doug smith

How important is commitment to you? When someone tells you that they will do something, are you fine with a casual "maybe they will, maybe they won't" or are you looking for a true commitment? It's not always easy to find these days and yet it is more valuable than ever: commitment. If you want high performance results it takes commitment. If you want quality service for your customers it takes commitment. When there is an easy way out, people will find it unless they are committed to excellence. Everything is optional until you commit. -- doug smith  

  Have you ever had a customer who you just could not please? Whether the demands are too great or the attitude is too tight, something just isn't right. The best we can do is the best we can do. Certainly, do no less, but sometimes we can not do more. Anyone who expects you to destroy yourself by serving them needs more help than you can offer. -- doug smith

Whether you serve out of humility, or duty, or trust, or dedication, or compassion, or pay -- your service will also serve you.  Start by serving others and the benefits to you become unlimited. -- doug smith

It's important to provide the best possible service to our customers. If that takes extra effort, it's well worth it in the good will that develops. If the customer feels good about the service, the organization is much more likely to prosper. And -- even better -- when your customers are happy it makes it easier for you to be happy, too. Service to others serves us the best. -- doug smith  

For a long time now, for many products, it's been a race to the bottom. Offer the basic thing at the lowest price and capture as much market share as you can. As customers, we've gone along with this because we do love low prices. And, it's deceptive because it feels as if many things CAN costs less without sacrificing quality. Cheap TVs are still good. Even cheap cars are better than cars of yesteryear.  But it doesn't hold up for everything -- especially anything involving human interaction, and anything involving customer service. When we reduce staffing to the bare minimums and when we allow robots to answer our questions we are pushing the quality down. Sometimes, better service and higher quality products simply cost more to produce. If we allow the lowest price items to prevail on everything, everything will end up lower in quality.  If we keep rewarding the cheapest price we'll keep creating the cheapest life.  I don't think that's what we want. How ...

Have you ever known anyone who seems to need rescuing over and over? One crisis after another, one stumble repeatedly, and no means of pulling themselves together? It is so tempting to always play the role of hero for those who have the ability to rescue. Given the right circumstances it makes total sense: why would you allow someone to suffer if you can help? But, isn't it also a balance? Aren't there times when you have to let someone feel the consequences of their own actions or neglect in order for them to learn a better way? Not to make them suffer, but to make them pay attention. Sometimes the best help is no help at all. Not always. Sometimes. -- doug smith  

I once had a boss who had higher standards than me. Every day seemed like a challenge. There just wasn't any pleasing this boss. I'd get to a new level and she'd urge me to raise the level again. "Keep learning," she'd say. "Keep developing. Make your customers unforgettable and they will never forget you..." She was right. The chase is endless. The effort is unrelenting. And the joy, ah the joy becomes inexhaustible. If your boss has higher standards than you do, raise your standards.  -- doug smith  

How do you develop performance? Every leader has a duty to develop performance. The status quo has got to go -- everyone everywhere benefits from constant improvement, constant development. When team members do not feel like they are being developed they are likely to leave. And, if they don't leave, how do you feel about their performance gradually falling behind? Because unless our performance improves, let's face it, it's falling behind. Performance is all about results but it is much more than that. Where does it begin? How do you start? Before we can feel the benefit of development it must be felt by others. People need to feel that how we perform our job is making a positive difference in their lives. And that is service. Developing performance starts with service. The ways that we serve others will be registered as our performance. Our customers aren't concerned about the financials, the KVI's, the deliverables. Our customers are focused on how we make them f...

Don't you just love it when someone is genuinely helpful? Those rare times when you can tell that they don't have a secondary motive, that they are just being helpful? Great leaders do that a lot. You can see it in their actions, and you can hear it in their talk. What if everything you communicated was meant to be helpful? Wouldn't more people listen? -- doug smith

How many people have tried to sell you stuff today? Six? Sixteen? Sixty-six? It's a lot, isn't it? Some days it feels as if everything is a sales pitch. Buy this, try that, sign-up for freemium but get ready to pay. It's good for you, it's what you need, it will bring you friends and fun. I know, I know, I know. We're all in sales. I sell stuff, too. I do better if people sign up for my courses. I make more money when customers supplement their learning by buying materials from me. I sell, I sell, so who am I to tell? I get so weary of people trying to sell me things that I almost stop selling things myself. But, I do find myself selling less these days. I'm not criticizing sales. I have a son who is an absolute ace at selling insurance and he does very well, and well -- people DO need insurance. It meets a need. But, we don't think about it, we don't address the need, unless someone tells us about it. Unless someone sells us something. How do we make pe...

Why should anyone help you with your goals? You can probably think of at least three people right now who are not yet helping you, but if they did, would make achieving your goal much easier. You might even be able to think of some people who seem to be standing in your way of achieving your goals. Why would they do that? How do people decide whether or not to help? People have their own sense of reason, but one thing that influences them is whether or not they have gotten help from you. When we build relationships of trust and serving it becomes much easier for someone to offer help. It even becomes easier for them to see the need to offer help without being asked. But if there is no history of helping, if in fact there is a memory of an unpleasant lack of help, it's natural that they would resist offering help of their own. It's all in the history of the relationship. People can help us achieve our goals or they can hinder us -- it could depend on how well we serve those peop...

Think about a time when you experienced tremendous satisfaction. You were not just happy, you were pleased inside and out. Your value was enhanced, your self-esteem was elevated. What caused that? What was it that you did? More importantly, who did you help? Chances are that you helped more than yourself. You probably started by helping someone else, and that lead to helping you as well. High performance leaders serve first. They aren't in it for the ego. The ego is fragile and near-sighted. True leadership achieves noble goals in the service of others. And that's what makes us happy in lasting and meaningful ways.  It is in service that we are best served. Serve first, my friends. It will serve you well. -- doug smith

Never stifle the desire to serve. It's what we are here for. -- doug smith