Service First Means Excellence

I had the good fortune to find myself in HOAG Hospital, Newport Beach, California. While it may not seem good luck to end up under medical care for me it was an opportunity to experience first hand why HOAG is ranked among the top hospitals in the U.S. Of course, over the years and living in southern California I knew that if you need urgent medical care HOAG is the place to be. Yet I had never really thought about what made this particular hospital such a luminary institution. What I learned, over the course of a one week stay, is that the care-givers I encountered, exhibited a Service First attitude and made me feel safe, cared for, and almost as if, I was the only patient under their care.

Anyone is apprehensive about being admitted to a hospital. Doing so puts one in an atmosphere of uncertainty and vulnerability. It would be easy for care givers to become jaded or somewhat numbed to the constant repetition and parade of medical casualties and circumstances passing through the hospital halls. However, what I found at HOAG was a uniform and consistent effort and emphasis to put the patient first and to preserve the dignity and humanity of every person traversing their particular medical issue.

Teamwork is a hallmark of success at HOAG. Nurses and doctors attend to patients in a grand ballet backed by an exquisite symphony of care givers, staff and helpers. Even though shifts of nurses, assistants, orderly staff, administrators, nutrition staff, housekeeping, doctors and others ebb and flow with patient priorities, task requirements and shift changes there is never a skipped beat, nary a dropped baton on the hand-off from station to station, shift to shift.

The most remarkable aspect of the Service First excellence I experienced at HOAG was the wonderful kindness, care and giving I experienced from every single staff member I encountered. Not only were they kind, caring, concerned and attentive, but they took time to smile, hear my story, and share a bit of their own lives. This wonderful gift of intimacy and love instilled in me a sense of safety, security and trust. I also found that I not only liked every one of these great people but I admired them for their gift of service and of putting others first. How proud must be their parents, spouses, sons and daughters and how high their self esteem and sense of self must be.

At the end of the week and at the end of the day I am reminded about Service First and giving to others. It is the highest level of service excellence and part of the pathway to success destiny.

In closing I would like to thank the nurses, doctors and staff at HOAG Hospital ER and especially the 6th Floor, West Wing for their kindness and care during my stay. You are the best!

Kindness Gives To The Giver

Every act of kindness, no matter how small, in fact especially small acts of kindness, are building blocks of character and self esteem. They also set the giver apart from the taker and reward the person who initiates the act of kindness as well as the person who receives the gift of kindness. President Ronald Reagan was known for his gracious and gentle manner. One quote, attributed to him, is "a gentleman is always kind". I like this idea, that a person of integrity, inherent goodness and great leadership qualities would also be a "giver". A very popular little book is "Random Acts of Kindness" and in it the author talks about small acts of kindness and how it feeds the soul of both giver and receiver. It is extremely important to recognize that we often touch people, for better or for worse, in the smallest, seamingly meaningless, and often in a momentary way. The simple words of "please" or "thank you" or "it is a pleasure to meet you" are powerful means to convey kindness, love, and respect. They tell a great deal about the giver. They are a means of "reaching out" or simply reaching through the barriers of uncertainty that sometimes separate strangers. Small acts of kindness don't usually involve money, they sometimes go unnoticed, but they always build the character, feed the soul and bring a sense of rightness and goodness to the giver. It is simply the right thing to do. So, perhaps you might open a door, or say you are sorry, offer to help, ask how he is feeling, "are you ok", pick up a piece of trash, fill your mothers car with gas, anything and everything in your day to day life. Little things that you would like to see another do or a society embrace. Kindness is giving.......to others and to yourself.

Discover Formulas That Lead To Success

About ten years ago I was in a kind of slump in my business and career. It was a time when I was doing "just OK", nothing special. I spent some time thinking about my actions and results. I also retraced my past successes to see if there was a common denominator between the times I had had special and accelerated success. I came to the realization that I had had several "cycles" of success in my adult business life and that with each period of success there had been a kind of formula or "model" which I replicated over and over. In one instance I had created the model with a strategy that had been fulfilled. In the other two instances I had begun having success with my actions, then discovered that a formula was present, and even though I had stumbled onto the model, I, at least, had the common sense to simply replicate the formula leading to more and more success. The point of all this is that it is important to reflect on your actions and the patterns that lead to success. If you can identify what it is that is leading to success you may find that by simply repeating the pattern you will harness a (sometimes hidden) formula and "pays off' like a slot machine. Certainly patterns and models and formulas can take the shape of actions and disciplines like steady work habits, networking, developing good communications skills, etc. But on an even more strategic level they can be found it types of customers, transaction sizes, typical orders, the time frame from order to delivery, customer payment terms, etc. Working for a large company I am used to serving two "masters": One is my customer the other is my employer. A big part of my personal success formulas are to make sure that I am presenting what my company can deliver.....while at the same time I am bringing the types of customers that suit my company's objectives. The bottom line is to understand that there are formulas and models for success and that by finding the right ingredients and timing you can create a type of business flow that may surpass your expectations.

