It's Not, Just

I’m so interested I’ve become interesting,
Learning so much that I have become the teacher.
Once the listener, the observer,
My role has switched and so has the cycle of knowledge.

I’m not an expert, just time tested,
I’m not a hero, just been around long enough to save the day.

Where do I balance the new beginning,
With the old foundation built from beginnings.
They never end, just transform,
Making my role have a larger impact to those around me.

I’m not a king, just a natural leader,
I’m not the creator, just someone who loves creating for others.

Will my impact be remembered by those remembering,
The history of my actions that elevated my presence.
Once alone, now the family tree,
My adult role now must inspire the younger generation.

I’m not father of the year, just a dad,
I’m not perfect, just a man perfecting life’s opportunity.

Tips for Mentoring

Somehow mentoring has turned into a large corporate agenda and companies are spending good quantities of time to set up a Mentoring Program that rarely sees life. Mentoring is not a complicated system that needs to be put into place. In fact, it is just opposite. Mentoring is this simple; one person has a skill that another person would like to learn. When you start to elaborate on the idea and possibilities you start to dilute the main principles. Here are 3 streamlined steps to setting up a mentoring culture, not system in your workplace

First: Have a Mentoring Culture
Establish the culture that you are company that encourages mentoring. This should be done in the New Hire orientation. It can also be done through examples by the leadership team, posted in break rooms, and advertised on the company intranet. The sooner you start emphasizing you embrace mentoring, the quicker the results will show.

Second: Have a place to connect Mentors and Students
If your company has an intranet this a great place to host a mentoring connection. If you do not, then a break room or hallway wall can work too. Here are the simple rules to the postings. If you are looking to be mentored on a specific topic write down your name and contact information and post it in the “Mentor Wanted” section. If you are a mentor that would like to offer your skills, place your name and contact information and place it in the “Mentor” section. You now have a mentoring connection.

Third: Give out best practices for being mentored
It is important to do a little research before spending time with your mentor. Once you have identified a potential mentor it is a good idea to write down the specific objectives of your meetings. Being prepared before you meet up with your mentor will show your mentor you are serious and respectful of their time and give them an agenda of topics on what to cover. This will also help them determine whether they are helping you achieve your goals or not. Each mentor will be different as some people have a natural gift to teach and others will just have the skill you want to acquire and will need to be done through observation or shadowing.

Start by meeting your mentor for about a half hour to go over initial objectives. This small amount of time is easier to schedule and will help you both decide whether it is a good fit to move forward or perhaps find another mentor.

Most corporations will encourage mentoring, however few are willing to invest company time to allow for the exchanges. More than likely you will need to meet your mentor after work hours or during lunch. If you are able to offer to buy their drink, lunch, or snack while you speak I recommend doing so.

Once you have established it is a good match, try to schedule out a good time to meet on a weekly or biweekly basis. Getting your mentor to schedule you time will secure their commitment to you.

Have your initial objectives ready along with questions prior to each meeting. Write down as many notes as possible so you can review them later and get the most amount of information as possible per meeting.

Mentoring is a great resource in helping transition management, it provides internal applicants strength in their current positions, and it is free! Stop thinking about how much work it might be to set up a mentoring culture and start doing the first steps. You don’t have to have miraculous results right off; it will take time to grow. Have patience and the let those with a strong desire to learn more launch your initiatives of having a mentoring culture.

Handling Customer Dissatisfaction

In order to best assist in working out customer dissatisfaction, leaders must understand what dissatisfaction looks like.

Often time dissatisfaction can be doing the minimum of what is asked and from a leader looking in from the outside it can be somewhat difficult to address because your team did nothing wrong. Let’s take a look at several forms of dissatisfaction and how to get to the root of the cause to solve the problem, not band-aid it.

What if I were to walk into a training or learning event and taught straight from the book not leaving any room for modification or specification to make it more catered to your needs? It doesn’t tell me I need to be personable, for all I know I just need to read this information to you and I will have done my job.

How satisfied would you be if I just kept clicking through power point slides over and over while I read off the material?

OK. So we have discovered that just doing your job isn’t necessarily getting the job done. This is the most important form of customer dissatisfaction because it is the one that is rarely addressed and often overlooked because it’s not a crisis or recovery problem.

Why address it? Simple math. What does 1 + 1 = Of course 2. And what does 2 + 1 = 3. And three strikes and you’re out. You didn’t know you were going to learn math in this article. Three times is the magical number that customers will most likely not return to your establishment if they do not receive the quality they are expecting. Sometimes it will be only two or one if they have taken time to speak or write about the concern to management and the concern is still not addressed.

As supervisors and managers it is essential to empower your teams to make good decisions on their own under the guidelines of your policies and procedures. If situations arise and are new, address them immediately as to what is OK for them to handle and what needs approval. This saves time, money, resources (which is both of those), and improves the overall satisfaction for customers.

How do you empower your team? Inform them on their capabilities. Usually team members enjoy the ability to problem solve and deliver good service. By letting them make good judgment calls and supporting their decisions you are allowing them to take control of the situations. If bad judgment is used, curb it immediately and give them an example of what should have been done instead.

Questions to ask. What could I do immediately to help my team be empowered to take care of situations? What situations have occurred in the past that I had to approve that could have been approved at the front-line level had they known?

It is crucial to empower your teams to do the right thing.

We know now what just doing your job doesn’t necessarily equal the best outcome for customers. What about doing your job strictly under the policies and procedures?

How many times have you heard, “it is our policy?” Better question. How many times have you heard that and been pleased and just said, oh it’s their policy, oh well? Yeah right. The policy is like a brick wall that cuts the line between problem and solution leaving customers dissatisfied.

Customers want solutions, not policies. I am not asking you to break rules or to bend what the policies enforce. Not at all. Just next time your team has the urge to speak in tongues and policy, ask them to create solutions for the customer.

Even if you absolutely cannot accommodate a customer’s request, giving them options is a much softer way of saying no.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do, but exercise your creativity and come up with options first. Even though it might not be accepted right away, often times customers will look back and realize you were doing your best to help.