Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

How do you build a sustainable culture of high performance and extraordinary service? 

This is the question I’ve been working on all of my adult life. My name is Ron. When I entered this field years ago, I started learning and teaching with Singapore airlines helping to craft the mission statement and the service training programs for Raffles hotel, laying the foundations for the culture and the values of Changi International airport. Very soon, my work expanded all over the world to help banks, technology companies, fast-moving consumer goods, professional services universities, government agencies and everyone who serves.

I wrote a best-selling book that’s been translated and applied by organizations all over the world. Now there’s a good business case for doing this work. Great service providers produce more loyal customers that lead to better financial results, happier employees and real differentiation in the market. But the world that we’re living in today is changing, and measuring service success only by the traditional measures of value is incomplete. We need to expand our understanding of service to include authentic care for personal well-being, community well-being and environmental well-being too. 

Now let me show you the connection between these two essential human actions, service and care, and why we say the future of service is care. As we know, service is taking action to create value. Now, what makes your action valuable is that it contributes in some way to someone’s well-being. And that could be financial well-being, performance. It could be emotional well-being, you help them feel good. It could be relational well-being, they give them a sense of greater connection, or even giving someone a sense of care and well-being for the world and for life itself.

Okay, what about the phenomenon of care? What does this word mean? Care is concern and concern means paying attention to contribute to someone’s well-being. Not only in the current situation but also into the future. Why do I include the future? Well, think about it. If you have children you don’t only care about their well-being right now. You also care about them in the future. If you’re a caring service leader, you don’t just focus on your team member’s performance in the immediate moment, you’re also concerned about their future well-being and their future career development. If you care about the world and the community where you live, work and serve is focused on well-being in the present and for the future. The present is always slipping into the past. We, humans, are always navigating our way forward in life, creating the future together. In our conversations and our shared commitments. When we think about the future today one of our most vital and pressing concerns is creating a more sustainable way of being.

A sustainable way of being with our customers, a more sustainable way of being with our colleagues, a more sustainable way of being in the communities where we live and work, and a more sustainable way of being on this well miraculous experience that we refer to as life on earth. That is why we proudly say the future of service is care. Now we can all learn to do this. We can bring this to our teams, we can bring this understanding to our customers, to our communities and indeed to our world. And in this grand educational adventure, the application of which will produce a better world for everyone, we look forward to serving better, caring more and loving life with you.