Applying these Lessons to Business
So, how does the St. Jude experience apply to business and customer service? That’s easy . . . it begins with making sure that every employee understands the importance of his or her job in providing service. It appears that most employees today are hired with clear instructions on what to do on the job daily, but not much emphasis on why that job is important or even needed! These folks at St. Jude/ALSAC understand the significance that every job plays in saving kids’ lives. Not all jobs in service are life-saving, but they are all life-affecting.
How can you accomplish this at your own company? Here are three things you can do:
Make sure your corporate mission is clear to every employee. What is it that your company does? I’m not referring here to the company mission statement that hangs on the wall of your lobby and that no one can quote, but rather what it is that you are trying to be the “best” at every day that you report to work. (Hint: If you don’t have this mission clearly in your head, you are already in trouble.) Do you want to be the fastest, most reliable, cheapest, or friendliest in your industry? Identify what it is that your company can do that will make it stand out from the others. This is crucial for long-term success, and it is what is sorely lacking in most companies.
One of the best examples ever of this mission identification is the story of Avis. While Avis was founded in the 1940s, it came into prominence in the early 1960s as a result of advertising that admitted that it was not the largest rental car company in the world (Hertz held that honor), but that because of that it had to try harder to serve its customers. That phrase “We try harder” is still Avis’s identifying mission statement and the objective of each employee in the company. Try harder than the competition, and everything else will take of itself.
Identify how every job in your company supports your mission. Go through your organizational chart and look at every single job. If it doesn’t contribute to the mission, either change it or eliminate it. If you are completing this exercise for the first time, begin to imagine the impact on your company if every job focused on the mission . . . if every person tried harder and were friendlier, whatever the mission.
For years, the focus of McDonald’s was on being the cleanest fast-food restaurant around. How many times have you walked into a McDonald’s and seen people cleaning up? More important, how many times have you been driving with your family and heard, “Mommy, I need to go to the bathroom” and decided to stop at McDonald’s to take a break and get something to eat? The food might not have been the best, but the restrooms were the cleanest.
Communicate the importance of each job to the person who does that job. Make sure that every individual employee knows the importance of his or her job in successfully completing your mission. Do we have too many cathedral builders who think they are just cutting stone? Do we as managers stress the importance of our employees’ jobs from a standpoint of what they mean to the big picture as distinguished from what they mean to our bottom line?
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The St. Jude Standard: St. Jude sets a remarkable standard as an example of an organization that realizes its mission. Every employee at St. Jude goes to work understanding his or her role. Whether they be administration, information technology support, maintenance workers, or medical professionals, whatever they do, they know their purpose. It is to save children’s lives. The St. Jude Challenge: Do your employees know why they come to work every day? Are their missions to just do a task or to make a difference to someone somehow? Is your company in business to achieve something or simply do something? Imagine the difference it could make if each employee in a company understood a greater value for why he or she came to work. I’m not referring here to some grandiose posturing that we are in business to “save the world” or a mission nearly as noble as saving children’s lives. I am referring to an understanding that each job is important to the mission of the company, which should be to serve a purpose. That purpose may be as simple as a mission to make the best pies in the world; let each employee understand how he or she contributes to that. The purpose may be to insure families, prepare and deliver food, or install software. Whatever the experience might be, each employee must understand how he or she as an individual is a key part of making that experience better. This is the challenge. I have never seen it done better than at St. Jude. |