Hug your people
Jack Mitchell, CEO
We are proud to have Jack tell you a few words about his latest book today.
Jack Mitchell, author of the BESTSELLER book "Hug Your Customer" (a book in which he discusses how to nurture and maintain customer relationship) will tell you a bit about his book "Hug Your People".
The proven way to hire, inspire and recognize your employees and achieve remarkable results
by Jack Mitchell
I hope you find learning a new language with the assistance of LbT-languages as exciting and interesting as I do learning each day from my family and the other great people I work alongside each day in my family business... here’s an excerpt from my new book HUG YOUR PEOPLE. Hope you enjoy reading and let me know your feedback on my book jackm@hugyourcustomers.com!
Everyone Wants to be Appreciated!
Hug Your People by
Jack Mitchell
It’s something I’d encountered before, and yet it still really jolted me— frankly, blew me away
Not long ago, a fabulous woman came to work for us at one of our clothing stores in Connecticut. At her last job, by anyone’s definition, she was a real superstar. She worked hard, putting in endless extra hours without complaint. Her customers adored her. She made good money. The fringe benefits were generous.
So we had to wonder, why in the world did she want to leave New York and join our team in Connecticut?
It was simple.
Nobody at the other company ever let her know in any sort of personalway that she was valued. Even after selling a million dollars worth of merchandise in just one year—and that’s an awful lot of shirts and ties—no one, not a single person, ever came up to her and said, "Wow, great job! You’re terrific."
No! Not once! Never, ever!
Did her boss ever send her a bouquet of flowers in gratitude?
Not a single daisy.
And that hurt. It made her job feel like, oh well, a job.
Her experience reminded me of something I’ve always understood that is very simple: Everyone wants to be appreciated!
I’m the CEO of a third-generation upper-end men’s and women’s specialty clothing business with three large stores in the New York metropolitan area. I wrote a book about how my family and our associates built our business by being passionate about establishing extraordinary personal relationships that exceed expectations. It was called Hug Your Customers. I wrote it because it seemed to me that a lot of companies say they care about customers, but they really don’t know how to show it. I thought that by sharing our stories they might learn how we show it by giving lots of hugs.
Giving great personalized customer service has always been the foremost goal of my family—we’ve been hugging away since my parents Norma and Ed Mitchell founded the business in 1958—and one thing we never lose sight of is that you can deliver great service only if you treat your associates right. You don’t give extraordinary customer service in a vacuum – great people give great, personalized service!
Studies show convincingly — and the success of our stores are living proof — that when associates are extremely satisfied then customers are extremely satisfied.
Every company presumably wants successful, loyal workers. Corporate leaders say so, and of course many truly "get it" that people are their most important asset. Some recognize, as we do, that they are in the people business. Yet it appears to me that others focus only on hugging their product and on making a better widget, golf ball, or high-definition TV, or on painting it a different color and putting some new bells and whistles on it. Or when sales are lagging, they focus on price. They lower it and create some kind of fantastic deal - never thinking that if they treated their associates with greater personal care; they would work harder and smarter and would feel like going the extra mile to hug a customer because they feel hugged themselves!
I’m not saying you shouldn’t focus on building a better product, but positive people power is fundamental to the overall success of any business.
What a tremendous difference it would make if everyone got that!
BECOMING PEOPLE- CENTRIC
These days, there’s often a very serious disconnect in business. I call it a human disconnect. People spend more time at the office than at home and want to feel personal and professional satisfaction from their daily work experience.
From my own encounters shopping for groceries or a new car, or traveling on a plane, it’s obvious that the need to hug your "huggers" has never been greater. I encounter people with these vacant looks that tell me that they’re physically present but mentally elsewhere, because they’re not engaged.
Often, the only time an employee hears from his boss is when he screws up and gets reamed out. You know, it’s easy to put someone down. Some would say that the tough part is to build someone up. The reality is that it can be the most satisfying work a manager can do.
Of course, it starts at the top. It’s the leader or leaders who own the challenge, and set the tone, mindset, and culture of the company. And you, too, can be a leader of your own actions and your own destiny if you get the force of the hugging culture. I believe that leadership is not only paramount, it’s everything.
And when hugging permeates a company, it becomes a people-centric culture.
KNOW WHAT SHELLY AND RICHARD WANT
I continue to hear from others in companies that aren’t people-centric that employers barely know the individuals who carry on the work, and they surely don’t know about the personal concerns so germane to their lives. They don’t know that Shelly is worried because she’s desperately saving to buy a house in a better school district. They don’t know that Anthony put his mother in a nursing home last weekend. They don’t even know that Elizabeth prefers to be called Lisa.
Companies don’t get it that it’s not nearly enough to have periodic employee recognition programs. It’s how they are treated every day. It’s the little things, the little hugs. The appreciation and attention that don’t cost a dime.
