I can hardly believe 2015 is nearly over.  It flew by, didn’t it?  I hope you and your team enjoyed great success in serving your customers, and I hope that great service also grew as part of your organization’s internal culture this year.

How do we keep growing and learning things to help us get better at what we do when we’re already busy doing it?  One of the best ways I know is to read.  I hope one of the actions you can look back on this past year is reading something that helped you succeed.

My brother is a prolific reader.  He says if he gets one or two ideas out of a book, it was a good investment of his time.

Investing in you and your employees is a smart business decision.  People are your biggest asset, creating what you sell, serving the customer who buys what you sell.  Investing in them is simply a wise move given competition for employees and the need for quality service.

Early in my career I learned something interesting.  Whether I was training employees or interviewing them as part of a satisfaction/cultural survey, I heard over and over how much they appreciated having their organization invest in them.  Employees were honored when their leaders wanted to know what THEY thought could be done to improve their organization.

Leaders who learn by reading are leaders more motivated to help their employees do the same.  And isn’t learning one of your key strategies of success?

Why not start a business book club on your values?  Imagine your team committed to improvement by reading one book per quarter in 2016 on the theme of your values.   And now imagine if they focused on service related to those values and found no-budget ways to improve your service, as well as, let’s say, ideas that cost $25 or less?

Improving service is not about money, usually.  It’s about finding ways to make service fun, engaging, and less complicated.  It’s about creating connections with each other that help us rely on each other.  Strong connections build trust that in turn help us deliver better service.

What if a book club on values of service could help you do that?  I think you’d look back at the end of 2016 and smile at the progress you made.

Need a bit of help with values for your team to study?  Download my
Values of Service Ebook.  You'll see the 12 Values of Service I bring into every training seminar on service as well as Leading to Achieve Great Service.  It's a great place to start 2016 with a focus on values that make service great.