The highest form of service

"The most innovative customer service work being done today treats the customer as neither the 'subject' of some new study, nor the 'object' of some new product or service, but as an active 'partner' in developing new kinds of win-win scenarios. There's no more 'them' when it's all 'us' in this together."

-- Terry Mandel, from Giving Value a Voice

If ever there was a time when we could really "feel" that we're all in this together, it's now. So many industries and markets are being radically and fundamentally altered these days, where all of the old traditional rules of behavior simply no longer apply, and it's all up for grabs. Remember the line that goes, "people only tend to commit to, and get excited about, what they help create"? Well, this also applies to customer expectations and feelings these days more than ever. The customer wants to be involved in the value creation and exchange conversation, and they want it to be a real conversation, rather than a sales pitch. This requires all of us giving up old mental models and exploring new ones from a place of total ignorance, which requires a new level of maturity, patience, self-awareness, and wisdom on the part of all players. The winners will be those who know how to ask the really important questions and then facilitate inclusive dialogue and accelerated, shared learning.

True proactiveness, from three great sources

"All too often, our so-called 'proactiveness' is really just 'reactiveness' in disguise. We might try a 'pre-emptive' approach, competing with or judging others even more aggressively, but we are still reacting - regardless of what we call it. True proactiveness comes when we learn to see how we contribute to our own problems and how to take both corrective and preventive measures within ourselves first, before addressing out there."

-- Peter Senge, from The Fifth Discipline

"Your difficulty is not contained, primarily, in the external circumstances which gave rise to it, but in the mental state with which you regard that situation and which you bring to bear upon it."

-- James Allen

or, if you prefer a more Biblical perspective, Jesus said in Matthew 7:3-5:

"And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

How often do we see the world through our own feelings of injustice or woundedness? I assert that it's most of the time for most of us. We are often blinded by our own pain and self-degradation, and then we're easily triggered into over-reactions to external circumstances, making mountains out of molehills. The above messages are strong reminders that we are best served (and we best serve others) by doing the important work inside ourselves first, and then and only then can we effectively turn our eye to corrective actions "out there" in the external world.

You'll know life is real when your knees are on the floor.

"Until your knees finally hit the floor, you're just playing at life, and on some level you're scared because you know you're just playing. That moment of perfect surrender is not when life is over. It's when it has just begun."

I have spent a lot of time on my knees over the last several years, and I'm there once again this morning, and it's amazing how many clients/friends I've met with lately who have shared with me similar first-time experiences of what I'll call "extreme prayer," the kind of praying they've never done before - intense, deeply personal and real, fully surrendering. I walked through the streets of downtown Houston yesterday afternoon with one such client and friend, and after an amazing conversation over coffee about his family, God, love, marriage, the looming possibility of divorce, his hanging on the precipice by his fingernails, we shared a blissful moment of communion with God and each other, and on the way back to his office we shared an experience of what it feels like to actually see "The Matrix" laid out in front of us - that "artificial reality" we tend to lose ourselves in when we're not on our knees on the floor. It was crystal clear for both of us how life hangs delicately in the balance, waiting for us to experience it most fully and richly, at that exquisite moment of imminent devastation ... like now.

Contrasts & Paradox

"A child's hand in yours — what tenderness it arouses, what power it conjures. You are instantly the very touchstone of infinite power and wisdom."

-- Marjorie Holmes

"Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is most soft and pliant is also most strong."

-- Lao-Tzu (600 B.C.)

Vastly different quotes from vastly different ages, and yet they conjure up the same imagery for me. I picture myself crossing a street with my little boy, his hand in mine. I am the strong protector in one sense - rigidly so, knowing what to do and how to do it, demanding it be done my way by a "helpless" child - and yet in another sense I am the more vulnerable one, being gently and patiently guided by a "fluid, soft, and yielding" spirit who touches my hand with total faith and trust, leading me to a stronger place of freedom, joy, and love. Who's got the power in this exchange? It depends on one's perspective. I bring a certain level of predictable safety and security; Jake brings unlimited opportunity for adventure and enjoyment. Which is the stronger force? I couldn't care less, which I guess answers the question in a way.

For those of you who consider yourselves entrepreneurial business leaders out there, your new enterprises are just like your children - they don't always listen to you or behave the way you'd like them to, and they can really cry and whine when you try to make them, but they have something to teach you if you are willing to listen and learn, and it is in your best interest to do so. Coaching, like leadership, like parenting, is a delicate balancing act between bold, confident guiding and deep, soulful listening. Strength is in the dancing with the contrasts.

Myth-busting

"We expected to find that changes in incentive systems, especially executive incentives, would be highly correlated with making the leap from good to great. With all the attention paid to executive compensation - the shift to stock options and the huge packages that have become commonplace - surely, we thought, the amount and structure of compensation must play a key role in going from good to great. How else do you get people to do the right things that create great results?

We were dead wrong in our expectations. ... We actually found that the good-to-great executives received slightly less total cash compensation ten years after the transition than their counterparts at the still-mediocre comparison companies.

Not that executive compensation is irrelevant. You have to be basically rational and reasonable, and the good-to-great companies did spend time thinking about the issue. But once you've structured something that makes basic sense, executive compensation falls away as a distinguishing variable in moving an organization from good to great.

Why might that be? It is a simple manifestation of the 'first who' principle: It's not how you compensate your executives, it's which executives you have to compensate in the first place. If you have the right executives on the bus, they will do everything within their power to build a great company, not because of what they will "get" for it, but because they simply canot imagine settling for anything less. Their moral code requires building excellence for its own sake, and you're no more likely to change that with a compensation package than you're likely to affect whether they breathe. The good-to-great companies understood a simple truth:

The right people will do the right things and deliver the best results they're capable of, regardless of the incentive system."

-- Jim Collins, from Good to Great

I have worked with a number of organizations that have spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about compensation as the driving competitive factor in attracting and securing senior talent, rather than worrying about the moral quality of that talent. It is refreshing to see this shift in emphasis. I remember a line I heard years ago that said, "Hire character, train skills, vs. the other way around." This simple rule, although hard to implement and live by, can save your organization tremendous time and money when you are inevitably tested.

The Purpose-Driven Life

"There are five great benefits of living a purpose-driven life:
Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life.
Knowing your purpose simplifies your life.
Knowing you purpose focuses your life.
Knowing your purpose motivates your life.
Knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity."

-- Rick Warren, from The Purpose-Driven Life

I was given this book by a client and friend, D.M., and it drove home the importance of the blessing I have found in gaining clarity about my life's purpose, "helping people come alive, and thrive, in their personal and business relationships." Only through facing my own flawed humanity, asking for forgiveness for my past blindness and mistakes, and turning the question of purpose over to God, have I discovered the beauty, inspiration, power, and support that has always been readily available for the asking and is now everywhere I turn:

"The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

-- Galatians 5:14 (NIV)