Because people like working with us (I deliberately use with and not for) our customers enjoy shopping with us. And that ultimately gives our family business a great return on investment (ROI). We’ve been told by our vendors and bankers that this is undoubtedly one of our secrets of success. I mentioned in my first book that our sales were over $65 million in 2003, and we have been strongly and steadily growing ever since. But we also achieve something far more enriching than a huge increase in sales and return on investment we enjoy a fabulous return on people (ROP)!
THE MITCHELL BLUEPRINT
After spending a lifetime selling suits and socks and stockings alongside Mom and Dad (God rest their souls); my brother, Bill; my wife, Linda; and our four sons and three nephews, I’ve recognized that there are five broad principles that guide us in hugging our people.
Each principle is something that I feel is essential to convey to all of the people who work with us. My guiding principles are to be Nice to them, to Trust them, to instill Pride in them, to Include them, and to generously Recognize them.
Now they may not sound like the principles you’ve heard before from self-help business books, but they’re the ones that have worked mightily for us and they’ll work for you! They are sound and solid and they produce remarkable results.
If you succeed in all five of these principles, then you will produce loyal and effective associates and the strongest teams. The key is personalization delivered positively with passion. Once you have that magical connection on a personal level, the rest is just focusing with great discipline on consistency and execution and delivery.
These principles are applicable to any industry and to any size company, be it small, medium, large, or even 2XL. And I believe they’re globally transferable. They’ll work on the factory floor of a baked-bean plant or at a hairpin wholesaler. They’ll work in a small family business as well as at a multinational giant.
The world may conduct business in 6,800 languages, but everyone understands and loves a hug.
Hug Your People contains real stories about real people - a commonsense book, based on examples of associates being nice to one another, trusting one another, feeling pride in their environment and the people they work with, being included, and getting recognized.
I return to a comment that Nick Donofrio, executive vice president for innovation and technology at IBM, made to me: "At the end of the day I ask myself, did I make a difference today?"
It reminds me of something that Dad said to himself with the same sentiment and in almost the same words when he woke up each day, "I hope I can make a difference to our people today."
It’s worked for us—across three generations and fifty years—and it’ll work for you.
And work will never, ever seem like work again.
English |
German |
|
proud |
stolz |
|
latest |
neuestes |
|
to hug |
umarmen |
|
customer |
Kunde |
|
to nurture |
pflegen/ fördern |
|
to maintain |
beibehalten |
|
in addition |
zusätzlich |
|
to allow |
erlauben |
|
comprehension |
Hörverständnis |
|
at the same time |
gleichzeitig |
|
with the assistance of |
mit Hilfe von |
|
excerpt |
Auszug aus einem Dokument |
|
appreciated |
geschätzt |
|
encounter |
begegnen |
|
jolt |
jmd. aufrütteln |
|
frankly... |
offen gesagt, ganz ehrlich, offen gestanden |
|
complaint |
Beschwerde |
|
adore |
jmd. abgöttisch lieben |
|
fringe benefits |
Lohnzuschläge |
|
valued |
geschätzt |
|
gratitude |
Dankbarkeit |
|
daisy |
Gänseblümchen |
|
merchandise |
Ware |
|
associate |
Kollege |
|
exceed |
übertreffen |
|
hug |
umarmen |
|
foremost |
vorderst |
|
convincingly |
überzeugend |
|
living proof |
lebender Beweis |
|
presumably |
vermutlich |
|
appear |
scheinen |
|
widget |
Dingsbums |
|
lag |
dahinkriechen |
|
tremendous |
enorm |
|
serious disconnect |
Ernsthafte Trennung |
|
groceries |
Lebensmittel |
|
engaged |
beschäftigt |
|
screw up |
Mist bauen |
|
ream out |
auftreiben |
|
mindset |
Haltung |
|
destiny |
Schicksal |
|
paramount |
überragend |
|
permeates |
es durchdringt |
|
barely |
kaum |
|
concerns |
Angelegenheit |
|
germane |
passend |
|
recognition |
Anerkennung |
|
deliberately |
absichtlich |
|
vendors |
Verkäufer |
|
undoubtedly |
zweifellos |
|
enriching |
bereichernd |
|
increase |
steigen |
|
| blueprint | Entwurf, Kopie | |
| principles | Prinzipien | |
|
vermitteln | |
|
Stolz beibringen | |
|
mächtig, unglaublich | |
|
funktionieren perfekt | |
| passion | Leidenschaft | |
| consistency | Konsistenz | |
| execution | Anwendung | |
| applicable | anwendbar | |
| hair pin | Haarnadel | |
| conduct business | Geschäfte betreiben | |
| common sense | Menschenverstand | |
| sentiment | Empfindung |
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