Are you struggling with your team consistently delivering the right sales or service experience to your customers? How do you feel about how your vendors are treated and what they would say about your company or people if you weren’t paying them? If these are challenges in your organization and the solution has been more training, rules, policies, monitoring, etc., you’re solving the wrong problem.
The first Jurassic Park has a classic scene where a few people in a jeep feel the dreaded trimmers of a T-Rex fast approaching. On the dash, a glass of water begins to ripple. While trying to film that scene, the special effects department was tasked with making the water ripple from the bottom up, no small feat without CGI. The team searched long and hard for a solution. One day they tried flipping a guitar over and plucking a few strings. To their delight, it made the water ripple exactly like they wanted – from the inside.
How people outside your organization experience your team emanates from of how your team experiences your internal culture.
Let’s say you continually have to push your team to go the extra mile for customers. Do colleagues and leaders consistently go the extra mile for each other?
Maybe you’re trying to get your team to show customers that they really care about the person, not just the transaction, in an effort to build long-term relationships. Do team members feel known and cared for by their colleagues and leaders?
If your internal culture does not model the attitude and behaviors you want delivered externally, you’re asking your team to pretend to be something your company is not. The ruse can only last for so long. Keeping it up is exhausting and demoralizing.
If you want to change how your customers, vendors and partners experience your company, start by changing your culture. Focus on the source of the ripples, not the ripples themselves. As your team begins to experience a healthy culture, the ripple effect will take hold. They will begin replicating the same attitude and behaviors they are experiencing at the office with those they interact with externally. The difference is that it will be genuine, energizing and sustainable.
*If your organization could use some help working through a culture change, please feel free to contact me.
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