Now More than Ever, Offer One Hand to Shake and One Throat to Squeeze

Make it easy, and take full responsibility.

Today more than ever, companies are looking for leaders at all levels. They’re looking for employees, whether or not they have people under their direction, to step up and demonstrate a greater ability to contribute. They’re looking for people to lead in terms of what they bring to the table each and every day.

The impact of today’s economic times
In a different time, one might have argued that this stemmed from a short-term focus on corporate profits, from a desire to extend corporate profitability at the expense of the employee. Today, however, the increased expectations flow from an intensely competitive marketplace. If you feel the pressure of your boss’s hand at your back, it’s likely being placed there by your customers.

And so what’s an employee-cum-leader to do?
Answer: Give people one hand to shake, and one throat to squeeze.

Make it easy.
First, make it easy and efficient for people, both customers and colleagues, to work with you. Particularly given the inter-dependencies at work these days, no one has the patience for being delayed or frustrated. That’s the “one hand to shake”.

Take full responsibility.
Second, be a leader and take full responsibility for the work you need to get done. Commit fully to getting it done exceptionally well, and similarly, commit to fixing it immediately and completely when it’s broken. That’s the “one throat to squeeze”.

Example:
Both my electric company and my cable company made it relatively easy to do business with them, which when things went well, meant it was easy to pay my bill online (“one hand to shake”). Now when I lost power, I could easily find found out what went wrong and when service would be restored (“one throat to squeeze”). But if I lost cable service, the cable company could tell me only what went wrong; they couldn’t tell me when service would be back. Isn’t that kind of important for the customer to know? Don’t they have cell phones in the field? Aren’t they a communications company? Why is it impossible to get a simple answer? Personally, that’s too many throats to squeeze.

So I dropped my cable company a few years ago.

Your company
In this era of talent shortage, the customer experience has come into greater focus. Bottom-line, if your people can’t give your customers one hand to shake and one throat to squeeze, you’d better get going. Because sooner or later, your customers will too.