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How do you Create an Incredible Guest Experience? It Starts with Your Employees’ Experience

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We know how important it is to create incredible guest or customer experience. But have you been looking at it first through the lens of your employees’ experience?

All too often, we put together training programs or launch initiatives or assign e-Learning modules to employees about what we expect from them, but never stopped to ask if in fact they are satisfied. If they are having a positive employee experience. If it is justified asking them to deliver a certain experience because it is in alignment with their values.

Sadly, all too often, we ask for a higher standard for our employees than we are delivering to them.

Please hear this: There is a connection between employee and guest or customer experience. You do not have one without the other. To try is an exercise in futility.

Recently, I hosted a live event at a five-star, beautiful resort. I wanted my family to benefit from my business so I decided to host it somewhere where they could come with me and most importantly, I wanted to serve my coaching clients by giving them an incredible place to learn and reflect that would bring ease, joy and abundance into their businesses.

Good in theory. Only one problem. The people at the resort were miserable.

From the minute anyone attempted to make a reservation, they were faced with broken links, coupons not activated, long waits on hold and short-tempered agents. Was it their fault? Nope. They didn’t break the systems or show up to do a bad job.

When everyone arrived, the wait in line at the front desk was long. The reservations were wrong. People had to be moved to different rooms. Requests to bring luggage up to rooms or sign up for shuttles weren’t booked. Was it their fault? Nope. We learned most were new, they were short staffed, and the hotel was booked above capacity.

It was not unusual to see a staff member there at 8:00 in the morning, and they’d still be there at 8:00 at night. We were there for one week, and some staff and managers we saw there every single day. Not only is that not possible or reasonable but it makes me wonder, what kind of retention problem exists that you need people working there that many days?

I won’t go on, but one thing became very clear. The individuals who were the face of the customer experience were overworked, unsupported, and undervalued. How can you profess to be a five-star hotel when you don’t deliver a five-star experience to guests? And how can you be a five-star hotel when you deliver a one-star employee experience to your front-line staff and middle managers?

I may have been frustrated, but at least I got to go home. Their only options were to put up with it or leave. Are you reflecting right now on if your employees experience the same two inferior choices? It doesn’t have to be that way.

How do you create an incredible guest or customer experience that represents your brand well aligns to the employee experience? Here are four secrets:

1.What You Expect for Customers You Must Deliver to Employees

Take a look at your customer service and guest experience training. Now take out the word “customer” and replace it with “employee”. Do you live that? If the answer is no, start there. Don’t ask something of someone that you can’t deliver yourself.

Last fall I had the pleasure of speaking for the senior management team for a hospitality organization on the list of Great Places to Work. In preparation for the talk, I took their Guest Experience e-Learning training and presented my recognition talk in alignment with those seven pillars of their guest experience. They connected the dots instantly, what aligned well between the guest and employee experience, and what they needed to work on for employees. And that’s why they’re a Great Place to Work. Because they’re committed to moving the needle on the experience for all.

2. Analyze Your Data

Consider your employee feedback and customer feedback side-by-side. All too often we look at each set of data in isolation, and at different points in time. Some of the call centre owners I spoke for in March sent out an employee experience survey every day because that’s what they do for customers. Keep the pulse on both, and you will begin to see connections; when one goes up, the other is up there too. Effect one, the other follows. It’s like a two for one deal!

3. Identify Your Priorities (A Wish Doesn’t Create Change)

If you have a target and an operational priority for your customer or guest experience, also have one for the employee experience. What project or initiative will help with both? What barriers will roadblock both? What is the most important thing you need to address immediately? What is going to require longer-term effort? For example, as a recognition expert, my advice is to start with recognizing your staff in small ways, and monitor customer satisfaction scores; I suspect you will see, the more recognition you give out to employees, the more your guests will say their experience was exceptional and ratings will be higher. How do I know? Because my clients do this and cannot believe how small gestures make such a huge impact so quickly.

And by the way, rather than try to fix all of those data points in your surveys, keep it simple with just a few allowing you to make sure they’re aligned.

4. Measure What Matters

With those priorities, you will need to measure success on both the customer and the employee side. Likely the measures are out of alignment, but you can make small tweaks to bring them into alignment for frequency and initiative. There is no point in measuring something that you aren’t sure what impact it will have, or so many things that you have no time left to make small tests of change. Measure a few things well – strategically and often – and once those numbers stabilize, move onto the next priority.

