How do you want to feel?

We often talk about so-called "soft skills," like emotional intelligence, and "hard skills" like financial management.

The more I consider this, the stranger it seems to me in the world we're making. Where's the line? How are you going to use those "hard skills" with people? Won't you need some "soft skills" to make your work meaningful and relevant?

I'm not saying that you can be a successful financial manager without any financial comptetance, simply by being a nice person. It's obvious that such an approach is doomed to fail.

But in your work and your life, don't you put significant importance on how you feel, and how others "make" you feel?  Don't you prefer certain colleagues, hotels, bars and websites because you feel the way you want to feel with them? Isn't that pretty much the secret to service?

Humility, simplicity, passion

Humility, simplicity and passion are concepts that may not intially seem to go together. But the more I work with great people, the more I see these three chracteristics.

Humility is essential for beginner's mind, the great opener of doors. Humility encompasses openness and implies a focus on others as much as, or evern more than, focus on the self. It also implies self-confidence and authenticity.

Simplicity makes things easy, clears obstacles, allows flow.

Passion is really love manifested in action; it's contagious, it enables us to continue, to persevere, to forget ourselves in the doing.

Daily service: Feeling right

My husband is a wonderful teacher. He gives more as a teacher than any other I've encountered, and one of his secrets is that he puts "feeling right" ahead of preparation. For him, being in the right space to teach and to be present is the most important thing.

One of the things I love about the concept of feeling right is that it's highly personal. For many teachers, being completely prepared is necessary in order to feel right. For others, it could be a question of feeling well physically, or staring the day with exercise or breakfast. It could involve some small ritual before class.

Giving service on a daily basis is also about feeling right, I think. If you feel right, it means that you're open to what happens, you have a sense of equilibrium, and you feel confident in approaching the challenges of the day. Of course, simply depending on your mood isn't going to work. What might work is some kind of practice, whether it's putting your apron on the way you like it, reviewing any news there might be, or having your favorite tea. Practice will help to set the stage for giving great service.

What if you simply don't feel right? Then the only thing is to do your best. It may be that getting started serving customers or teaching will start to change the way you feel. It may be that focusing on others will help you start to feel right. The main thing is to pay attention to yourself, to learn to care for yourself as you develop more awareness about your own sense of well being.

Zappos: A great video about building a true service culture

Service as change agent

Service is often conceptualized as a means to an end. I think this is especially true with customer service, in the sense that serving customers is a part of getting and retaining their business. Service "for its own sake" is associated more with altruism and charitable works, and may not have any definite objectives.
Between the two concepts, however, could be a way of thinking about service as a behavior intended to change something specific, but without the idea of recompense for the one serving.
For example, managers could envision their service as a way of opening possibilities and new ways of thinking for the team members. A president could use his term in office to provide new services to the country. A waiter could take each new guest as an opportunity to transmit peace and well-being through his service. It seems to me that any position involving service implies a huge opportunity to change things.
Sometimes the spirit of this kind of service alone is enough to promote change. When people feel that another is giving of him or her self without any idea of receiving, there is a subtle shift, a sense of potential, a possibility for inspiration.

Breakthrough service

Breakthrough is a nice word, but like so many other words, its impact may be compromised by overuse.

To truly break through a barrier is powerful.

Breakthrough service is characterized by a kind of insight and generosity that overcomes barriers, whatever they may be.

Breakthrough service reaches the receiver intact and alive. It admits no obstacle, it makes things simple, it conveys authentic intention and the will to give.

The people I want to serve: like me or not?

One of the difficulties in determining value for your customer, patient, student, or anyone else you want to serve is that they may not be like you. They may have different values. They may want different things. This seems obvious, but it presents a problem: what will your approach be?

One approach could be to make your offering in such a way that it filters the people you attract. Everything you do consistently reinforces your culture, your values, and the experience your customers will have. You clearly define what you're not, and this helps to deflect those who want those things. A good example of this approach would be the kind of upscale boutique, restaurant or club which basically stops undesired clients (physically or psychologically) at the door. The undesired client will generally feel undesired and make a decision to go somewhere else (of course there are exceptions!).

The advantage of this approach is that your message is strong enough to deliver good potential clients: they have clear expectations and are well-aligned with what you're offfering.

Another approach could be to appeal to a wide variety of customers or users, either because volume is part of your plan or because your mission (as a hospital, for example) demands it. In this case, you will have to discover who your users are and how to serve them, and continually update your plan to meet their needs. Obviously it will be impossible to completely satisfy a huge and diverse group of patients, but you can certainly detect their key concerns and act on them.

All of this sounds pretty simple, but I think the challenge occurs in really listening and understanding people who aren't like you. It's just really easy to think that your customers share your values, but they might not at all, or not to the extent you believe. For example: people with lower incomes are often motivated by price. It's important for them to get what they need for a price they can afford, and they may be willing to spend an entire Saturday waiting in lines and going to discounters in order to achive this. People with higher incomes tend to be motivated by perceived value, and they're willing to pay high prices for things they appreciate. At the same time, however, they may put a greater value on their time than others, and be unwilling to wait in lines or put up with slow service. If the people serving these groups have no understanding of their values, the business in question will probably fail.

So what's the solution? Either design your business to attract the customers you want, or design your business to serve the customers you need. Both strategies will require attention, training and continuous improvement based on the evolution of your service and those you're serving. Both require you to make sure that the people serving your customers are the right ones, and that they have what they need to do a good job.