How do we Evaluate the Future of Service? - Jonathan Shroyer

In today’s episode, I chat with Jonathan Shroyer, a San Mateo, CA-based Chief Customer Experience Innovation Officer, at Arise Virtual Solutions Inc., a disruptive technology platform connecting the world’s biggest brands with a previously untapped network of small business owners and their agents. Prior to this, he held roles with Microsoft and Kabam.

Jonathan’s mantra as a leader is to dream big and go forth to achieve what others say is not possible. The future is built by those that say how can it be done and adapt Nelson Mandela’s ‘Win or Learn’ philosophy. The results speak for themselves, as Jonathan has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal with a Lifetime Achievement Award, by Forbes and Fortune USA as one of the Top CX Professionals of 2022

Given the depth and breadth of his experiences, it was rather predictable that we discussed the future of work. And I was particularly interested in Jonathan’s take given the diversity of organizations he’s supported. We also tackled customer experience, and more broadly, its intersection with employee experience. 

I’ve been saying for years now that a merger between Marketing and HR is in the not-too-distant future. The melding of inside and outside voices necessary to ensure organizations not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. 

It was such a pleasure connecting with Jonathan. And I hope you enjoy it. 

Jonathan Shroyer

Jonathan’s mantra as a leader is to dream big and go forth to achieve what others say is not possible... The future is built by those that say how can it be done and adapt Nelson Mandela’s Win or Learn philosophy. This has never been more evident than in co—founding of Officium Labs, which Arise acquired in 2021. Jonathan also believes actions speak louder than words.

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Constraints drive innovation. We tackle the most complex issues related to work & culture. And if you enjoy the work we’re doing here, consider giving us a 5-star rating, leaving a comment & subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content & really helps amplify our message.

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Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Guest 1: Used to be in the nineties, like pick up a telephone, right? And then in the two thousands it was like email and then it went to chat. And now you know, there's all kinds of places that you can get service, and I think the smart companies are realizing that you serve customers where they want to be served at.[00:00:20] 

And you don't force them to go through your channels or your hoops, so you meet them where they are. And so I think that's, that's an important feature.[00:00:40] 

[00:00:40] Matt: Constraints strive, innovation. Hey everyone. It's Matt here for another episode of Thinking Inside the Box, a show where we discuss complex issues related to work and culture. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us@bentohr.com and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

By [00:01:00] searching, thinking inside the box, and if you enjoy the work we're doing here, consider leaving us a five star rating, a comment, and subscribe. It ensures you get updated whenever you release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Jonathan Schroer, Chief Customer Experience [00:01:20] Innovation Officer at a Arise Virtual Solutions, a disruptive technology platform that connects the world's biggest brands with a previously untapped network of small business owners and their agents.

Prior to this, Jonathan held roles with companies such as Microsoft and Kabam. His mantra as a leader is to dream big [00:01:40] and go forth to achieve what others say is not. He believes the future is built by those that say, how can it be done and adapts Nelson Mandela's win or learn philosophy. The results well, they speak for themselves as Jonathan has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal with a [00:02:00] Lifetime Achievement Award by Forbes and Fortune USA as one of the top customer experience professionals of 2020.

Given the depth and breadth of his experiences, it was rather predictable that we discuss the future of work. And I was particularly interested in Jonathan's take, given his diversity of [00:02:20] the organizations he's worked for and supported. We also tackled the big topic of customer experience and more broadly, it's intersection with employee experience.

I've been saying for years. That a merger between marketing and HR in traditional corporate functions is in the not too distant future. [00:02:40] The melding of inside voice and outside voice necessary to ensure that future organizations not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. And it was a real pleasure connecting with Jonathan.

Hope you enjoy it. And now I bring you Jonathan Schrey. Jonathan, I'm [00:03:00] okay that you keep your camera on, that you keep your camera off. I'm really excited for this conversation. I've been looking forward to it now for a couple of weeks. We, we had to reschedule cuz of calendars and uh, I'm really excited to have a really rich discussion with you regarding service, the future of service, future of work, and a whole bunch of other cool topics.

Before we get into that, [00:03:20] I would love to learn a bit more about you, your background and your experiences and what led you to. 

[00:03:24] Guest 1: So I started off, I guess it was 20 some odd years ago as an agent on the phone providing customer service for Microsoft Word 97, if you can imagine. So its ages, ages ago. Um, but early on in my [00:03:40] life, I, I kind of gravitated towards the, the word service and what service meant, like servicing your community, servicing your family, uh, servicing your church, servicing your school, those types of things.

