Perspective

Atlanta is known for having a lot of cars.

It’s interesting how simply having a piece of metal surrounding us can drastically change our perspective.

If someone dropped you off on an interstate ramp or under an overpass, you would quickly feel exposed, very uncomfortable, and alone. But merely put yourself in your car, and you could pass those same areas and be completely at ease. The other side of the door makes all the difference.

When we’re in our cars, we’re in our own world. If you are driving any distance at all, you are passing an untold number of people. Yet, aside from being aware that there are cars around you, the people feel very distant.

You know there are people in the cars. But they feel more like obstacles between you and your destination than they do individuals with lives, families, relationships, jobs, and destinations they’re trying to get to as well.

It’s why it is so easy to revert to road rage – we’re reacting to a somewhat less than real person in that metal box next to us.

Actually, it doesn’t take being enclosed in a car for us to be thoughtless of the people around us.

To be fair and reasonable, we are limited. We can only focus on so many things at a time. If I were to have to care for every person I passed, I’d be overwhelmed. So out of a degree of self-preservation, we keep to ourselves.

In time, our general care, or even more problematically our honor, for others can drop.

It’s more challenging than we may admit to hold others continually in honor. We have good intentions, but the imperfections of others colliding with our own imperfection undermines our aspirations.

This concept of honor is not a mere nicety.  Any people unit (business, family, government) that involves multiple people is highly affected by the level of universal honor. 

HR issues are primarily issues of honor.

Customer service is fundamentally customer honor. 

Honor doesn’t declare I have to pamper someone.  It doesn’t even demand that I never say anything that will be offensive to someone.  It does define the kind of culture that is most productive for effective relationships and output.

Here are eight principles that define honor especially as it relates to business and customer service.

1. Customer service is fundamentally customer honor.

Real service attaches you to your customer in a more thoughtful way than a mere transaction.  Paradoxically, some customer service can be a commitment to have minimal interaction (like online sales) so as to mutually reduce cost.  In the case of online sales, it’s a mutual commitment to efficiency, cost reduction, and ease of transaction. 

2. Honor is a state of heart and mind more than a prescribed action.

Honor is best achieved by creating culture and building shared values.  It is a business approach that is best achieved by first winning it within the organization as a prerequisite to pursuing it as a value with the customer.

Dee Ann Turner revealed the thinking behind the culture Chick-fil-A pursues first within their corporate office.

Service makes people feel honored, respected and special… behaviors become a natural part of the core of the organization internally and then are demonstrated externally to guests. 

–  Dee Ann Turner, It’s My Pleasure: the impact of extraordinary talent and a compelling culture.

Forcing an externally facing attitude that has not first been practiced internally is a recipe for failure.

3. Honor places value on the other person.

It is impossible to honor someone if you don’t value them.  I must do what I do because I believe you are valuable not merely because I’ve been required to abide by a set of rules.

4. Honor requires humility.

Humility puts another person’s needs above your own.  This would initially sound like a recipe for business financial loss.  However, what is truly beneficial is significantly more mutual than we initially recognize.

Humility is neither weak nor stupid.  It does redefine what is weak and stupid.

Mutual positive regard creates a far more productive business environment.  Humility is an internal belief about the source of my abilities and hope.  It increases rather than decreases confidence, competence, and strength.

5. Honor is mutually emotionally healthy.

Correcting and even firing are part of the necessary cost of leading business.  It is possible to do both with honor.  Having the wrong person in a given role doesn’t work for anyone.

Candid conversations are mutually beneficial, especially when coming from the right belief and heart.

6. Honor and power are teammates not opposing sides.

The best means to achieve strength, impact, and success are regularly counterintuitive.  Honor and humility are proactive not passive beliefs and attitudes.

7. Most HR issues would be solved with a culture of honor.

The challenge with culture is it is often slow in developing.

The good news with culture is it can be catalyzed by the attitude and example of leadership.

The potential of culture is it will outstrip forced discipline every day of the week.

8. Honor is best learned with those closest to you (family, office staff, etc.)

It is much harder to fake honor with people who know you.  It can also be harder to serve them because they are always around.  Single-shot service is a breeze in comparison to honor within extended relationships. 

Practice honor with those you interact with daily, and the success of honoring someone you see only for a moment will be easy.