It’s the start of a new year!
Perhaps you’ve thought about what you will do differently this year to make it better than last year. If you’ve not thought about it, I would encourage you to do so.
Personally, I want to consistently deliver the “Wow” factor this year. I define the Wow Factor as A memorable experience that leaves others talking about us in an extremely positive way.
Certainly, we all want to be on the receiving end of the Wow Factor. We want to experience people treating us with kindness and respect. We want to receive excellent service that gets every detail right and leaves us feeling valued. Every person you encounter will likely share this desire, whether or not they’ve ever considered it.
I also believe that a solid majority of people, if asked, would say they want to also deliver the Wow Factor. But such an experience is a “wow” because it isn’t common. So why aren’t more people actually able to deliver it?
I believe the answer is because it is hard. It takes a lot of effort and intentionality. Few people are willing to do the things necessary to ensure that they can consistently leave people wowed. So what can we do?
There are three elements of delivering a consistent Wow Factor that we’ll talk about over the next three months.
Excellence: Doing things above the average.
Competence: The ability to do something with excellence.
Character: Doing the right thing–even when no one is looking.
The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day I helped a paving company with an extremely difficult job. We were putting the final coat of asphalt on a McDonald’s parking lot. The job had to be completed because the store had to be open on schedule. We had 300 tons of asphalt to put down, a challenging drainage situation to solve, and an inspection to pass…. and the temperature was 14 degrees!
The situation required both speed and precision. So we gathered the team and mapped out our plan. At that temperature, we could not afford a single mistake if we were going to make this happen. The details would make or break the operation.
For instance, water is used to coat the rollers that compact the asphalt. We decided to secure a space heater to keep the rollers warm. Without it, the tubes inside the rollers would have frozen solid! Additionally, we mapped out the precise route for the paver for maximum speed and efficiency. We delegated specific tasks for the team members based on their strengths.
We completed the job in under four hours. We successfully tackled our challenges and the lot looked great! This was only possible because of the time we spent on the front end planning and preparing for a successful outcome.
There are many paving crews that could have successfully completed the job in July at 85 degrees. There are few that could do it with excellence, in that amount of time, in December at 14 degrees. Because we had the right tools, the right people, and a great plan we were able to deliver a definite Wow Factor to the customer in less than ideal circumstances.
We’re going to talk about how you can deliver the Wow Factor regardless of challenges over the next few months and I hope you will take the journey with us. I believe we need more individuals who are willing to do what is necessary to deliver the Wow Factor and make that level of excellence just a little less rare.
Stay tuned as we dive in to Excellence, Competence and Character in the weeks ahead!