Start Right Now to Improve Your Organization L.E.S.

What are you doing right now? Regardless how busy you are, it’s always a great time to improve your organization – its culture, its people and its customers.

Organizations and individuals start their year at different times, usually attached to a fiscal calendar or the beginning of January. A great opportunity to start fresh, evaluate the year before and lay out what’s ahead. For myself, I start my year on my birthday.

But the thing is, it doesn’t really matter when you start, as long as you actually start. Start doing your part to  improve your leadership, employee engagement and customer experience so it can be a model for the DNA of your business. It’s gotta start somewhere.

Below I’ve included 20 suggestions in those three areas to help you build stronger connections for you, your organization and those you serve. This is far more about being better, than about doing better. The former is an organization that will thrive, while the later is one that will go back to the easier but less progressive ways of the past.

Twenty Ways to Help Lead Others

1. Mind the gap between what is said and what is done and ensure it’s minimal.
2. Prioritize empathy over compassion.
3. Give organic, sincere kudos to members at every level of the organization.
4. Surround yourself with more NO men and women and less YES men and women.
5. Communicate regularly and often.
6. Get to know your team personally.
7. Define your vision, with inspiration, simplicity and emotion.
8. Journal daily and share what you’re grateful for (NOT a “to do” list).
9. Use less buzzwords.
10. Have fewer meetings.
11. Show loyalty to your staff.
12. Have honest conversations about your brand w/ employees and customers
13. Try to be a little better, every day
14. Put your phone away when others need your attention.
15. Learn to be a better presenter.
16. Treat your staff like experts.
17. Read more.
18. Listen more than you talk
19. Be transparent.
20. Be consistent.

Twenty Ways to Help You Engage with Employees

1. Get to know each other as people, not just your skillset.
2. Learn what others do in your organization to build empathy.
3. Establish an employee forum for feedback that is reviewed and actioned regularly.
4. Have walking meetings.
5. Go to lunch as a team and with others outside your team.
6. Talk about common interests, that don’t necessarily include work.
7. Listen and keep listening
8. Find and take advantage of opportunities to collaborate creativity.
9. Be curious and ask deep questions.
10. Learn and share what you learn with your organization.
11. Seek input and insight from others.
12. Schedule regular open team discussions.
13. Connect the work you do to its beneficial impact on others
14. Don’t waste time of others
15. Be a little vulnerable
16. Acknowledge others in their presence
17. Make eye contact
18. Don’t let your mind wander when having conversations.
19. Look for opportunities to highlight others and their work.
20. Always make time for others

Twenty Ways to Help you Better Serve Customers

1. Use any data you’ve collected to inform decisions. (If you don’t have any, get some)
2. Make your interactions personal
3. Communicate proactively.
4. Contact random customers and ask about how you’re doing to serve them.
5. Be timely in your responses and messaging.
6. Be useful to your customers.
7. Be relevant to their issues.
8. Be accessible in the way your customers want.
9. Audit your efforts consistently.
10. Consider your customers in every decision you make.
11. Listen and empathize before responding.
12. Create content that educates, informs and answers your customer’s questions.
13. Be personable, not “approved messaging”
14. Know your customers better, their problems and their needs
15. Understand the customers journey and your role in it.
16. Make it easy for them to access your product or service.
17. Use a customer relationship management tool.
18. Communicate through all your platforms clearly.
19. Share customer concerns and successes throughout the organization.
20. Take all complaints seriously.

Whether you do a lot of these suggestions, or just a few, it’s important to reassess your role in your organization’s leadership and how you connect with employees and customers. No matter how well you’re doing, we can always do better.

Anymore you’d add to these areas for the coming 2020 year?