Use Strengths To Create Customer Moments - With Mike Ganino
This Episode's Focus On Strengths
Mike\xa0Ganino joins us to help you lead through your strengths at work. You'll find this episode especially useful if\xa0you manage a team and you're trying to create a better culture at work--one that your customers can feel too. You'll also love this episode\xa0if you're fun and you like people who are intelligent and charismatic at the same time. That's Mike!
What You'll Learn
Mike\xa0shares wisdom on:
- How to create a culture change, even when you\u2019re sitting around on milk crates with no budget or corporate support.
- Influencing what happens in\xa0moments of truth between employees and customers. You can do this by creating an environment that helps\xa0each person bring their best performance to work. It\u2019s using their individual strengths to get the experience you want for your customers and employees.
- How to improve customer service without writing employee manuals and memos that say things like \u201cyou need to smile\u201d - because making employees\xa0force a smile is just weird.
- Viktor Frankl \u201cMan\u2019s Search For Meaning\u201d - Mike shares this nugget about Frankl being able to,\xa0in the darkest of humanity (a reference to his experience in concentration camps), \xa0act intentionally with the energy you bring to the team.
- Owning it. When you\u2019re managing a team, it\u2019s your team. You get to choose how you run your meeting. You get to decide whether to do it like everyone else, or to change some simple things so you can lead through your strengths. And in doing that, you can help your employees lead through theirs too.
- Meetings. He offers a\xa0tip to wrap up your meetings with one minute of appreciation. Just one minute. Do small things to change the temperature of the room. When you take time to notice what works, your team members will\xa0know what you want to see more of and they can give it to you.
- Doing more of what allows you to use your natural talents. That way, you\u2019re building a personal brand. You\u2019re getting known for work you love and you\u2019re great at. That creates a virtuous circle for you because you end up getting more work that reflects what you\u2019re great at.
- Live into your strengths and change your entire career trajectory by doing more of what you want to be doing.
- Applying\xa0this concept in non-corporate work environments (this is where people like to tell me that working from strengths won\u2019t work in their industry). Mike shares a story with contrast where you\u2019ll see that you don\u2019t have to stop your expectations at, \u201cI wish they\u2019d stop coming in late because they\u2019re hung over.\u201d He used these techniques to transform restaurant cultures.
- The magical properties of applied improvisation. Mike and I are both big fans, students, and users of improv. He gives great pointers for using it in professional development, employee interviews, and even coaching and feedback.