At the MD2MD launch meetings for Managing Directors in Leeds and Manchester last week, I heard again the frustration that I often hear expressed by Managing Directors about staff that do the job ‘ok’, follow the processes and follow the rules – but only just. The frustration being ‘How do I get them to use their brain and ‘go the extra mile’ to deliver excellent customer service.
I think the answer is in principle quite simple, although I accept it is difficult to achieve in practice. And it has something to do with the way that in today’s world people doing customer service jobs that require intelligence thought, creativity and common sense need to be motivated in a different way to the carrot and stick model that we often assume is universally applicable.
A year or so I read a great book that for me dealt with this issue excellently – A book called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Dan Pink. You can click the link to purchase from Amazon or read on – As usual I a pleased to share with the Managing Directors that read my blog the insights in a simple summary. Today in a video from the RSA:
Following an early career with Accenture, a number of small IT and Training businesses and Coopers & Lybrand, Bob has spent ten years as a Chief Executive or Managing Director. He has led a variety of businesses from family-owned businesses and corporate subsidiaries to those listed on AIM, with up to 450 people, £45m revenues, £10M net profit. He has delivered fast growth (from £21m to £45m and from £4m to £12m) both organically and by acquisition.
He has led merger integration processes 5 times and successfully led two deals from start to finish and has raised funds in excess of £5M from the City.
He has managed B2B sales through both the development of multi-million pound professional accounts and through high volume marketing and bottom up telesales. He has managed B2C sales through multi-million pound television & web marketing, telesales and self-employed commission-only direct sales operations.
He has managed significant reengineering to improve profits, restructuring to reduce costs and twice managed headcount reduction by more than 30%. He has stabilised a business out of crisis (in bank special measures, numerous regulatory investigations, potential insolvency) and introduced or strengthened systems and processes to ensure consistent high-quality customer service for a premium player.
He also acts as a consultant, advisor, mentor and coach having Blue Chip consulting experience on IT and with fast growth businesses in his early and mid career and having mentored and developed over 20 Managing Directors.
He has started and profitably run two businesses, is a Governor (Chair of Finance & Staffing) for a local comprehensive school (1300 pupils and £5M spend) and is an audit committee member for a local Housing Association.