The bottom line is this: your front-facing customer is going to remember how they feel with your employees, and you may never get a chance to serve them again or the cost of losing them might be so high it’s worth the work I’ve outlined here. It’s hard enough to retain top talent without depriving them of an environment where they can thrive.

If you’ve been focusing on the guest experience, why don’t you share this information with other people on your team? What other ideas do you have? Share them in the comments below!

Moving from Problem Obsessed to Solution Focused: The 5 Most Important Questions You Need to Be Asking

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As a leader (formal or otherwise), do you sometimes feel your office is a revolving door?

One problem and one complaint after another? Do you feel your office is a dumping ground for problems? Do you feel you’re left to clean up other people’s messes (and you’re busy enough with your own core work?) That by the end of your day, you have no energy left, you feel deflated and you worry all your effort isn’t leading to lasting sustainable change.

If this describes your workday, and if feels like every day is Groundhog Day, I’ve got a fix for you.

I want to share with you an evidence-based tool that will allow you to respond in a way that people feel they’re incredibly well supported without you feeling you need to pick up the pieces for them. It’s a solution-focused approach that originally came from the therapy world, but moved into organizational development and coaching. As a professional coach, speaker and trainer having introduced this to thousands of leaders, I can share first hand the transformative effect just five questions has had for busy middle managers.

As one individual shared on a recent evaluation” “If I had only learned this 20 years ago when I became a manager, I would’ve saved myself a lot of time and enjoyed my job more.”

So what are these questions? I’ll share the below and you can download them here:

1.What do you want?

When you think about yourself in a problem-solving situation and you’re trying to find solutions, is the first thing that you discover the best idea? For most people, they need to ask or be asked that same question repeatedly because typically, the first thing that we think of comes out of our mouth first. Ask what else, what else, what else? Then you will truly understand what the person wants.

2.What is already working?

This can be a tricky question to ponder if people are in the middle of a negative vortex, but there’s always something that’s working and again, consider, what else, what else, what else? Soon you will see the many things that are working.

3.What is possible?

Helping people see what they most want and what is already working, the possibilities open up and expand so we begin to offer solutions and problem solve. If you’ve ever tried to talk to someone about something that you’re frustrated about, you will know how annoying it is to have them try to solve the problem when all you needed was a listening ear. Instead, if they asked you, ‘what’s possible’ and ‘what else’ they’re demonstrating that you are the most resourceful person in the room.

4.What resources and knowledge do you already have available?

In other words, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. What could you tap into? It is incredible what people come up with…”what else, what else, what else?”

5.What is the one thing you’re going to do next?

This question helps the individual decide the most important next step to make progress. It’s a relief to not have to come up with the “strategy” but rather one step forward. Even the most overwhelmed person can decide one next step.

It’s incredible to me when I use this in coaching conversations or in front of an audience, how people get clear on the one next step and the hope and energy they feel as a result. They know it’s going to stop the revolving door of people complaining and negatively impacting your day.

And if you want to go one step deeper, understanding how to use this in the context of people who complain a lot, while you are over on my website downloading these questions in poster format, why don’t you also download the exercise “Complain, Complain, Complain”. All of these resources are designed to help you save time and enjoy your job more!

For more great tips and insights why not  subscribe to my YouTube Channel? We have a helpful VLOG for you to help magnify your greatness in work, family and life every week!

Three Resources for Healthier ​Workplace Relationships

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Sadly, some people experience unhealthy working relationships. Perhaps even toxic.

One of the most common ingredients I see in toxic workplaces is a rigid mindset. And not just from the person being disruptive. It becomes like an infectious virus that spreads like a fog and gets into the cracks of the furniture. “She’ll never change.” “This place doesn’t do anything to fix these issues.” “Why bother?”

This rigidity is rarely accurate. And it’s never helpful.

So what to do when you’re feeling frustrated and unsure that things will improve? Here are a few resources I’ve come across in my almost 20-year career in organizational development and as a professional, certified coach. Of these three tools, pick the one that’s right for you and use in the context of dealing with some of the people in your life that aren’t a healthy influence.

