Blog
Necessity is the Mother of Customer Co-Creation
Necessity is the mother of invention. And few things are more necessary to the success of an organization than customers. Leave that thought on the page and we will return to it very shortly. Napoleon knew that a military force was only as successful as the food it...
Are Your Customers Seeing Monsters?
My dad's favorite childhood story was when a rural pond full of skinny dippers claimed they all saw a huge, evil monster. Every time he told the story, he would laugh so hard at the punchline he got tears in his eyes. Here is the short version… At the annual hog...
Happy Wild DaisIes Day
The photo you see is a group of daisies on the side of my backyard. They are getting ready to celebrate Independence Day. While we traditionally wave Old Glory on this day, I want to wave wild daisies. Notice how they are all standing tall and proud—an appropriate...
The Parable of “He Waved Back”
It was raining hard. I was in the edge of a small town near where I live in a long line of “stop and go” traffic all slowed by the single traffic light in the center of town. A car from a side street was waiting to get in the line. I left a space between my car and...
Leadership—Unwrapped and Unadorned
The true story is a part of the Southwest Airlines folklore—stories you would retell around the corporate campfire. A customer repeatedly wrote a complaining letter after each of Southwest’s flights. She complained that Southwest did not have first-class, that they...
Putting the Pandemic into Perspective
Guest post by John Baldoni. No one wants to relive 2020. It was a year of pandemic, racial strife, economic crisis and climate catastrophes. This year, 2021 promises to be better; people are being vaccinated, jobs are returning, and a degree of congregant life is...
Deliver Pontoon Customer Service
Pontoon boats are fantastic! I have had my share of speedboats, rafts, and canoes. But the versatility of a pontoon boat cannot be beaten! It can carry eight people on a leisurely late afternoon boat ride complete with proper adult beverages. It can make grandchildren...
Excelling without Yelling
Guest post from Mike Horne. Sam was at it again with Brian, long-term colleagues, this time in a meeting with 70 others. The exchange between Sam and Brain was familiar to many and always disturbing and disruptive. Sam said, “You’re stupid if you think that will...
Celebrating National Jellybean Day with Customers
There is a fruit and vegetable stand in North Georgia that found a way to celebrate customers in a unique way every single day. The owner discovered the www.nationalday.com website. It turns out every day of the year is celebrated for something. When we drove by the...
Spring: A Time for Courageous Service
Spring has sprung,Fall has fell.Winter’s here,And it’s cold as…usual. It was my first introduction to poetry. I was seven and all the second-grade boys thought the little poem was bold and smutty. We only recited it in the spring when we were feeling our oats. At...
What Leaders Can Learn from Crazy Horse – Part 2
When you played cowboys and Indians as a kid, did you want to be the cowboy or the Indian? I wanted to be the Indian. All the ones I saw in comic books had supercool moccasins and could move around with their bow and arrows without making a sound. And there were...
What Leaders Can Learn from Crazy Horse – Part 1
We live in an era of statue-removal. Meanwhile the largest mountain carving in the world is under construction in the Black Hills of South Dakota just seventeen miles from Mount Rushmore. The final carving will be 640 feet long and over 50 stories high. The subject of...
Reach: The Leadership Side of Purpose-Driven
“A man’s [person’s] reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for.” It was a Robert Browning quote I admired even before I fully understood what it meant. It is not about purpose, it is about a pathway to purpose, along the lines of a focus on the journey...
The Magic of Service “Robust, Harper-Style”
Robust is a super cool word. It means strong, vigorous, and full-bodied. But, in the hands of our 9½-year-old grandniece, Harper Jane, it has a more majestic meaning and provides a powerful lesson for creating value-unique customer experiences. Here is the backstory....
Love as a Customer Retention Strategy
She was over-the-top friendly. Her eye hugs made you feel you were in the presence of a forever friend. As she rang up my purchase at the checkout counter of the well-known department store, she commented on my cowboy boots. “You’re either from Texas or you got a heap...