Getting To The Top of the Hill

Getting a podium finish can be a deeply satisfying experience. Going onstage to receive your degree from your Dean of Faculty is also a richly rewarding experience. To complete a marathon and earn your medal and finisher-tee are also worth relishing. Getting to the top of the summit for Ironman Norseman – the extreme long distance triathlon – after the 37K mark of the marathon for a steep, rugged, climb up, may be just as memorable [at the time of writing, twice-Ironman World Champion, Tim DeBoom won the 2011 edition of Norseman. Full report on the Endurance Conspiracy website].

Education has always emphasised success through examination grades, as well as landing the best jobs. Plaudits and pundits have agreed that it is better to be at the top of the game and stay on top, instead of being at the rank bottom. Our language is peppered with altitude-raising language like ‘top-dog’, ‘top scorer’, ‘top student’, ‘head honcho’, ‘high-flyer’, ‘corporate ladder’, ‘top rung’, ‘topping your performance’ and ‘head of the class’. Even the alter-ego of television known as Reality TV flouts highly-important titles like ‘Top Chef’, ‘Top Model’, ‘Top-40 Hits’ and the like. Here are the top-50 leadership blogs for 2010.

We, at Leadership Lessons from Triathlons, are already into our third year of sharing our content. We hope to get onto one of these prestigious lists in the near future. We have earned a few badges of merit in the past two years like appearing on AllTop, The Entrepreneur Blog, and currently a top-100 ranking for a leadership blog.

Google recently ranked us as #2 on its encrypted version, and #9 on its standard version for ‘Leadership Lessons’. It is an honour to be ranked just below Time magazine. We are, currently, #86 for the top leadership blog on Invesp.com. We boast no authors, television celebrities and renowned experts – well, at least not yet, however we do have a panel of excellent featured guests, and stories on excellent people. Everyday People with Extraordinary talents, abilities and lives – these are what we are motivated by, and strive to bring to you.

All these numbers mean little unless we stay current, contemporary, and fresh in our content. Our success is measured by our scope and depth of collaboration with others, degree of connectivity with our readers, and feedback from our readers.

*****

All the best to participants of Ironman Regensberg in Germany: Matthew, Clifford, Mano, Conrad, Chris and Angeline. Have a splendid race! Congratulations to Don Ng and Tee Boon Tiong for completed the grueling, extreme long-distance triathlon, Norseman! We extend our long distance kudos to this Dynamic Duo for being the first Singaporean and Malaysian to complete this race within the cutoff. Enjoy your top-of-the-world feeling!

Service Over!

When was the last time you experienced excellent service? Seriously. What has the last two decades yielded with the plethora of service training opportunities? We talk about service standards, moments of truth, customer satisfaction and excellence, yet we experience more disappointments than fulfillment.

Can you be excellent in service if you don’t excel in it? To excel in something is to want to be better at what you are good at. How many of our staff enjoy serving the customers? How good are they?

If staff disliked customers, how can they truly serve the customers? It would be hypocritical. It would be tantamount to giving lip, in lip service. Service should include values – both personal and professional; these are you personal touches, useful touches, and significant touches. Otherwise, the attempts to raise service levels become flaccid, confusing and lacklustre. Training harder does not make you a better runner if you lack the talent and the heart. It is about finding your forte and passion, and then running away with it.

Consider this: Instead of service excellence, focus on getting things right, and then doing the right things. Be effective before being efficient. Notch your service levels. Exceed yourself. Raise the bar of your competence. Create relationships of worth with your customers. Give them pleasant experiences they will remember fondly. Build on your capabilities. Create a sense of delivery. Create a sense of occasion.

How would you serve another? How would leaders serve their team? Which disservice would you eliminate from your approach?


On another note, here is my wish-list for sports-event organisers:
1) Ensure champion-chips/timing devices work as not getting a timing is a major disappointment.
2) Provide adequate nutrition at aid-stations; never run out of water and sports-drink.
3) Charge participants reasonably, if the race-kit is minimal; seek sponsors to defray your operating costs.
4) Provide reassurance that our sports equipment is well looked after.
5) A race t-shirt would make the event memorable. If you charge us for it, ensure that you have a wide variety of sizes.
6) Respect your sponsors and participants: We are an influential tribe.