What Motivates You?

AND also on the show…

Did you know that if people are happy at work they are more than 150% likely to be happy at home?

This information came while I enjoyed an insightful interview with Chester Elton who lives by his Dad’s motto, assume the best and you’ll rarely be disappointed. Among other things, we spoke about having Aspirational Conversations and asking people/employees powerful, thought-provoking questions like:

What have we done for you lately?
What do we do well?
What could we do better?
Have we done anything that would cause you to leave us?

Enjoy Chester’s guest blog post below…

We’ve been working with corporate leaders for twenty years now, and the truth is most organizations do the big things well. Most have good products and services at reasonable prices offered in clean locations; they understand that employees should be nice to customers. Those are the tickets into the game. You have to offer those basics to compete.

The big differentiation, we’ve found, is the little things.

Here’s a simple illustration:

When one of us (Adrian) was a college student, he worked in construction one summer. When his first check arrived, it was more money than he’d ever seen, so he and his friend Boyd decided to splurge on a good meal. They went to a restaurant typically out of their price range and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. As they were leaving, Boyd remarked on the exceptional service: “Did you notice that waiter? You know, I set my water glass down at one point and the waiter was over near the kitchen. But I could see him turn his head as he heard the ice clinking in my empty glass. He picked up a pitcher of water and came right over. All from hearing ice touch the side of a glass!”

What was the difference between an average meal and an exceptional one for these young guys? That a waiter did the little things really well.

We recently spoke to 9,000 leaders at Tesco, the United Kingdom’s largest grocery retailer. After some pretty tough times, a few years ago Tesco made a concerted effort to put the focus back on the customer—to empower and challenge their colleagues to be a little better everyday. Their internal mantra, in fact, became: “Serving Britain’s shoppers a little better every day.”

The turnaround is in full swing and the 300,000 people who work at Tesco are more focused because leaders helped them understand they are not running shops but serving customers—and that’s a lot more energizing.

Dave Lewis, the group CEO, issued the challenge to his people to do a little something extra every day. As we talked with Lewis, he did the math for us: If all 300,000 colleagues look to do just one little extra thing every day it will add up to more than 2 million acts of kindness in the United Kingdom every week. With that kind of positive impact in their stores, the image of Tesco can’t help but change.

Included in the new revamp is a truly funny advertising campaign, illustrating exactly how Tesco is doing the little things. But Lewis told us, “You can’t advertise your way out of problems you behaved your way into. You start with instilling pride back into the brand and making people fell like Tesco is on their side, and then you inject a little humor into it along the way.”

Turning around a 300,000-person organization takes time, but industry analysts are saying they are clearly on the right track.

So what little things can you do to make a difference in your organization? Here are just a few we’ve noticed in our travels:

Say Thanks: Acknowledge your customers’ have a choice and thank them sincerely for their business—every time they use your services. And, especially, recognize your employees for their small and large efforts in living your brand.

Reinvest in Your Customers: Even if they don’t buy from you, help customers with valuable, free content on your Website or in your store. Help them improve their lives and it will come back to you.

Treat Every Customer Like The Only One Your Have: Help your people understand the value of each customer, treating them like you would a friend or family member as you serve them.

DWYSYWD: Do what you say you will do. People who live up to their word are rare and valued in business.

Have Fun: Laugh and have fun with your employees and your clients. Encourage levity. We do business with people we like, it’s that simple.

What are the little things that you are doing to differentiate your business? We believe it’s the little things that will make you great.

The post What Motivates You? first appeared on Your Life Unlimited.

Contributed by Stephanie Staples at Your Life Unlimited

by Stephanie Staples

What Motivates You?

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