Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

I was extremely fortunate. I went to high school in Westport, Connecticut, at a time when the rules for the game called Ultimate Frisbee had just been written in a different high school in nearby New Jersey. And a math teacher from that high school came to our high school and he brought with him the rules of the game. So, we were the second high school in the world to know how to play that game, Ultimate Frisbee. And in that game, the first rule is not about how many players. It’s not about how do you score. It’s not about what you’re allowed to do or you have to do. The first rule is called “The spirit of the game.” And the spirit of the game means that the people who are playing are responsible for the quality of play. They’re responsible for the mutual enjoyment that we have. They’re responsible for the respect that we have for each other, the way we behave with one another. And so, that style of interacting with other people is something that I learned very young. In fact, we even say that the spirit is more important than the score. So that’s interesting because Ultimate is still a competitive game. Just like capitalism is a competitive game, just like many different social practices that we have. People can think, “Well, wait a minute, I’m competing with that other nation.” or “I’m competing with that other group of people.” for whatever the case may be. But I learned early that the spirit of the game itself is more important than the score. So then when I got involved professionally in organizing Frisbee festivals, Frisbee tournaments, Frisbee play days, family association, all kinds of activities, I realized the different people value different things. For example, the person who comes with a child wants to learn how to play very simply, but the person who comes to the park with a dog wants to show off their dog jumping up to grab the Frisbee. But the police department wants to make sure that everybody who comes to the park behaves. The radio station wants to get publicity. The drink vendor wants to make sales. The Frisbee experts want to show off what they can do with a flying disc. So, what did I learn? Everybody values something different. And when we come together to do something. What do you want to do? You want to play with one another. You want to interact with one another. You might want to compete with one another. But the spirit of the game ultimately is more important than what came out as the score. Now, when you think about service is taking action to create value for someone else, then there are multiple parties involved. You’ve got the service provider, you’ve got the service recipient, you’ve got your internal service partners, you’ve got your neighborhood, your community, you’ve got the place that your colleagues come from, your customers come from. We’re all in this together. And yes, we can compete for price, for value, for dollars and cents, for market share, for share value, for profit margin. But ultimately, we’re in a way of being with one another where the spirit is more important long term than the score. So, when Singapore decided to become a much higher value in terms of the service they provide, they were looking for someone who could help educate hundreds of thousands of people in an adult workforce on how to improve the service that they provide. That’s not just going to be about procedures. That’s not just going to be about SOPs or SLAs, service level agreements. It’s not just going to be about process. There is a spirited component in that, and I knew how to teach people how to do that. From my earlier career in Ultimate Frisbee all over the world.