Customer Service Leadership - The only sustainable Edge - Part 3
Posted on October 19, 2007 - Filed Under Innovative marketing strategies, CSA - Celebrity Speakers, Expert Interviews |
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by Larry Hochman
Tomorrow’s leaders must also be capable of recognising where future value will be derived. Chief Executives have blathered on for years about the need to create value for customers. Saying that now dates them terribly, because what really matters today is the ability to create value WITH customers. Successful collaboration with your customers (B to B, B to C and C to C) is the next core competence. Forget about focusing on so-called “Best Practice”. That only leaves you trying to replicate a competitor, and often leaves you ten years behind where you should be. As a leader, what really matters is “NEXT PRACTICE”, trying to become first or second in promulgating a new idea. Dare I say that this will allow you to create the mini-monopoly cash cow that comes from being first to market with any new product or any new idea; this monopoly, of course, will only last a very short time indeed, as your competitors will eventually focus on your success and replicate it at an increasingly dizzying speed.
The ability to see the future before the competition and to get there first, is an integral component of great leadership. No leader can do this alone. The depth of talent that surrounds a successful leader is sometimes the best indication of their wisdom and competence. Your legacy as a leader, more than anything else, will be determined by your ability to find the right people, at the right time, to do the right things.
The “new worlds of work” have been identified and well described, perhaps most insightfully by the great Charles Handy in many of his books. The “free-agent” concept of portfolio workers, moving from project to project, and from team to team, and from company to company, is now well documented and is generally accepted as a seminal global trend. The great leaders of the future will not only fully understand these trends, but also celebrate the freedom this allows both individual worker and the company itself. An obsession with locating and employing very talented people, for the right length of time, and for the right reasons, should be amongst the top priorities of every leader. This is not something to be contracted out; it is the responsibility of those who are guardians of the fiscal well being of any organisation.
The final and perhaps most profoundly important attribute of any great leader is TRUSTWORTHYNESS. How can one possibly be capable of inspiring other people to work together towards a common goal, unless they are well and truly trusted; trust is the one thing that should never be delegated, and without which goals of any kind are impossible to achieve. Do remember that we now live in a world of near total transparency, where there is no place to hide. This is true for business leaders and politicians alike (thank goodness!). This transparency, even in the most closed off former totalitarian regimes, is not only on the rise, but is re-shaping the nature of all commercial and political relationships alike.
All of the hard work done by you and your predecessors, and the entire cumulative investment made in the history of your business, can be swept away almost instantaneously today by ethical mistakes of any consequence. Customers and citizens will be swift and brutal in their future judgements of brazen ethical misdeeds. And I repeat – THERE WILL BE NO PLACE TO HIDE. The litany of recent corporate examples is too long, and not even necessary, to highlight. Simply put, in the future if people lose trust in the leadership of a company owing to ethical misconduct, disaster awaits: and well it should. After all the jargon written about leadership through the last fifty years, it all comes down to TRUST: now and forever.
Leadership will always remain a riddle; it will always be about both the desire to inspire and, equally, the need to be inspired. Speakers, writers, mentors, film directors, playwrights, et al., will continue to try and de-mystify the inscrutable. It may be more insightful to simply try and better understand the societal and cultural trends already underway, that more than anything else are dictating how customers will behave, how citizens will vote, and therefore what collective goals we are trying to achieve. Hopefully, these goals will transcend simple material gratification, and be focused on something altogether more altruistic. Only then will more leaders emulate Nelson Mandela, and understand that the most successful leaders will choose not to appeal to peoples fears and nightmares, but rather to their hopes and dreams. Some of you will lead others, maybe heroically. More of you, however, will end up being led and hopefully be satisfied to be the hero of your own life; a no less noble, and much more attainable, goal.
end of the 3 part article series “CUSTOMER SERVICE LEADERSHIP” by Larry Hochman
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