A few days ago I mentioned a new-to-me book, One: The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership, by Manpower Inc. founder Lance Secretan. Recall: Consider: “What would happen if we looked at a customer and saw the face of God in them? To most people it sounds like a lofty idea. But if you see the face of God in a flower, why wouldn’t you see it in the face of a customer?” (My interpretation, by the way, was that “God” per se need not be/is not the point—but, more generally, the idea that each person we come in contact with is an extraordinary & precious human being in his or her own right.) (More Secretan: “What is important is not whether I’m remembered, but that I do my best every day. I want to be the person my dog thinks I am.”)
Then I came across “just another manuscript” … but wait. I was hooked (hook, line, and sinker) by the title alone. Adecco exec Steve Harrison offers The Manager’s Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies.
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
As I said in the fawning blurb I provided, the book is worth twice the cover price for the title alone! The innards live up to the outwards. Stories galore, suggestions galore. Among many other things, Mr Harrison insists, correctly in my view, that you can “smell” a “culture of decency” (or the absence thereof) in but a moment.* He adds that it’s one helluva competitive advantage—and if you don’t pull it off, at the very least you’ll feel better about yourself.
[*This holds for a job interview—both ways. And for a 3-person team or solo contributor as much as for an enormous corporation. And for … And for …]
Decency as the heart of managing.
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Add to the pile my very recent rediscovery of Robert Greenleaf‘s Servant Leadership … and you have a trend!
The face of God in a customer.
Decency.
Chief as Servant-in-Chief.