IT’S TIME!!!
We have dug into the concept of CARING and why that makes a difference, UNDERSTANDING, and what that takes to really make it work, and lastly we will dig into PURPOSE and why we do what we do. But for now, let’s care enough to understand what it takes to truly SERVE someone else.
To SERVE…. What does it mean in our case in what we do with our clients? You can look up the word SERVE on the web and find a bunch of different perspectives on the meaning of the word itself. With respect to what our team does with our clients, here is my thinking.
To SERVE our clients, our team, our family, or whomever we choose to engage with is, for me, the same thing. And it is not too complex. Fundamentally it means ACTIVELY helping someone else achieve what THEY hope to achieve. A couple of key elements are involved here. ACTIVELY means we are directly, personally, individually involved in helping another PERSON get something done that it is important to THEM.
While corporations and companies are the frameworks behind much of what we work to accomplish, the reality is that the key to SERVING is that at its best it means involvement with a specific person. Often times as a part of a group of people, a team, a department, a formal or informal structure. We SERVE at the personal level, helping to accomplish individual goals that most times are in fact tied to corporate outcomes. All of this is ACTIVELY planned, done, and reviewed (PLAN/DO/REVIEW). Well-understood, carefully orchestrated actions that co-create the outcomes that we understand matter greatly to those we serve. That is where THEM comes into play.
The plans created, the process executed, and the outcomes aimed for, must all be built with the person you are serving as the center of the universe. Everything must focus on THEM! Timing, details, objectives, measurables, risks, rewards….everything must be built around the world of the person that you are choosing to actively help.
The text below is a bit of an extract from many of the forums on the web on Servant Leadership. I have substituted the “client engagement” words in many cases for the word leadership. You will see the great similarity in the two concepts. I can make the case that Servant Leadership is in fact a client-based set of values and actions and you can swap the terms pretty easily.
Servant client engagement encourages everyone to think outside the box and considers every perspective when tasked with moving the needle forward. The final decision is the byproduct of collective collaboration and the exchange of ideas. Power never rests with one person, but with everyone on the team contributing to the end result.
How can client engagement teams build a higher level of trust? By being crystal clear about everything. All communications need to be specific and disseminated to every single level of the organization, top to bottom. If you are not transparent and fail to serve a clear purpose, no one is going to care. Being transparent foments trust, which has a direct correlation to successful outcomes. Remember, trust is earned, not given. Have you earned your client’s trust?
It’s not about you. It never was and it never will be. It’s about the people who make it all work. Great client engagement teams help facilitate the success of others and make everyone feel valuable and that their contributions matter to the overall success of the effort.
Fostering service to others comes in many forms, including coaching, mentorship, and growth. Take the time to teach someone the ropes, to offer words of encouragement, and answer questions that others have for you. Great client engagement teams give back. They are able to put together a diverse group of people from all parts of the organizations that they serve and that they are a direct part of.
Servant client engagement professionals give more of themselves not because they have to, but because they want to. They are transparent, honest, and yes, even vulnerable. That sounds like it would be a weakness, but it actually can help build you up as a client engagement professional and let others see you as a human being, with values that matter to all.
OK, LET’S ROLL!
Time to SERVE, relentlessly!
Mitch
Time to PIVOT!
From our continued chats about UNDERSTANDING we left off with last week’s perspective of the challenge of helping others, our clients, our friends, and all those we serve, tackle the monumental perspective of CHANGE! Introducing that idea was the following…
…Simply, the harsh reality is that if we are going to gain market share, grow the number of clients we have, and grow within those clients we already serve at some level… we must help them to CHANGE their thinking about the work and the decisions that they reached in the past with respect to their choice of suppliers in a given solution set. We must help them CHANGE their thinking, to CHANGE their beliefs, to CHANGE their actions… and choose US. And that is the complex part…CHANGE!
However complex it might seem or be, we CAN achieve it. It is quite doable. We know how, and many of you are good at it already.
Next week we will look at the magic in the use of SMEs and the PIVOT, in helping guide our clients through the CHANGE process.
So let’s dig into the movement from UNDERSTANDING and how we use that perspective to enable the people we are working with to develop their own desire to change.
It must be understood and completely clear that YOU cannot get another person to change their mind. I cannot get another person to change their mind. NO one can get another person to change their mind. The brain does not work that way. No words you speak, no action you take can make that happen. Just the way it works. The reality is clear, only the person themselves can flip the internally operated switch that causes a shift in beliefs.
Now, the harsh reality many times we all spend so much time and effort in communicating to another that they may simply give up, get tired of hearing our babble, and play into your hand of believing they have changed. Submission does NOT equal acceptance! Many people will outwardly appear one way while still believing another way. Just the way it works.
SO…what do we do? Give up? Change our “pitch”? Find another target?
Really, no to all of the above. Our challenge is actually a response that is quite powerful as it is rooted in the desire to help make a difference with others.
It is called simply “The Pivot”. In it’s short form The Pivot requires an absolute acceptance of the other person’s perspective as true and viable, to them, and offering up an ADDITIONAL alternative idea that can ALSO be true.
Studying and executing this requires a bit more time and interaction than this email can accomplish. It can certainly be done virtually and some of its best outcomes have been developed with this in “face to face” video mode.
Properly created and executed, a one to one video call is even more personal and influential than the old sterile conference room hole in the wall conversation could ever be.
The magic in SME utilization comes in the form of the “alternative idea” that can ALSO be true for the person you are serving. A SME has a natural sense of neutrality if introduced into the program properly. A SME must have an open approach and a clear belief that their own way is NOT the only way to create great outcomes. And that neutrality is kept whole as you provide more and more SME’s with increment expertise and solution sets.
The client engagement manager is the project manager for ALL things that take place with a client. It is their challenge to bring as much expert help into the conversation with the client as they can possibly create.
With all of our experience with this metric and it’s known or unknown use over thousands of projects it has never been seen that it is possible to provide TOO MUCH help! Keep asking the client… what more can we look at?
OK, LET’S ROLL!
Time to SERVE, relentlessly!
Mitch
