As we approach the one month anniversary of Stephen Coveys’s passing on July 16th 2012 I have been rereading “7 Habits” and thinking a lot about him. I first read “7 Habits” in 1992 shortly after I moved to the USA and have been a believer in the principles ever since, it was truly life changing. I have bought and given away over 250 copies of the book and 20 years later (where did the time go !) I am still a miserable failure at applying these as much as I should. In rereading this it is amazing how strong the relationship is between “the Habits” and world class customer customer experience management. You don’t even have to rewrite them which is always the sign of great thinking:
Independence or Self-Mastery
Habit 1: Be Proactive – Take initiative in life by realizing that your decisions (and how they align with life’s principles) are the primary determining factor for effectiveness in your life. Take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow. When you frustrate your customers through poor processes, systems, technologies or messages you cannot blame everyone else. As an example social media is here and the demand for multi-channel excellence is here and the need for personalized interactions across all channels is here, do something and learn.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind – Self-discover and clarify your deeply important character values and life goals. Envision the ideal characteristics for each of your various roles and relationships in life. Create a mission statement. Do you have an overall Customer Excellence mission statement and different principles for each customer segment.
Habit 3: Put First Things First – Prioritize, plan, and execute your week’s tasks based on importance rather than urgency. Evaluate whether your efforts exemplify your desired character values, propel you toward goals, and enrich the roles and relationships that were elaborated in Habit 2. How much of your time and organizational energy and resources are you spending on things your customer really doesn’t care about or add no value to your relationship or aren’t fixing the things that are wrong.
Interdependence (i.e., working with others):
Habit 4: Think Win-Win – Genuinely strive for mutually beneficial solutions or agreements in your relationships. Value and respect people by understanding a “win” for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution than if only one person in the situation had gotten his way. Duh .. what can I say, maybe win-win-win for you, customers and business partners !
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood – Use empathic listening to be genuinely influenced by a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, respect, and positive problem solving. With social media and enhanced email and web tracking we have never before been able to “hear so many but listened to so few”.
Habit 6: Synergize – Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals no one person could have done alone. Get the best performance out of a group of people through encouraging meaningful contribution, and modeling inspirational and supportive leadership. Especially in partnerships with other product and service companies, solution providers and customer interest groups and influencers (e.g. Customer Results ! sorry couldn’t resist)
Self Renewal
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw – Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle including service to society for spiritual renewal.
Finally the “Upward Spiral” is the overarching philosophy and consists of three parts: learn, commit, do .. and then learn all over again. You need a process of continuous customer experience optimization based on these principles.
Go buy the book in honor of Stephen .. and if you haven’t read it for a while take another look especially if you are a leader bringing on the next generation of marketing, sales and service professional .. “around the corner” is all I can say.
Now, in which attic box is my copy of Tom Peters “Wow”)
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