Recently in the business world there has been a new focus on healing, health, love and happiness that has the potential to change how we all operate. more people are focusing on their own message and process; getting to the core of why they wanted to get into business and help people in the first place. Part of this has been understanding that there’s far more power in collaboration than competition. Joining forces is not only a great idea, it’s smart; two heads are better than one after all.
Happiness as part of customer service
Recently I spent some time investigating the value of happiness in driving excellent customer service. This was part of some education I did when I was President of BNI Franklin. I attended a conference for the Club Manager’s Association of America and was particularly inspired by writer Douglas A Smith.
Douglas’s specific areas of interest are leadership and organizational effectiveness, happiness and well-being, and the skill of dealing with setbacks in life. He works with organizations and individuals, focusing on emerging companies and with CEOs who are eager to learn and enhance their leadership skills and live with greater joy and abundance. Douglas’s interest in positive psychology led him to author a book entitled – Happiness: The Art of Living with Peace, Confidence and Joy.
Out of Douglas’s work I have developed a presentation around happiness, its components and how it can be used for personal development, relationship development (I’m not going here), customer service, staff employment choices and existing staff development or issues. The overall presentation can be 1.5 hours but it can be broken down into about 20 elements.
Implementation
From this I have implemented a customer service programme at the Pukekohe Golf Club (where I am General Manager) that mandates the standards and expectations for staff. Out of this I have a few tips for members at BNI relating to happiness and business. Here are my top three:
- It is important to keep a positive work environment. If you have upset other people or other people have upset you – sort that out with the other person so you don’t get a chip on your shoulder. This is valuable for us at BNI; it’s very important to ensure the dynamics in your chapter are positive and harmonious. If things aren’t working out, talk to your leadership team about this; you don’t want to network in a negative environment.
- Celebrate success. This is one of our core values at BNI. Celebrating success both within and outside your chapter is hugely valuable; there is a saying success breeds success and we’ve seen at BNI when we celebrate other members’ successes, it comes back to all of us. This ties in to our ideas around Givers Gain. Celebrating success at work is also very important and it doesn’t necessarily have to be directly related to what happens at work. For example, at the golf club we have an employee who is a top touch rugby referee. He recently went to China to show off his skills. We let everyone know about his abilities and how he is succeeding outside of work.
- Stay optimistic and plan for the future. Happiness doesn’t just happen; it requires optimistic energy and smart planning. Start thinking about your longer-term goals today. Goal setting is vitally important for any organisation but it starts at the individual level. We do a lot of planning around our short-term and longer-term goals at the golf club. It’s important to feel that you are all moving towards a shared goal together as a team.
Not a fluffy concept
Happiness is not a fluffy concept – it is a quality that needs to be part of our career journey. At the golf club we have incorporated happiness into our customer service processes. We’ve also re-prioritised our customers to take precedence over our staff. For example, we used to allow our groundspeople to go out onto the course whenever they needed to – even if this disrupted our players. We’ve changed this to schedule our work around our customers – so they are never put out. Making these small changes has had a big impact on how our customers feel about our operation.
By implementing the customer service programme around what we are doing in the club we have asked our staff what their role in the organisation is. We’ve set up standards and expectations so staff understand what their response should be in certain circumstances. If I were to sum up this change, I would say: Happy customers are good customers and happy staff make happy customers. I’m available for presentations if chapters or groups require more detailed explanation of my points on the value of happiness in business.
Ian Litchfield, General Manager, Pukekohe Golf Club & BNI Franklin member
