Good Customer Service Enables Structured Thinking
Recently, my wife and I have been having discussions about critical thinking and the ability to chose words and responses. Our discussions started after a dinner at Chick-fil-A. We noticed all employees at this fast food restaurant respond to a customer’s “thank you” in the same way by saying “My pleasure.”
“My pleasure” is a response that doesn’t elicit a feeling of favor from the receiver. This makes all the difference in customer service and enables their employees to learn why it is so important to chose words carefully. Now people who learn this may not understand immediately, but having the knowledge that it is possible and justified to spend time thinking about what words to chose provides the ground work for structuring the thinking of a person.
Then this morning, I woke up to find an email from a co-worker with the following quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically… Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
The first time I heard the words “structure” and “thinking” in the same sentence was via a finance professor who provided two semesters worth of my education at Miami University. Thus, with my collegiate experience and this quote, I couldnt agree more with the purpose Dr. King provides for education.
My experiences and discussions with friends and coworkers are continually challenging me to structure my thinking – because as I have learned, it is just as valuable to learn how others think as it is to learn what others think.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Sharpen the Saw – A Challenge to Implement Change
Recently a popular tech blogger, Robert Scoble learned about owning the time between stimulus and response. Owning that space in your life is relationship changing and life transforming. That’s why its one of the main points and continuous goals I have coming off of the Stephen Covey training. But as I have espoused here before, listing your goals out on paper is a great way to start on the path to achieving them. Obviously one of my first goals with this blog I failed to achieve (post once a week) especially in the last month. So in an effort to Sharpen the Saw Covey style, I’ll let you all in on a few of the goals I set for myself at the covey training.
At the end of the covey training, you set goals in four dimensions as a way to achieve Habit Seven, Sharpen the Saw.
- Physical
- Social/Emotional
- Mental
- Spiritual
I’ll take you through my Mental and Social/Emotional areas of my goals.
Mental
Mentally, Covey pushed us to renew ourselves mentally by encouraging writing, reading, collecting quotes, and developing a hobby. My goal was to further purge my daily reading to expand/widen the scope of what I read online. The first thing I did was to remove the standard social media and tech guard out of my feed reader. I was sick of reading the same piece of news from 4 blogs. I picked one and am going to stick to it. I also subscribed to other blogs. Oh and my wife and I started laughing our bottoms off while reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris. Its outside of my comfort zone and its an absolute riot and well written book.
Social/Emotional
In this area I wanted to focus on three of the suggestions from the covey training in this area.
- Widen your circle of friends.
- Let go of the damaging competitive feelings you may have towards others.
- Practice Empathic Listening regularly with the people who are important to you.
My execution plan on this goal was to invite folks over for dinner – simple yet revolutionary. With just two of us, its easy to have leftovers – but investing those leftovers in relationships is a revolution. Now that we are moving into a new neighborhood, my wife and I have started to plan a block party. Its important that we spend time developing those friends and actively being interested in them and their stories. I plan to work hard to make my home a open place where people feel free to be themselves and free to be loved.
Next week I will outline a few things that the Stephen Covey training walked us through so that by my listing them here, you might be propelled to think a new thought. We all know it is a challenge to implement change as we learn new things. I use this blog as a real way to mark my progress and hopefully we can implement together as we learn together.
Best Quote from this topic: “Sharpening the Saw actually saves time.”
How have you saved time by reviewing your goals and implementing change in your life?
Popularity: 5% [?]
Gen Y is Irresponsible
There are so many people out there who think Gen-Y is the best thing since sliced bread. I am a Gen-Y’er and I believe it most days, but today I am here to say that Gen Y is the most irresponsible generation. Bold, I know. At my session of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Signature Course, there were three things that stood out to me as issues where Gen-Y is irresponsible.
For Reasons Gen-Y is Irresponsible
1. Gen-Y (or their parents on their behalf) talks its way out of bad behavior.
The 7 Habits course had a great quote that was a great explanation of one of the top struggles of us Gen-Y’ers:
“You can’t talk yourself out of problems you behave your self into.”
How many times have you seen Gen Y’ers get themselves in a pickle only to talk themselves right out of a consequence? Granted there are good ways to talk your way out of bad news. But owning our actions and the associated consequences enable us to deepen and build lasting relationships.
2. Gen-Y spends time only on what they enjoy, not what is important.
One of the videos we watched in the Covey class said something to the effect that unsuccessful people only spend time on what they enjoy, not what is important. Gen-Y, the generation full of passion and the ability to choose to work on or for something they are passionate about sometimes confuses passion with enjoyment. Passion leads you to work towards something. And sometimes the work on the path towards that goal is not enjoyable. Most Gen-Y’ers find themselves in the struggle define their personal boundary between enjoyment and passion.
3. Gen-Y was taught to treat others as you want to be treated.
This is great advice if we lived alone on our own individual Walden Ponds. Too bad we dont. How I want to be treated doesn’t mean that someone else wants to be treated that same way. If I enjoy direct feedback no matter what(my friends and I call it (No Grace Period), that doesn’t mean your coworker wants to be told that he comes to work in dress that is only appropriate for a picnic. We really should be saying treat others as they want to be treated since relationships are about empathizing.
So, these are three areas where Gen-Y fails the responsible generation test as defined by the 7 habits of highly effective people. Gen-Y has an awesome chance to act on our ideals and achieve supreme success, but not without tackling these responsiblity issues first.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Awesome Quotes from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Training
After going through the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Signature Course, there were so many great nuggets or quotes from either the course or in conversations at the course that I wanted to share them all.
Below you’ll find a selection of the quotes that made my all star quote team. After you read them all, I am sure you’ll have a favorite. So when you pick your favorite quote, leave a comment so we can chat about it in the comments!
“I am free to choose and am responsible for my choices.” – Covey
“Right to pause and own [the space where you choose your response to a situation].” – The Presenter
“See every problem as an opportunity to exersize creative energy.” – Covey
“We detect rather than invent our missions in life.” – Viktor Frankl
“Urgent things have the appearance of importance.” – Covey
“Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you are saying.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The key to the family culture is how you treat the child that tests you the most.” – A video we watched
“You cant talk yourself out of problems you behave yourself into.” – Covey
The quote that best sums up the program:
“Your life is a result of your own decisions – not your conditions.” – Covey
Popularity: 18% [?]
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Program
Almost three months ago, I started a new role at Beta Theta Pi Fraternity and Foundation as the Assistant Controller. This change has been exciting for me in many ways, but bittersweet others. My time at NCR Corporation was an excellent way to start my working life. NCR provided me with so many opportunities, especially amazing travel. I was able to attend an awkward birthday party in India, examine how college impacted my work day in Budapest as I saw ATMs being built.
So leaving the global company behind, I began a new phase at a Non-Profit. It has been amazing to move from having 30,000 co-workers to just 30. In my first few weeks at Beta, one of my new coworkers facilitated Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Signature Program for a group of the newest employees. It was a great program and enabled me to spend some time thinking about how to define success and plan to achieve it.
So in the spirit of sharing, I am starting a series of posts about some of the concepts taught in the seven habits program.
As a start, check out the seven habits diagram, and lets begin our journey from dependence to interdependence!
Popularity: 13% [?]
Welcome
Welcome to my blog. I write about Social Media and the people behind the technology that is changing the way we interact and do business.
I love to connect, so leave a comment or ping me on Twitter or
e-mail me: joebuddejr [at] gmail.com
More about Joe Budde Jr....
Latest Comments