  1. Fixed versus Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck’s infamous research around fixed versus growth mindsets, and her bestselling book Mindset can help us to see when our belief system is so rigid it’s unhelpful. It’s particularly powerful in helping us understand just how much a toxic force has seeped into our life – our thoughts, our attitudes, our emotions, our actions. They may have a very rigid black and white, unhealthy view of the world.  And we normally may not see things quite so black and white, but with toxic behaviours, often a rigid mindset begins to set in, at least about this person. It’s hard to come back from that.

Imagine if you had a growth mindset about your opportunity for your relationship and for your workplace, even for your team and how you collaborate. Consider the possibilities of what could be different. That truly is the epitome of a growth mindset.

2. The Choice Map

Another great book is called, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee Adams. When in coaching school, we printed off the Choice Map and I cannot tell you how many hundreds of clients I’ve introduced it to since. When we take the learner path, it brings us to to considering what’s possible, what we most want and the best next step. This is in contrast to the judger path where the focus is on what’s wrong with this person, why don’t things work, why can’t I ever win? One gets us stuck in the judger pit which like quicksand and hard to get thoughts, attitudes and actions unstuck. The learner path, however, opens up and expands our thinking, allows empathy and creates action.

This shift in questions can be transformative in our relationships with people and our sense of help and effectiveness in those relationships.

3. Compassion Satisfaction versus Compassion Fatigue

Often, we find we have a hard time dealing with individuals because we are compassion fatigued and burnt out. I work with many people who are providing direct care, such as nurses, dietitians and doctors, as well as people in frontline service such as customer service, call centres, and hospitality. Middle managers too because if you’re a servant leader, you are providing a service to those who report to you.

Many people I work with are continually serving others and they don’t always have a lot left for themselves. If you’re compassion fatigued, it’s going to be hard to be resourceful and resilient when people push back, when people treat you with disrespect, or even misinterpret what people are saying when actually their intention isn’t to hurt us after all. If you’re not sure if you’re compassion fatigued or not, I have a tool and a resource for you on my website – as well as a few exercises. Check it to evaluate to what extent might you have some of the early signs, right through to some of the strong signs of compassion fatigue.

You see when you have a growth mindset, take the learner path, and work to stay compassion satisfied, what you’ll find is not only do you have healthier relationships, you’re also able to address unhealthy behaviours when they happen.

I hope you found these resources helpful. I’m sure you have tapped into them and you’ve experienced them and of course, if there’s something on the list I’ve missed, why don’t you comment below because together we can make sure that we’re in healthier workplaces and leading lives that allow us to shine and allows our greatness to be present every day.

Three questions to determine if you’re in burnout mode

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What do you do when you’re exhausted, tired and stressed, and you worry that burnout is right around the corner?

Many people experience this; people I coach, or who come up to me after a keynote and say, “I really want to be able to implement the things that you talk about, but I just don’t have anything left to give.” I get it. I’ve been there. You’re prioritizing too many things, for example, juggling kids, work, and volunteering. You are juggling so many things you’re making circus performers jealous! (In fact, I recently interviewed my speaker colleague Christine Laperriere who just released a book about burnout). You are doing the best you possibly can, and yet when you look at your life, tired at the end of a busy day, you worry it’s still not enough.

It is enough.

I was speaking with someone last week who was totally and utterly burnt out. And she knew it. She was getting up at 5:00am to get a jump on emails, leaving the house with her child in tow by 6:30am and at work by 7:30am. She worked through her lunches, attended meetings and crisis responding all day, only to come back to her office by 4:00pm to try to wrap things up and still leaving later than planned. She’d shoulder all the responsibilities of raising her child, then back to handling email with her laptop in bed. Too tired to even have a glass of wine (so it was serious). She woke up feeling defeated and went to bed feeling worse.

Can you relate?

So how do you get back to a place where you can be recharged enough to believe it again?

Well, to start off, I have a few free resources that will help:

  1. 10 Tips to Prioritize What’s Important in Work and Life
  2. Compassion Satisfaction to Compassion Fatigue Chart

You can find them here for download on my website. With these tools, you will have greater clarity. But what next? What more can you do?

Here’s five essential questions you can ask yourself to help you re-calibrate. These solution-focused questions enable you to get back to a resourceful place, feel hope, and take small steps forward.

  1. What do I most want?

What is the most important priority? Is it time for fitness? Getting more leisure in? Going back to school to switch careers? Getting enough sleep every night? Having more family time? Getting off the screen? Write down everything you want, asking yourself “what else, what else” until you are out of ideas. Then circle the three MOST important things you want.

