From Houston CEO roundtables of at least 15-20 each: 2010 will look just like 2009. In addition, this week's Houston Business Journal issues offers this dour news...most CEOs don't see the recovery until FOUR more years. Don't get me wrong - I'm not here to be Debbie Downer..just the opposite. In this new world economy, there will be new winners and losers. The trick will be to determine who those new winners are and how to hitch to their wagon. New winners in business will be healthcare, particularly elder care, education, biotechnology, and green anything and everything. Our challenge will be to innovate and invigorate our businesses to ensure that we are meeting the needs of these new winners and how they will be doing business in this new economy and in the future. We will need to pool our resources (our brains!!!), combine our talents and plan strategic ways to collaborate productively and profitably. As the old adage states, necessity is the mother of invention. We can and will find a way to do this...and have a great time in the process!

Mesa Verde - on many summer vacation trips throughout the Southwest as a young girl with my family, we would pass the signs for Mesa Verde. Our family would joke that it was a "Mess of Vertie" - my mother's name. For any number of reasons, we never stopped to tour the site. Years later, with a grown child of my own, my husband and I made the trip. Today, we hiked 3 miles into the canyon on the Petroglyph Trail. Breathtaking scenery and a rigorous rock climb. Reminded me of the movie "Last of the Mohicans" as we climbed and climbed. Living in the city, working hard every day, and rarely getting a glimpse of nature much less revel in it, my very spirit soared with every step that I took. As we walked the trail and appreciated the painstaking details that the park rangers had taken to ensure a safe journey, I silently `hoped that visitors from other countries would visit our national parks. They are truly examples of what our country has done right to preserve and protect such beautiful sites for generations to come. My husband summed it up nicely - "Just think. When we retire, we'll be seeing sights like this all the time." Trouble is - if you wait to retire until you visit these places, you'll never be able to climb the trails like we did today. Visit now, visit often. Restore your soul. Be a better person. Thank God for the opportunity to walk, to see, and to experience what nature has to offer us. An older gentleman at dinner last night at the Far View Terrace had a perfect ending, "This is how God intended for us to live."

Here's the latest in horrible customer service experiences:  a friend receives a letter from a recent mammogram with the result identified as "suspicious for cancer" and indicates the urgent need to call the doctor immediately to schedule a biopsy.  Doctor faxes orders immediately.  The patient then calls for the biopsy appointment with the same hospital. 

Guess what happens next?  Patient calls and gets an answering machine recording with this message:  "Leave your name, number, and we'll call you back in 48 hours to schedule your appointment.  Don't call back.  Calls are returned in the order received."  WHAT?  48 hours to return a call?  AND THEN SCHEDULE?  How much would it cost for the hospital to hire someone to answer these calls and schedule the appointment - about $8 an hour?  One person fields all the calls the hospital to return calls and schedule biopsies?  COME ON.  What do you think is wrong with this picture?

Process, service, staffing, care, concern?  The word "care" seems conspicuously absent from this "healthcare" institution.  Oh - and even more importantly, one more thing is missing - LEADERSHIP.  I called the manager of this department to report the mishandling of my friend's experience.  I have to leave A MESSAGE on this manager's answering machine.  I never received a call back.

Service is a representation of leadership - again and again and again.  Why are we surprised when we ask to speak to the manager and we get this (lack of) response?  It reminds me when I used to teach school and would schedule conferences with the parents of the troubled students in my classroom.  I was seldom surprised when I met the parents of these troubled kids.  It was only a confirmation of what I saw in the classroom. 

We learn from the models we live (and work) with.  What example are you settting in your own workplace and in your own home?

It's no surprise that customer service training is in such demand within organizations.  It's a rarity for customers to experience any service worth bragging about!  Customer service is built on the foundation that organizations and its employees are in business to serve their customers.  I don't know about you - but a big part of service is about DOING YOUR JOB.  At no time in customer service training are employees taught to partially complete their jobs, blame others, take their time, or refuse to communicate with others on their team.  Yet how many times do customers call back to check the status of their order completion or determine what happened to the delivery?  The old stale line of "That's not my job" is just that - old and stale.  How well are your employees taking care of your customers?  What are you doing to ensure that your employees are taking responsibility, being proactive and following up with your customers?  Don't wait for your customers to tell you, because most customers won't.  They'll just take their business somewhere else...

Pick up the newspaper, turn on the tv or radio, go to a meeting and what do you hear? Doom and gloom, sad news on the econonmy: big name stock prices dropping to record lows - some cheaper than a box of Bic pens or paper clips; job losses mounting every day; corporations cutting out retirement benefits or 401K contributions in order to save the business; the list goes on and on. With all the bad news, morale among the employee survivors within corporations is dropping even faster than their stock prices. NOW more than ever is the time for leadership. Anyone can be a leader when the times are easy, but true leadership arises out of crisis. Think of Ghandi, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela. Be the light in the dark, the lighthouse on the beach, the refuge in the storm, the resource that your employees need NOW.

It's time for us to hear some good news: what are you doing within your own companies to be the resource that your employees need NOW?