Communication Skills Lead to Success

One of the hallmarks of successful people is that they learn from others. Another is that they seem to indistinctly know how to start and "carry" a conversation. But you might be surprised to know that a good conversationalists ability to "converse" is not based so much on their own ability to jabber away, but rather their ability to "engage" the other party in a good exchange. Good conversationalists extract information and learn from their counterpart. They learn not only facts and details and knowledge but they learn about the person they are talking with. Many times people don' t seem to know exactly what to say and resort to asking dead end or "closed" questions such as "how's business?". This closed end question is usually met with "fine" and the conversation can come to a quick conclusion. One of the greatest "open end questions" I ever learned was in a Dale Carnegie sales course in the early part of my career. It has served me throughout my business career and I find that it is one of the most powerful questions one can use. In fact, for me, it is the most powerful question I ask and it almost always results in a "home run" in terms of engaging the other party in a full dialogue. The question is so powerful in fact , that the person giving the answer often takes 15, 20 or 30 minutes to answer. During that time I am building rapport, learning about the history and personality of the person, his views on business, life, family. During that time I am engaged by listening with "empathy". During that time I gain a geographical and psychological perspective of my counterpart. The question, and I like to use an non-grammatically correct version, is: "How'd You Happen To Get Into This Business?" When I ask the question I ask it with sincerity and look into the person's eyes with a kind of expectation. Usually my counterpart will smile then say something like, "oh you really don't want to hear all that" or "oh my, that would take me an hour to tell". Always, Aways I respond with , "Oh yes I would really love to know how you go to" (this place, this level of success, this point in your life, etc). Then I lean back and listen to this man or woman's "story". Before my eyes and ears their life unfolds and in the telling they are remembering and in the remembering their is a kind of connection, a bond, that occurs between the person and me. Sometimes they will get to a part, perhaps an emotional point, and they will pause as if to see if I am bored, but I lean forward and encourage them to tell me the complete story. It is an extremely powerful question and it serves to deliver a moment of intimacy, kindness, caring. Inevitably the other person "feels" that you must be smart (to want to know about them). In one's life very few people come along who want to know your "story" and when someone does and asks us a question like this, with sincerity, the answer, our words come tumbling out like a kind of therapy, a flood of experiences. We DO want to tell our own story. So the next time you meet a client for the first time, or a stranger at a party......in a relaxed and casual tone say, "Would you mind telling me, "how'd you happen to get in this business"? And then be prepared to enjoy a journey into your new friend's life. It is a great question that should be taught by every parent, by every teacher, and at every school and every business class because it allows us to "engage" our counterpart with interest, kindness and sincerity.

How Choices Are A Law Of Success

One law or principal of success is that every decision you make, every choice you make, moves you toward or away from your goal. It is one of the reasons why having a clear goal or objective is so important. It is also a key reason why the ability to focus on high value actions is important to achieving your goal. But it is true that every choice or decision you make has the effect of transporting you toward or away from your goal. Sometimes this is obvious and sometimes it is more subtle. If you choose to skip a class you might not get the "A" you wanted in that class. But let's say that you attend all of your classes, do all the homework but decide to not study before the big exam. You also may not get the A you said you wanted. Many times our use or allocation of time is what "steals away" from our achieving a certain goal. If we want to earn one million dollars yet we are unwilling to give up our weekly bridge game we may find that our income goal was not as important to us as our leisure or social goal. In this regard sometimes our true goals are defined as much by our actions as they are by our stated objective. Choosing many interests can make us a "well rounded individual" and yet sometimes that prevents us from being the "specialist" we need to be to achieve that one goal we want to achieve. Even who we choose to spend our time with, how much time we spend effects achievement of our goal. Self talk effects whether or not we reach our goal. How much time we spend on problems vs. how much time we spend on solutions effects whether or not we achieve our goals. If you find that you are struggling to achieve a certain goal or timetable in achieving your goal ask yourself: "What things may I be doing to undermine achieving my goal"....if you answer honestly you will often find that you are "self sabotaging your efforts by making choices that take away from the energy, time, focus, or actions that will result in the achievement of your goal. Learn to become conscious of the choices that you make, even the smallest ones concerning use of your time, and whether they lead you toward or away from your goals.

Everyone Sells

Many people feel that sales is the art of convincing someone to buy something they neither want nor need. I have had business associates, acquaintances, friends and even family tell me that the last thing they would ever do is consider "sales" as as career. And yet, those same people, when passionate about some idea or concept that appeals to them, become the very best sales people, influencing, negotiating and making their points with zeal and a conviction worthy of the very best sales professionals. When one considers that sales is really the act of sharing a good or worthwhile idea with another it doesn't seem to have the same type of "arm twisting" negativity. And when we view "sales" as an effort to educate, influence or help another to make a good decision the act of selling takes on a more benevolent quality. The fact is that we all sell. We all need to have skills of persuasion to articulate those things which we believe in and when we do want to influence another. This is especially true when we want another to "buy" into who we are, that we are sincere, that we have talent, ability, are worthy of trust or that we would make a good "partner". Yes, even in "love" there is a good deal of "selling" that goes on and some of it is an excellent, subtle or almost invisible selling quality of the highest order. Look around you. Every thing you can see has been sold, and most things have been sold several times over. You probably bought your computer from a store or online where it was sold. The manufacturer sold it to a retailer. Before that the parts were sold to the manufacturer. Before that the materials for the parts were sold and on and on. Selling is a noble profession. Don't under estimate the value of selling whether it is your profession or whether your sales is more personal. Value the art and ability of sales and consider the many shapes and forms it comes in.