  1. What is possible?

Under the three most important things you want, ask yourself what is possible? What could you do? Get up a half hour earlier? Go to bed sooner? Take a class or two? Read a book a week? Meditate every morning when you wake up? Make Friday nights family night? Walk at lunchtime? Keep asking “what else, what else” to consider every possibility, no matter how wacky!

  1. What is my next step?

Of all the possibilities, what is one step closer toward it? What are all the possible next steps? Which are easy to implement? What are going to have the most impact? What do you enjoy? What could you get help and support for? Of all the options, which is the ONE next step you chose? Remember, if you’re overwhelmed, more than one next step may be too much. Just pick one, and celebrate it before moving on.

Let’s look at how this works in action.

Let’s say you want to exercise more. But you have no more time in the day and you feel overwhelmed just trying to figure out how to make it work. Could you set your alarm 15 minutes earlier and just walk around the block? Could you get a headset and walk around your office while you’re on the phone? Could you walk to the mailbox rather than drive? Could you go to the gym at work before you go home? Could you go to yoga on weekends rather than try to fit it in during the week?

In other words, what will give you some momentum?

It’s essential to start with what you most want, and then when you know what you most want, get creative about what’s possible. If you hate the gym, don’t make it part of your plan! If the weekdays are already too packed, look at weekends! There is always a way that doesn’t have to make you feel guilty, pressured or more stressed.

What we may do instead is say, ” I want to lose 50 pounds” but that goal is so long-term it’s unmotivating. It may not even feel possible. Instead, consider the root of what you want and build possibilities from there.

If there’s one thing you take from this today, please know, if you’re tired and exhausted, perhaps frustrated, it’s not because there’s anything wrong with you. It’s because you’re amazing and you’re trying to do so many things because you’re capable, in demand, and needed.

You don’t have to deplete yourself to still be amazing. In fact, the least selfish thing you can do is to make some of those choices, put some intention towards prioritizing what’s most important, so you can be the best version of yourself, for your family, your community, and in your career.

For more on burnout, check out that interview with Christine Laperriere on Work-Life Wisdom! And enjoy any of the resources we mentioned here and many others at https://greatnessmagnified.com/cool-stuff/

How our Biggest Crisis Led to Our Juiciest Possibility

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As you may already know, a few years ago my family experienced a huge transition when we moved to Niagara. It all was precipitated by one of our kids having a very serious mental health crisis. At the time, I was working as a senior leader, living in a small town, thinking everything was fine. We were unaware that for years, my child had been bullied. And it was getting worse.

I quickly learned, by speaking with the principal, coaches and daycare workers, my son was being bullied by everyone except our home and a few select friends’ houses. We were horrified. How could we let this happen? Why didn’t we know? What would happen to him if we couldn’t fix this? And the crushing reality was this: he would be with the same kids that had been bullying him for years until the end of high school (because there was only one high school in town) if we didn’t make some major changes.

As hard as it was to do this, we restarted our life. We sold our house. We sold our cottage. We uprooted our family mid-way through the school year.

Part of the transition included me leaving a senior leadership role and starting my own business. It was a very scary decision, not to mention one that shook my ego and identity. But I had a vision one day.

As I was on a yoga mat, a beautiful picture popped into my mind. I had such clarity in that moment. I knew exactly what our destiny was. I pictured standing in the middle of a converted barn and was facilitating a group of motivated professionals. I realized this was my barn and my house was on the same property. I could, in this vision, see out the window at rolling hills and a lake beyond. I felt happy, lightness and purpose.

I knew that this was our destiny.

Sure enough, we went on the hunt to try to find a place and hit many dead ends. Until one day my parents sent me a picture, my mom standing in front of an old barn. We went to look at the house and barn that night and I knew, from the moment I stepped out of the car, this was the place I had envisioned (prior to renovation of course). And it’s how we wound up back in Niagara, on a beautiful piece of property on Sixteen Mile Creek. Four years later, that barn is almost ready to be a retreat space and my office.

Why do I share this? For many reasons.

  • We often forget to dream and imagine possibilities, shutting them down as impossible. But are they?
  • We see all our debt, obligations, responsibilities and feel immobilized. But are you?
  • We get so busy caring for others, working and living life that we get so burnt out we can’t move forward. Is this a wakeup call?

