In certain respects, you can think of their awareness of your brand of ‘shelf space’. It’s actually ‘mind space’ in this case, which is arguably an extremely valuable commodity. Bendapudi points out that your brand is brought to life by your people. The experience your customers and clients have with your company is the bottom line. Experience trumps the marketing every time. It doesn’t matter what you say, it matters what you do. Sound familiar?

In talking about loyalty, Dr. Bendapudi employs the acronym R.E.A.L.
~R stands for Respond – are you doing a good job responding to customers concerns and problems?
~ E is for empathy. Respond to customer and client concerns by listening with empathy and really hearing them. Don’t try and contradict or explain, just listen and use phrases like “I understand why you’d feel that way” or “I’m sorry you had that experience” – don’t jump in and offer explanations.
~ A is to remind you to advocate for customers and clients. Anticipate their needs and serve them.
~ L – is the loyalty you will gain by paying attention to ‘R’ ‘E’ and ‘A’.

Dr. Bendapudi used the example of taking her (then) 8 year old daughter’s soccer team to a restaurant after a game. They were cranky and hungry and she was exhausted. Her experience was not a good one. No one anticipated her needs by empathizing with her situation and getting her a table right away or even telling her how long the wait would be. She was disenchanted with the experience and never returned. What she would have preferred is what all of us would like: someone to simply say – WOW – I bet you’d like to get those girls seated and have some snacks and drinks right away – let me see what I can do.

Even if there had been a wait, she would have felt heard as a customer, her need were anticipated, she was understood and the restaurant chain could have won her loyalty, instead of her disdain. What made the matters worse is the restaurant is one with a brand name that implies they will treat you kindly. That day at least, the restaurant was not living its brand.”

Remember, it’s not about being right 100% of the time; it’s about taking care of what arises thoughtfully and quickly 100% of the time. We’ll allow a lot of latitude for mistakes IF they are handled well and easily resolved.

More wisdom from Dr. Bendapudi in the next post.

Let me first say that Dr. Bendapudi is accessible, knowledgeable and engaging. She began her presentation stepping away from the podium, telling us she didn’t want to be the ‘sage on the stage’. She spent her talk walking among the audience and using great examples, humor and video to keep her talk engaging and fun to listen to. All of the ideas and wisdom below come from Professor Bendapudi:

It’s important to understand that brands are not static entities – they are a constant work in progress – a living entity. Companies and organizations need to build their brand every day. You bring your brand to life and keep it consistent with everything you do and say.

Prof. Bendapudi stressed to the 70 plus business owners gathered, that it is important to ask yourself everyday, “What did I do for my brand? Did I build it or detract from it?” Your primary brand ambassadors are your people and their interaction with the public and your customers, clients and prospects. Every conversation, every email, every phone call builds or tears down your brand. All the branding you do through paid and social media is absolutely ‘trumped’ by the experience people have with your company and your company is your people. As Bendapudi so succinctly put it: Experience ALWAYS trumps the ad. In the next post I’ll cover Bendapudi’s thoughts on building Loyalty, Customer Equity and her view on solving problems. Stay tuned.

Or do you rise to the moment, innovate and look at what you can do differently? Crisis might look like a changing economy, the loss of a job or a corporate restructuring. Your response determines how you will weather the storm. With the right perspective and corresponding actions, you can grow and prosper during challenging times.

You shape the circumstance or it shapes you. Think of a weather crisis. A tornado touches down or a hurricane passes through. You stay safe during the event and emerge after to a changed world. Some buildings have moved; others are gone; some things are destroyed, while others remain standing. You can?t just pretend that everything was exactly as it was before.

Crisis can call us to innovation. What if you knew that it would work out better? Would that change your perspective? Your attitude? Your actions? If you want better answers, ask better questions.

He went on to explain that leaders achieve this by aligning with their own values, empowering others, serving the organization and its communities, and by collaborating. You can read more in-depth wisdom from Mr. George in his books Authentic Leadership and True North. Learn more about Bill George: www.truenorthleaders.com

When you think of leadership, your mind might immediately jump to the idea of one person leading others – maybe even in the military sense. One absolute authority. In fact, the dictionary definition is: ‘the ability to guide, direct or influence people’. All true, but the paradigm of leadership has changed.

Let’s look at what few writers on leadership have to say and look at this from some other angles…
“Creating community is an essential leadership skill”
Gifford Pinchot

“Today, one of the defining responsibilities of leadership is to attract the best ideas from the most people – to master a work in which ‘nobody is as smart as everybody.’”
Paul Meehan, Orit Gadiesh and Shintaro Hori

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that when two minds work together on a problem, a project, a solution, there is a ‘third mind’ created – a blending of the ideas, creativity, beliefs and histories of the collaborators. This third mind is considered by many to be more intelligent, powerful and resourceful than the sum of its parts and to be in essence a separate and unique entity.

