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Leadership is hard; it’s harder now than it was in the past and things are going to get harder. The future will test all of us, our motivation, our strengths and resilience.
Part of reimagining the future of service and preparing for success is also vividly imagining the worst scenarios and preparing to fail:
- Serving customers when we have staff shortages
- Serving customers when we have stock shortages
- Serving customers when technology fails
- Serving customers when our partners and suppliers let us down
- Serving customers when we can’t keep up with the demand
- Serving customers when we can’t meet their expectations on price
Service leaders create a readiness for the next wave of challenges coming their way. Train your mind to be ready for the worst-case scenarios. Train your staff for them too.
Service leaders acknowledge past failures, learn from them, encourage honesty about where they are at as a team and business and step forward to serve anyway.
Train your mind for your motivation coming under attack, and your resilience being tested when you fail. Train your staff for these too.
Service leaders create the conditions for people to thrive and make decisions confidently in service interactions without blind reactivity or fear.
Train your mind to realise that the worst is not that bad, and that there are always alternatives and new ways of solving problems. Train your staff in this too.
Service failures come suddenly, without warning. They hurt your bottom line, your employee engagement and your reputation. Learn to expect them and learn to work with them. Create a learning culture in which your service teams are prepared to fail.
Love being in service,
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