What is Leadership Coaching, how does it relate to Customer Loyalty and what can it do for our business?

Posted on April 14, 2009 by pdncoach

Managers are the linchpins connecting the daily actions of a workforce with business success.

Yet most people complain about the gap that exists between corporate strategy, growth, profitability and the daily work performed on the front lines. All the while, front-line employees get an “ear full” from customers and complain about their supervisors. In response, company vision, values and goals are hung on the walls, HR beefs up training and everyone hopes for the best. Yet the gap remains. Why?

Successful companies recognize the need to develop a culture in which everyone from top leaders to front-line workers will focus on value from the viewpoint of customers. Supervisors are key to enlisting front-line workers in the constant effort to identify waste in processes, make improvements in performance, while maximizing production and service. Companies do NOT succeed or fail – their people do. And nothing has a more direct impact on employee success – and the loyalty of customers – than leaders and the culture they create.

  • What if your employees understood the connection between individual performance, company success and job security?

  • What if employees’ discretionary actions were consistently aligned with company goals?

  • What if each employee improved his or her ability to discern the customer-centered value of each decision, action or behavior he or she takes on a daily basis?

  • What if you could turn company interests into tangible goals, attitudes, behaviors and habits of employees?

Leadership Coaching helps you find your right answers to these tough questions.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in culture, customer loyalty, customers, goals, leadership, managers, success, values, vision | Leave a comment

Which Direction Are You Running?

Posted on April 9, 2009 by pdncoach


Once again, my partner Becky Morris finds Great Questions in a simple human encounter.

I met an interesting young man a few weeks ago at a youth service. This young man happens to currently live away from his home. When I first noticed him I saw that his face was quite red and his breathing a little labored. He very proudly told me that he had run to church, almost 5 miles, because he couldn’t find a ride.

This really intrigued me so I found the time to go and talk with him a little more. Being the inquisitive type, I began asking about his life. He told me a story that would make most people throw in the towel immediately. His mother is missing, his father is remarried and his step-mother has multiple sclerosis so his father couldn’t afford to keep him any longer and sent him to this new place to live. Now I was really fascinated. What motivates this young man? I began asking his plans for the future. He very proudly told me he was a senior in high school and upon graduation wanted to attend college. He is very interested in technology and the passion oozed out of him as he spoke on the topic.

I didn’t want him to feel as though I was grilling him, so we casually ended the conversation and he joined the other kids. While my heart was heavy, and as a mother, I couldn’t help but wonder if all his needs were being met, I still realized the inner-strength of this young man. He wanted to be in the youth service that night, so he ran. It was cold; it was dark; it was dangerous as there are no sidewalks, and yet he didn’t let any of those obstacles stand in the way of his goal. He ran.

All of us are running. We are either running toward something or away from something. As you think about this ask yourself:

  • What are you running for?

  • What do I want bad enough that I am willing to run past the obstacles, let nothing stand in my way, no matter how difficult, to accomplish my goal?
Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in goal, motivate, obstacles, passion, questions, running | Leave a comment

What Does Security Look Like to You?

Posted on April 3, 2009 by pdncoach

The following is written by my business partner, Becky Morris. She is a much more experienced parent than I am: she has been through the pain of a child giving up his blankie more often.

Every time one of my children inform me that I am going to be blessed with another grandchild I immediately begin planning a quilt for that new baby, which is soon going to be part of our family. I wait to see if the parents find out the sex, then I begin shopping for material that will be just right.

All of my grandbabies love their quilts, but no one loves his more than Korey. Korey affectionately calls his quilt his “Grammy blankie”. As a toddler, he would sit by the washer and dryer while it was being laundered because he just didn’t think he could live without it. His mom tried as often as possible to do this late at night after he was asleep so it wouldn’t be so painful.

When Korey was about 4 he was at my house one time and he said to me, “Grammy, did you know that you and my blankie have the same name?” I’m not sure he understood why he called his blankie his “Grammy blankie”, but he sure thought it was cool that we shared a name.

Korey is soon turning 7. We have begun the process of laying the blankie to rest. I have offered to keep it at my house and put it in my hope chest alongside his daddy’s favorite blankie. Seven seems so old to his parents, too old for a blankie, but Grammy knows that seven is not that old.

The bigger question is how we can explain to Korey that this blankie doesn’t really provide that much security. What about the blankie comforts him? In pondering this the last few weeks (For some reason this is a bigger deal to me as a grandparent than it was as a parent; does that make me a bad mom?) I began thinking about the things that I hold on to for security. Many of my habits of thought and behaviors keep me comfortable, but they don’t provide security. Sometimes comfort gives us a false sense of security. Comfort and security may keep us from growing further.

  • Do you have any such things that bring you comfort?

  • What is it about the thing that comforts you?

  • How might you know when it is time to “lay your Grammy blankie to rest”?

  • How would giving up some well-worn, comfortable habits, which perhaps you have outgrown, open you up to further growth, satisfaction, independence and success?
Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in blankie, comfort, growth, habit, independence, questions, security | Leave a comment