On punching sharks and running a business like a military campaign

A 25-year-old California surfer once survived a great white shark attack by hitting the animal in the head repeatedly until it released him.  When the story broke in August 2012, I tweeted the link to my Generation-Y and Generation-Z followers (I wasn’t sure the others would be interested) with the caption:  “The moral of this story is that when ur pursuing an important goal u shd never give up, no matter how overwhelming the odds r against u.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/scott-stephens-shark-survivor_n_2056306.html
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1280868--shark-attack-survivor-says-he-punched-great-white-in-the-head-until-it-let-him-go

This memorable piece of shark lore puts me in mind of a conversation I had with an ex-military-commander-turned-company-CEO.  In my capacity as a recruiter at that time, I was interviewing him for an executive role in a printing company.  Because I wanted to give my client, the employer, as much information as possible about what it was really like to spend a working day with this person, I questioned him closely about his management style.  Here is what he told me:

“Sometimes in business, just as in military manoeuvres, you have three choices:  you can halt, you can retreat, or you can advance.  Usually my advice is to load, lock, and move forward.  Even if you’re outnumbered and surrounded, there’s still a possibility you can shoot through the enemy line and escape.”

This November 11^th, Remembrance Day, I will be thinking about this distinguished corporate warrior and other courageous veterans.

Mentoring + HR management + automation = great customer service

Further to my last post on mentoring, I appreciate small-business/start-up consultant Greg Meyer’s keep-it-simple take on the same subject in his recent article on improving customer service for WordOfMouth.org.  Mr. Meyer writes:  

“Find out what high-performing team members are doing and ask them to teach that idea to the rest of the team.”

His other sound ideas include:

“Finding the right people who are capable of delivering great service is much easier than training people who don’t want to deliver above-and-beyond service.”  

My additional two cents on human resources:  your own workplace observations and behavioural interview questions will show you respectively which prospective job candidates and which of your staff members are most capable of providing your clients with excellent service.  

(For more information on behavioural interview questions, please see my following post dated 10 December/12.  http://vicg8hr.blogspot.ca/2012/12/behavioural-interviewing-101_10.html)   

Mr. Meyer also advises:

“Be open to the idea of new tools. Often the team member who delivers the most WOW is someone who has discovered a way to automate their everyday tasks so that they can focus on the end goal of delighting customers.”

 You can read the full text of his article, “A guide to becoming a WOW-maker”, at:

http://wordofmouth.org/blog/a-guide-to-becoming-a-wow-maker