Practice Customer-Focused Leadership
Adapted from Be Nice (Or Else!) And What's In It For You by Winn Claybaugh
 Owners, leaders, and managers often assume that having their name on the building or their signature on the lease makes them the most important person in the company. Although this may be difficult to read and understand, let me tell all business owners and leaders that you are the least significant individual in your organization.
If you make money by having happy customers who ultimately refer more customers to your business (your best form of advertising is word of mouth), then who has the most influence on whether or not your customers are happy? It’s usually not the owner or the manager. It’s the frontline people—the receptionists, salespeople, cashiers, tour guides, sales clerks, secretaries, table bussers, and maintenance people—simply because they’re with the customers every minute of every day.
Typical pyramid-shaped organizational charts show the owner at the top of the pyramid, followed by the management team, and then the frontline staff. Who is commonly at the bottom of the pyramid, not usually by design, but by default? The customer. Yes, it’s true. If your company is riddled with hierarchy—with an “all important” focus on the boss—then your customer comes last.
Let’s take that pyramid and turn it upside down. Who should be at the top? The customer, followed by the frontline staff, and then the management. And who’s at the bottom? The owner. This may sound harsh, but implementing this way of thinking will make any business far more successful and profitable. And isn’t that why you’re in business to begin with?
If you were a guest at Disneyland and you got lost, who would you ask for directions? Would you find your way to the corporate offices, find the highly paid Disney executive, and ask him or her where you should go? No! You’d ask the cleaning person who was sweeping up the spilled popcorn in front of Tomorrowland. Imagine if that cleaning person responded coldly with, “I don’t know. Why are you asking me? That’s not my job. They don’t pay me enough money to know where everything is around here.” I can assure you, that’s not how a cleaning person would respond at a Disney park. Disney makes sure their frontline people keep guests happy and coming back year after year.
When a business becomes customer focused, it makes a major paradigm shift. Every decision requires an answer to the question, “How will this affect our customers?” Every system implemented demands the analysis, “Will this provide a better shopping or service experience for our customers?” Staff members in a business that practices customer-focused leadership would never pass a customer on to another staff member, as if they didn’t have the time to immediately address the customer’s request.
But there’s another level to this way of thinking. Customer-focused business owners, directors, and leaders understand how valuable their frontline people are for establishing customer loyalty. Customer-focused business leaders never sit behind closed office doors, hiding from the day-to-day process of creating a healthy work environment. They make it their number one priority to cultivate a fun, happy workplace. They understand that their first role is to take care of the staff, to make sure the staff is happy and provided with the resources to do their jobs with enjoyment and gratification. They know that a happy staff attracts and retains happy customers.
In consulting with a business owner a few years back, I inquired as to how he spent his day. He told me that he was in his office in the back, doing paperwork most of the time. When I asked him how much time he spent with his people up front to coach, encourage, and redirect them as they service customers all day, he said, “Oh, they can come back to my office and speak with me if they ever have a problem.” With that I replied, “So, the only time you spend with your people is when they have a problem? Your people could be having amazing victories every single day, and you’re never a part of that experience to congratulate them and help them feel good about their investment in your customers and your company.”
In their book, In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman popularized a concept known as MBWA. Developed in the 1970s by Hewlett-Packard, MBWA stands for Management By Wandering Around, and it’s part of the legendary “HP Way.” While some business leaders and managers claim that they don’t have time to wander around because they’re too busy doing paperwork, HP’s managers would probably respond: “How do you find all that time to do paperwork? We’re too busy wandering around!”
Bottom line: Happy customers come from happy employees. Happy employees come from happy managers. Happy managers come from happy owners. And happy owners must be nice.
Winn Claybaugh is the author of Be Nice (Or Else!) and “one of the best motivational speakers in the country,” according to CNN’s Larry King. A business owner for over 22 years, with over 8,000 people in his organization, Winn is the co-owner of hair care giant Paul Mitchell’s school division. Winn has helped thousands of businesses build their brands and create successful working cultures. His clients include Vidal Sassoon, the Irvine Company, Entertainment Tonight, Mattel, For Rent magazine, Structure / Limited / Express, and others. Winn is a frequent guest on national radio and a regular contributor to online publications. Visit www.BeNiceOrElse.com to sign up for his free monthly Be Nice (Or Else!) newsletter.
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