Loyalty One

Some of the best times in my corporate career were spent with colleagues who became friends at a really cool company called “Loyalty One.”

How cool a name for a company is THAT?

Check them out via the link on the left-hand side of our blog.

So the team at Loyalty One–BAP, Petey, Beagle, B-kerr, Trish, Rossi–and a host of other talented and unique individuals  with weird nicknames (mine was “Sully”) became my friends a decade ago when we worked, sweated, strove, and dreamed together. The dream we were trying to create then “failed.” Its failure broke the team up. It was hard. Many of us mourned the loss of that team more than we morned the loss of the dream, and yet that dream was REALLY important to us all.

So important, as a matter of fact, that a couple of years ago a new team reassembled to go after that dream again, in a modified approach based on what we learned the first time. And just recently the second effort “failed” again. The new team had to disband. I’ll bet it was hard…

But that doesn’t mean that the dream died. BAP told me on the phone last night that the drawing boards are back out and people are drawing again…I’ll bet their motto is “third time’s a charm.” So Loyalty One continues to work the dream.

I’m going out on a limb with what I’m about to say. I want to boil down our human efforts in business enterprise to those two words: “Loyalty” and “One.”

That name sums up why ALL businesses exist. Every commercial enterprise has a dual reason for being: 1.) to create and sustain loyal relationships with paying customers, and 2.) to integrate and align processes, systems, and people into ONE, as we say, “ONE team that is BUILT TO LEAD.”

“Loyalty” seems like a outmoded, old-fashioned, impractical notion these days. Quaint, and vaguely noble for sure, but unrealistic. In our hyped-up, stressed-out, upside-down, multi-tasked, free-agent world, is there any sign of loyalty? That was a word for our grandfather’s generation.

The word “ONE” seems to be suffering the same fate. We are fragmented, specialized, and silo’d to a fair-thee-well these days. Literally, we are told by the experts that we need to be “free agents” while we expect to be downsized, rightsized, let go, riffed, and canned at a moment’s notice.

“ONE,” you say? “Nice idea. Have your people set something up with my people on that one, okay? We’ll do lunch maybe…”

So “loyalty” and ‘unity” may be headed to the trash heap of history, huh? Not so fast.

Sustained exceptional performance in business is impossible without both loyalty and unity. Revenue growth and profitability are both directly tied to customer loyalty. Try getting either revenue growth or decent profit margins from disloyal or disinterested customers…Good luck with THAT.

Customer loyalty can only be gained and maintained by orchestrating and delivering a service that always satisfies and occasionally and unexpectedly delights customers. How do you deliver that way without teams of loyal, unified employees? You remember, don’t you? The kind of employees that are characterized by the “Three T’s”–

1. TENURED, meaning experienced in your company’s methods and practices. As in, “been there for a long time,” i.e., “loyal.”

2. TALENTED, meaning both TRAINED and working together as a TEAM. As in, “know what they’re doing and doing it right…together.” Front-line supported by behind-the-scenes.

3. TURNED ON, meaning they CARE, and they LOVE delivering great SERVE-ice to customers AND to each other.

Okay, sounds good so far. Now, the BIG question. Are you ready for this one?

Where does all THAT come from?

It comes from inspired leadership. Nowhere else.

That means YOU.

BUILT TO LEAD leaders are those who model in their behavior what SERVICE really is. They are servant leaders first, who view their position of leadership as an opportunity to serve, rather than an opportunity to be served. They see leadership as a calling to the challenge of reintroducing the noble ideals of unity and loyalty and service and excellence not as quaint, outmoded, “soft” ideas, but as the surest and most efficient and, yes, most enjoyable ways to run a company.

Such leaders, who are BUILT TO LEAD, bring Character and Competence from a strong CORE to build trust and belief.

That’s where sustained exceptional performance, in work and life, comes from.

Isn’t this what we were made for?

Commitment to a noble vision and purpose that gives meaning to our work and lives.

Community (“common-unity”) with others who buy into the vision just as avidly as we do.

Connection with our leaders, coworkers and customers, anchored in service excellence.

Craftsmanship in honing our strengths and skills in the pursuit of mastery.

Continuity over generations of leaders developed to “keep the dream alive.”

Loyalty. One. I like the sound of those two words…

Don’t you?