Friday, December 28, 2007 at 1:01am
Humility, confession and customer service
Column: Executive Soul
This column originally was published on May 3, 2007.
At Landry's Bicycles in Boston, humility and confession drive customer service.
At Landry's, vision plays a leading role in customer service. While that's not unusual in retail (every company wants to be the best in sales, and most want to be the best in customer service), Landry's adds another twist. What's different about Landry's is that hard-driving vision is coupled with confession and humility. "Dream is the engine, the fire. What is it that adds balance to that fire? It's confession and humility," explains CEO Tom Henry.
Confession and humility form the foundation of the extensive training employees receive. Unusual for a seasonal retail business, Landry's commits year-round employment and training to its employees. During the low-revenue winter months, Landry's invests in employees through leadership training. Seventy percent of the training is comprised of hands-on activities: role plays, real-time interactions with other employees, and exercises designed to enable self-awareness.
While assertiveness and vision contribute to a salesperson's success, the shadow side of those traits is often an inability to listen to others and an insensitivity to customer (or fellow employee) needs. The leadership training includes helping employees see their own and others' gifts, and helping them name the shadow side of those gifts. Through seeing the constellation of gifts on a team, employees come to value one another as essential to the whole. Employees also come to see the need for humility and confession, when they trip over the shadow side of their gifts and step on one another's toes.
Humility and confession also come into play in customer interactions. Rather than adopt a defensive posture, Landry's employees learn to admit their mistakes and make them up to the customer. "We pay for our mistakes" is one of Landry's cardinal rules. At Landry's, admitting mistakes, learning from them and making amends has become a point of pride.
Landry's leadership training grew out of hard-won learning. Several years ago, the executive team was tripping over the shadow side of their own gifts. They realized that they needed to model what a team could be at its best if they expected the best from other teams in the 75-employee retail company. A family business, Landry's experienced all the blessings and curses of working with one's own family. While working together went smoothly 90 percent of the time, the team found themselves plagued the other 10 percent of the time by repeated patterns of stepping on one another's toes.
By adding another (non-family) member to the executive team and doing extensive self-awareness work, the team learned to value one another's gifts, see the shadow side of their own gifts, and practice confession and humility. For example, when Tom Henry arrived 10 minutes late to an important all-company meeting, the new, non-family member of the executive team called him on it. Tom practiced humility and confession by apologizing to the gathered meeting and committing to change his pattern.
It took a full year of hard work, but by the end of the year, the executive team realized all the work had been worth the effort. Now, rather than stepping on one another's toes and building up resentments that sap energy and commitment, the team has learned to see others' toes sooner and thus step on them less frequently. More importantly, when someone does step on someone else's toes, confession follows quickly.
Landry's has learned that humility and confession form the foundation of strong teams. As a result, relationships within the company are stronger, teams perform better, and customer service has improved.
— — —
Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations," works with leaders in business, healthcare, government and non-profits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Visit her website at www.ExecutiveSoul.com. Copyright 2007 by Margaret Benefiel.
At Landry's Bicycles in Boston, humility and confession drive customer service.
At Landry's, vision plays a leading role in customer service. While that's not unusual in retail (every company wants to be the best in sales, and most want to be the best in customer service), Landry's adds another twist. What's different about Landry's is that hard-driving vision is coupled with confession and humility. "Dream is the engine, the fire. What is it that adds balance to that fire? It's confession and humility," explains CEO Tom Henry.
Confession and humility form the foundation of the extensive training employees receive. Unusual for a seasonal retail business, Landry's commits year-round employment and training to its employees. During the low-revenue winter months, Landry's invests in employees through leadership training. Seventy percent of the training is comprised of hands-on activities: role plays, real-time interactions with other employees, and exercises designed to enable self-awareness.
While assertiveness and vision contribute to a salesperson's success, the shadow side of those traits is often an inability to listen to others and an insensitivity to customer (or fellow employee) needs. The leadership training includes helping employees see their own and others' gifts, and helping them name the shadow side of those gifts. Through seeing the constellation of gifts on a team, employees come to value one another as essential to the whole. Employees also come to see the need for humility and confession, when they trip over the shadow side of their gifts and step on one another's toes.
Humility and confession also come into play in customer interactions. Rather than adopt a defensive posture, Landry's employees learn to admit their mistakes and make them up to the customer. "We pay for our mistakes" is one of Landry's cardinal rules. At Landry's, admitting mistakes, learning from them and making amends has become a point of pride.
Landry's leadership training grew out of hard-won learning. Several years ago, the executive team was tripping over the shadow side of their own gifts. They realized that they needed to model what a team could be at its best if they expected the best from other teams in the 75-employee retail company. A family business, Landry's experienced all the blessings and curses of working with one's own family. While working together went smoothly 90 percent of the time, the team found themselves plagued the other 10 percent of the time by repeated patterns of stepping on one another's toes.
By adding another (non-family) member to the executive team and doing extensive self-awareness work, the team learned to value one another's gifts, see the shadow side of their own gifts, and practice confession and humility. For example, when Tom Henry arrived 10 minutes late to an important all-company meeting, the new, non-family member of the executive team called him on it. Tom practiced humility and confession by apologizing to the gathered meeting and committing to change his pattern.
It took a full year of hard work, but by the end of the year, the executive team realized all the work had been worth the effort. Now, rather than stepping on one another's toes and building up resentments that sap energy and commitment, the team has learned to see others' toes sooner and thus step on them less frequently. More importantly, when someone does step on someone else's toes, confession follows quickly.
Landry's has learned that humility and confession form the foundation of strong teams. As a result, relationships within the company are stronger, teams perform better, and customer service has improved.
— — —
Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations," works with leaders in business, healthcare, government and non-profits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Visit her website at www.ExecutiveSoul.com. Copyright 2007 by Margaret Benefiel.