Now is not the time to hit the snooze button on your life. Wake up calls – illnesses, family crises, disengagement at work, toxic colleagues, angry spouses – are a wakeup call. What do you need to pay attention to? And if you did, what opportunities might you create for yourself that you wouldn’t have otherwise? In other words, how could the things in life, like my son’s mental health crisis (that fortunately has now abated) be a blessing versus a curse?

I have some other videos you may be interested in watching to help you clarify what’s next for you. Why not check out:

And you never know where our paths might cross. Perhaps you will find your way to a retreat here at Greatness Magnified, learning and growing with me in our new preferred future.

Three Secrets to Recognition: Making it Easy to Recognize your Peers, Staff and Clients

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When I was flying back from a recent speaking engagement, I happened to be sitting beside somebody who, I learned very quickly, was an incredibly motivated middle manager. He was on the way up in his career and very passionate about his people. When he asked me what I did, I shared I was a recognition expert, he excitedly peppered me with questions.

  • What is the value of recognition?
  • How could I do more of it?
  • Given I travel so much, how can I do it from another country?

That question inspired me to create this post, because he’s not the only one who has these and related questions. For busy professionals like him, here are three essential ingredients to successful recognition:

  1. Have the tools for recognition available.

Have a stack of “thank you” cards in your office or work bag. If you are really savvy, you’ll already have them stamped with your return address! All you need to do is fill out the card, write the person’s name, and pop it in the mail. If it goes to their home, think about the impact of that for the person receiving it! What a wonderful way for them to be able to share it with their family.

I have a product, called, “FROG Kudos Cards” that some of the folks that I know, they keep two in their pocket every single day. They put them in their pocket at the beginning of the day and they find somebody to give it to, whether personally handed over or placed in one of those envelopes. Whatever your ritual is, find recognition tools that you can have handy. You are so much more likely to recognize people when the resources and tools are at your disposal.

At a recent International Conference I spoke at, after the break, one of the business owners came back with a big smile on his face. I inquired if he had taken out my homework of recognizing a colleague over coffee with a compliment card. He replied, “I actually went down to the gift shop and bought enough postcards and stamps to write a thank-you card for every member of my team and I’m sending them before I go to bed tonight.” I was so impressed! Now that is a resourceful man! If he can do it in the middle of a conference in another country, think about how much easier you can continue recognition with the tools already available!

2. Intention

When you are engaging in a discussion with your team, “How are we going to use recognition?” be intentional. Knowing what you believe will be better as a result. And be ready to break down barriers and support the converted. Be intention about making it work.

I was recently doing some work with a group that wanted to make sure that the moms and kids in their facility were able to feel valued and appreciated. They were able to talk about all the ways in which they already do it as well as some very specific strategies. That led to a beautiful conversation about how they could do the same things in their team meetings. Thinking intentionally about how you can do this daily or on a weekly with each other meant that doing it for their clients would be that much easier and more natural! When you have your team doing it, you not only have accountability, you also have greater sustainability.

3. Experiment

If you notice somebody doing something that deserves acknowledgment, don’t lose that opportunity. For example, I carry little squishy frogs in my purse. My brand is FROG – Forever Recognize Others Greatness™. When I FROG a perfect stranger, of course, handing over a little squishy frog and saying, “Have you been frogged lately?”, which can sometimes get a strange reaction, of course. I will tell them what it means and then say, “And the greatness I want to recognize in you is…” That is something I don’t plan, I just spontaneously do it in the moment.

By catching people off guard and surprising them, that’s the exponential power of recognition. It means more, because you’re surprising people. It’s something they are not expecting. This kind of surprise factor will go farther than if somebody shows up, for example, to an annual award ceremony. Spontaneously acknowledge people in whatever way you are comfortable with. How can you experiment with different ways of recognizing individuals organically in the moment? How can you take recognition efforts that are going “stale” and mix them up? You don’t have to do it alone! Think it through with others and try some things! What is the worst that can happen? Believe me, it’s worst if folks thing you don’t care and aren’t noticing their greatness.

I hope you have found this really helpful. For more recognition tools and tips daily, why not check out my Flash Briefing on Amazon Alexa. You can have an app, you can have the device and you can also subscribe to Podbean, and every day you’ll get a new juicy insight to keep your recognition going, to retain your best people, delight your customers, and of course make sure you love your job.

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