In reality, great leadership is about empowering other people to realize their own potential – helping foster greatness in others. Exceptional leaders lead by getting out of the way and letting others step up.

Ichak Adizes sums it up thusly: “Successful leaders know that they cannot be right on every decision all the time. They need to seek out the wisdom and expertise of those around them whose style complements their own.

This leadership style isn’t necessarily easy to master. It takes practice, focused effort and a certain level of confidence to step out of the spotlight and let others shine in the light of recognition. When you desire to achieve a collective end goal, you of course want the best possible outcome and that includes everyone on the team feeling part of the team, feeling that they have something vital and important to contribute.

Good leaders help facilitate that experience. The best leaders do this so well that you don’t even notice how well they do what they do best.

Not to say our views aren’t sometimes (perhaps often) interesting, well-thought-out, even helpful. But how often do we really listen as opposed to just hearing what is said?

People are distracted – more than ever – our minds are constantly busy, doing one thing, thinking about something else flitting around almost unbidden from one subject to the next. It’s easy to lose focus.  And that’s just in our own heads, never mind interacting with someone else and paying attention!

Becoming a better listener improves productivity, helps to avoid conflict and misunderstanding and it also improves your ability to influence others – in the most positive sense. People feel better about you when you really listen to them. In fact, it’s a key determining factor in someone’s ‘like-ability’ – the people most of us like best are the people who really listen and make us feel respected and even cared about in the process.

We all know when someone is really listening to us and we also know when they’re hardly hearing us. It’s not always lack of interest, but it can be perceived that way and that can be detrimental, so learning how to listen really deserves some attention.

We all have different communication styles. Key to being a good listener is trying to understand what someone is saying – you make a conscious effort to hear the words and really think about what someone is trying to convey. It takes focus and careful listening to really understand.

A simple technique can be to repeat to yourself – silently – what you hear someone saying. This  ‘embeds’ the concepts in your mind and prevents you from ‘running off’ mentally in different directions in response to what they’re saying.

Listening is a skill you can develop – here are some things to pay attention to and build your skills:

Pay attention by NOT doing anything else while you are listening.

Respond as you’re listening – not verbally, but by nodding or giving other non-verbal indications that you’re paying close attention.

Ask questions to clarify – that shows you’re present, really listening and that you care enough to try and further understand what’s being communicated.

We talk and hear and listen every day – sometimes all day, every day, so it may seem deceptively simple or like something that doesn’t need to be learned. But to truly listen, not just to hear takes skill and commitment. It’s a skill worth developing – it’ll improve your relationships, you’ll learn more and you’ll not only be respectful and interested, but you’ll be more interesting and you’ll gain trust and respect in the process.

“I think one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.” - Diane Sawyer

What’s your insight into Druckers’ quote? There are clichés that have been around forever – seeing the glass as half empty or half full or the image of Pollyanna. Clichés, whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em (and it’s usually one or the other, no gray area here…), usually have some truth to them which is why they get repeated – even if people do roll their eyes – and become part of our collective consciousness.

It’s true that we often don’t have control over circumstances – things happen – sometimes things we wish hadn’t. Nothing we can do about that. However, we CAN control how we respond, how we react. It may, in fact be the only thing we can control in some situations.

We can train and condition ourselves to react by searching for opportunities instead of problems. Have you ever had the experience of realizing later that something that at first seemed unfortunate or inopportune actually served a positive purpose in your life, in your business? That brings to mind another cliché: hindsight is 20-20.

But what if hindsight became foresight? What if you responded to seemingly negative or challenging situations by looking for a constructive opportunity in the mix? How you look things and how you react to them really is a choice. It takes some effort if it doesn’t come naturally; but the effort repeated over time can become a habit and that habit can lead to positive outcomes and yes; opportunities.

Sometimes it’s a matter of asking better questions. A useful question in adverse circumstances for example, can be: What’s good about this? Maybe you can’t find anything at all, maybe there’s some small bit of good you can see and you can expand from there. Especially when working with other people or leading teams, it is helpful to look for what be gained in adverse situations – by you and by them.

Part of working with people is learning how to deal fairly and effectively with diverse viewpoints and approaches. If you look for the opportunity in that – the opportunity to learn from someone else for example instead of imposing your way (even though you may be convinced it’s the right way!) might lead to a more integrated position where both people come out ahead.

Ultimately, we’re looking for optimum performance – and satisfaction. In coaching, that often means asking the right questions, bringing in another perspective, what many describe as the ‘view from 30,000 feet’, being able to distance yourself from a challenge or issue so you can get clarity and act with purpose.

When you learn to do that consistently and bring that to the situations you are part of; you’ll find performance increases, opportunities present themselves and problems are fewer. It takes mental focus and discipline, but the rewards are worth it – because when you look for opportunity, you usually find it. At the end of the day, you’ll perform better and feel better, so will your colleagues. It’s opportunity and it’s win-win.