The Mistake Advisers Make About ‘Service Excellence’

It’s difficult to understand.
To understand why someone would do that.

I sat and asked Lynne “Why?”

Why she would work each long and demanding weekend…
as a caregiver to my Dad, in his last months?

Particularly when she was undergoing chemotherapy herself.

There were times when I wondered how she was standing up.
Let alone working 8-hour shifts.

She said that doing so kept her alive.
Gave her a reason to live.

She called my 97-year old Dad “My Honey-Man”
And he loved her for it.

Then there was her supervisor, Stephanie.
(“Hello, My Handsome!” was the start of her day with Dad)

We didn’t pay her to regularly take Dad out for meals along the riverside.
To test and savour cuisine that he had never attempted in his life.

And to capture his boyish laughter and new-experience revelling in a glorious video montage.

But she did so anyway.
Particularly during his last 24 months.

“Care Giver” doesn’t begin to describe her role!

My mum once said that “You can tell something about a person’s character by how they serve when they’re not being paid.”

(This was the 87-year-old Mum, who spent the last 20 years of her retirement cheering up “The Old Folk”, whom she visited each week.

Only a broken hip was able to stop her!)

I’ve found that some Advisers and Planners resist the term ‘To Serve’.
Even though they admit that their profession is part of a Service Sector.

Perhaps they feel belittled or demeaned by the phrase.
Echoes of the wrong end of the stairs at Downton Abbey?

Yet I’ve found that the most effective leadership – in any sector – is what we term, in Soul Millionaire culture, ‘Servant Leadership’.

I’ve found that service – given in a selfless spirit – elevates and nurtures and multiplies both the giver and the receiver: particularly in business.

I’ve also found that those who build beyond-the-call service into their culture don’t need to create streams of marketing messages about‘Our Service Excellence’.

Excellence isn’t about processes or KPI’s or working smarter.
Excellence is woven into the fabric of WHO you are.

How you and your colleagues and your team think and feel about your work.
How much you want to lift the lives of those who put their trust in you.
Rather than how much more money you want to try to create for them.

Such Excellence oozes from the very pores of a firm’s culture.
It BECOMES the culture.

When it happens… it doesn’t just ‘happen’.
Those who embed it successfully understand that culture-creation is a leadership science.

When it doesn’t…
It’s merely a platitude.
(And a pretty mushy one at that.)

So…
What about you? What about your culture?

Does your firm’s culture cause clients to feel more alive and cared for because they work with you?

If that’s the outcome…there’s a business term for that.

I think it’s pronounced…
“Excellent!”