In just a season, our beloved Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool’s best ever Manager since Shankly, for the non-football fanatics among us) moved from the number #1 spot as the World’s Best Football Manager to number #3, with Man City’s Pep Guardiola knocking him off the podium to claim pole position this season.
Even if you’re NOT a footie fan, there’s still a LOT to be learned from the dynamic of Klopp vs Pep when it comes to their ability to lead and manage and coach and cultivate a winning team of players.
We too, as leaders, movers & shakers need to create a winning culture, in which our staff (the players) can play the role of a world-class Brand Ambassador on behalf of our organisations (the football club) if we’re going to stand any chance of being top of the league in our industry (just like those clubs winning the Premiership)
The analogies could go on – Klopp would NEVER put the interests of the Club’s fans (its customers, to use our language) above those of its players (our staff) because he recognises that happy players = happy fans, just as WE recognise that happy staff = happy customers.
The best football managers in the world also recognise that success in football (or in business, in our case) is all about mindset and attitude AND continuous commitment to the daily disciplines that will ensure their players’ success and the Club’s title – just as it is for US, when WE are committed to the cause and focus our energies on developing our people in order to enhance our customers’ experience.
We’ve waxed lyrical for many years about that VITAL INGREDIENT in your business – your PEOPLE are the DIFFERENCE that makes the DIFFERENCE and they have the power to both build customer loyalty or destroy it, just like Klopp’s players have the power to build or destroy a loyal fanbase.
Focusing on those daily disciplines that will ensure your staff increase their chances of personal success and YOUR chances of being top of the league in your industry, is the KEY to creating a world-class culture – in business OR football ⚽
Daily disciplines such as:
- Set a planned & prepared morning routine – journaling, reading, exercise, meditation, and ensure an energy-boosting breakfast each day
- Have a goal plan for the day – broken down into manageable bitesize chunks (remember the power of 3?)
- Set times for structured breaks and lunch during the day– get AWAY from the ‘pitch’.
- Stick to start and end times for meetings / phone calls / get-togethers (remember Parkinson’s Law – work expands to fill the time available, so manage your diary effectively)
- Touch things only ONCE – never ‘unread’ an email in order to go back to it later in the day. Effective time management is about managing YOURSELF and all that you need to achieve in the TIME you have available each day. We ALL have the same number of minutes in any 24-hour period – if Richard Branson can achieve so much in HIS 86,400 seconds each day, so can WE!
- Reward yourself appropriately – if you’ve beaten a deadline or resolved a major issue or won a new piece of business or broken your own (goal-scoring) record today, give yourself a pat on the back and take a bow! Sometimes, it’s the simple things that can make the most amazing difference – going out-out for lunch or having a posh coffee from the local Costa’s or finishing early to have a relaxing supper with friends or family, can be the best reward of all.
- Today ain’t over until tomorrow’s planned! Ensure you record your to-do list BEFORE you end the working day, so that you can take that ‘mental enema’ as you leave the virtual or actual office each night, emptying your mind of the work that still needs to be done, having fully prepared for the next day.
Finally, as with all great players (or great staff) we must continually seek ways in which we can develop and grow and perfect our game (or role, as Brand Ambassadors) and the really smart companies enable and empower Continuous Professional Development (CPD) by creating a learning culture, where opportunities to grow are easily accessible.
One of the easiest ways to achieve this, is to create a coaching culture, whereby your frontline teams have DAILY opportunity to review and refresh and revise what they’re doing each day, to ensure a remarkable customer experience that creates raving fans of your company AND helps to build a vibrant and engaging working environment.
This can be achieved through activities such as self-assessment, live at-desk coaching, buddying or mentoring support, QA activities or bitesize training sessions – in or out of the workplace, and extra-curricular things too, such as social events, team fitness classes, awaydays etc.
One such activity I’d really like to give a shout-out to today, having personally benefited from a session just last weekend – is Laughter Yoga from Canned Laughter Ltd.
Pete Cann, The laughter Man, is definitely your man, when it comes to starting the day with a good ol’ belly laugh to get you in the mood – for work or play 😊. Last Saturday, he got a room full of 1238 business owners on their feet, laughing hysterically within 60 secs, as part of a warm-up act for this year’s National Entrepreneurs Convention at the ICC in Birmingham – it was an epic spectacle 🤣
You can find out more about Pete’s brilliant Laughter Yoga work at: https://petecann.com/
You can even book him for your own warm-up act if you’ve got a Christmas shindig organised this year, or if you want to inject some positivity into the office as everyone returns to their desks and the new normal World of Work (WOW!) emerges, then his uniquely tailored customer service laughter sessions are definitely worth booking!
I assure you, if nothing else, you and your teams will have a belly ache for days afterwards – in a really good way obvs. You’ll also help Pete’s mission for this year, which is “to bring laughter to a million people in 2021” and I’m sure you’ll agree – that’s a beautiful mission and a lovely way to keep us all smiling, as we journey ahead into whatever the ‘new normal’ working world holds for us.
It’s so true that laughter is the best medicine – and I’d take a cup or two of Pete Cann’s Laughter Yoga any day of the week, that’s for sure 🤣
Until next time – keep laughing and stay FIT!
Best regs
Marie X
