As a former business owner, I recognize and appreciate good customer service. On our recent vacation to the Southwest, being free from the normal distractions of work, I was even more in tune with the good and bad of customer service we received. Perhaps it was because I was looking more closely than normal, but I honestly believe we saw extremes.
Martha was our concierge at the Sedona Real Hotel in Sedona, Arizona during our recent vacation. She helped us pick a restaurant and gave us some quick travel tips, in between helping dozens of other people in person and on the phone, all within thirty minutes before her quitting time for the day. It was obvious it had been a busy day, she was surely tired, but you couldn’t tell it from her disposition. Everyone she helped received the same excellent service.
I spent most of my career in the business world. I was always extremely active and in leadership roles in church and other civic activities, but I earned my living in a for-profit environment. During those years, as an outsider looking in, I believed non-profits had so much to learn from the world of business.
Are you bringing new ideas to your organization, church, or the place where you work?
I love Southwest’s magazine. I always find interesting articles to kill time during flights. This month was no exception. I am glad that let you bring these magazines home. (They do, don’t they?)
Do you harness the greatest power in your organization? The best assets of your church, business or non-profit never appear on your balance sheet.
There is one incredibly important characteristic of a successful team or organization. It is inherent and cannot be trained or programmed. With this trait a team can weather the storms of life together. When this is an attribute of an organization, regardless of the struggles it encounters, the vision can be accomplished.
We have had a busy season at Grace Community Church. Fall is the time of year when most churches ramp up their ministries, which tracks with back-to-school schedules and the change to cooler weather. Our church has been in a fast growth mode since day one, but we seem to be in a unique place of extraordinary growth right now. In addition to this growth we are launching new small groups, a college ministry, gearing up for our annual community outreach ministry, and adding a third service, along with numerous other changes occurring this fall, some that we are not ready to talk about yet. Some days it seems we have just enough energy to get through another week and all our time is focused on the next Sunday.
I heard today that Wal Mart is getting rid of paper paychecks. Instead employees will receive a debit card as payment, if they refuse direct deposit. You can read more about it HERE.
One trend in organizations today that I am not sure existed even ten years ago is the freedom employees have to promote their personal identity on company time. Companies today seem to allow and actually encourage employees to brand themselves separate from the organization. Whether it is with a personal blog or through authoring a book, employees can have a larger personal following and name recognition than the top leadership of the organization and at times even greater than the organization. This is true in the corporate world and the church world.
