Effective teams, organizations, and leaders exist to serve others. Those that provide the highest levels of service/quality enjoy the richest rewards. Study after study shows that outstanding service/quality performance is one of the key contributors to outstanding financial performance.

Many strive to be 'customer-driven,' but few achieve it. The key is to be able to take soft customer expectations and perceptions and turn then into hard manageable data. The three major steps involved are:

• Identify current customers/partners (including internal).
• Prioritize customers' expectations by asking about their needs and using focus groups.
• Analyze the gaps between reality and expectations and develop action plans to address the gaps.

Effective leaders know that management and technology exist to serve people (customers, partners, and employees) not the other way around. This belief is nourished by a personal principle that success comes through serving others, i.e. servant leadership.

On one hand leaders provide direction. On the other they serve, seeking ways to better serve customers, external partners and internal partners. It's another powerful and/also paradox to be managed.

You can increase your sales, service, and customer support staff by 30 to 50 % without adding any additional overhead. Get them to stop serving the bureaucracy. Get rid of all non-value added work!

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