And so, as. Had different roles in my career. I've always knew that like, if I could be in the service, [00:04:00] somebody else helping them be successful, it would bring me a lot of gratification. And so my entire career has been focused on service type roles. When I was 21, I, I made a goal, a 20 year plan. You become the CEO of my own company and it was service tech kind of company.

And so I kind of [00:04:20] went, started off with that frontline role and went from there. I've always been super passionate about services. I'm excited to. To dig into that, Dig into how that relates to other sister topics around marketing, hr, other things of that nature, cuz they're all kind of related. When we think about, 

[00:04:37] Matt: it's an interesting topic for a number of reasons and I'll maybe share [00:04:40] with you an anecdote as jumping off point for the conversation.

So I spent most of my career as a human resources executive in large organizations where we were always trying to strike a balance between personalization and automation. Where working with companies like Walmart, where there's 2 million employees worldwide, but in my business unit there was [00:05:00] 96,000.

And trying to create a sense of connection, a sense of belonging, and a sense of culture with a workforce that's that dispersed with that many varying needs across so many different segments of the population. Clearly a challenge layer on that. Challenges related to retail being quite a transient workforce.

We give a lot of turnover. The [00:05:20] idea of building, sustaining, re evolving, refining culture has its own complexities, just given the nature of the work itself and. We would always say internally, um, that we wanted things to go slower. That change happens so quickly in a company of that level of complexity, that there was always this internal [00:05:40] sentiment that we wish that changes would happen a little bit more thoughtfully and a little bit more slowly, cuz then we'd have a chance to properly ingest them, to build culture, to build momentum, to build values.

And then there was the simultaneous recognition that as consumers we couldn't have changed fast. That we want the latest iPhone as quickly as [00:06:00] possible. We want the latest innovation around immersive technology or AI or you know, big data, whatever that looks like. We have this curiosity, this fascination as consumers for service in all of its forms.

But as practitioners, we can sometimes struggle with the pace of change rate of. I think it's a jumping off point for [00:06:20] service. I'd love to learn a bit about your view of the word, and you talked about, you know, if you will, dedicating your life's work to it. What does service mean for you and how has it showed up in your life in the roles that you've been able to, uh, influence?

[00:06:33] Guest 1: When I think about service, I think about. The entire journey that a customer or an [00:06:40] employee takes, right? It's not, you know, when they have an issue and how do you help them through that issue. It's about how, how did you develop and design the experience that that customer, that employee's gonna go through?

How have you determined when you think hiccups or challenges will come up? How do you proactively address [00:07:00] those and then in some cases, Reactively address those and create the optimum experience. Or whether it's the employee, whether it's the customer, they get back to what they love, which is either your product or, or the company that they chose to work for.

So I look at it in a very broad sense of like the entire journey that a customer or [00:07:20] employee takes. And I think that if you think about it from that perspective, then it changes your mindset to think about, well, how do we think about the future of service and how do we think. The, the power that service can have inside of cultures, The power that service can have inside of communities, of your, your product [00:07:40] owners or your, your customers, and really thinking through that.

And if you always think like they use this term lately, servant leadership. And if you think about yourself as a, as a servant leader or if you think about yourself as a service servant company, then it changes your mindset to realize like, Oh, we're designing something to serve [00:08:00] somebody else. And I think that's a big change that is starting to happen in some pockets of the world, but definitely will continue 

[00:08:06] Matt: to mature.

And you referenced what you think about in terms of the future, and I'm just curious for, if you will, at 20,000 feet, what do you, what do you see for some of the future shifts that are gonna occur in service or perhaps some of the shifts we already have been seeing [00:08:20] that are worth calling out? But I think there's 

[00:08:22] Guest 1: probably two or three here.

I think one service. Used to be in the nineties, like pick up a telephone, right? And then in the two thousands it was like email and then it went to chat. And now, you know, there's all kinds of places that you can get service. And I think the smart companies are realizing that [00:08:40] you serve customers where they want to be served at, and you don't force them to go through your channels or your hoops, so you meet them where they are.

And so I think that's, that's an important future. The second one is companies are gonna start to think about their customers as decade. Customers two decades, three decades long type of customers. [00:09:00] And because they're gonna do that, they're gonna design the experience and the service that they provide to be more thoughtful and more long term, rather than short term quarterly revenue gain.

And that's the second thing. I think the third thing is, As we think about service more specifically to, you know, how does a, an engagement [00:09:20] happen? You know, a lot of folks talk about automation. A lot of folks talk about people, some folks talk about hybrid. There's lots of different opinions. My view is that there will always be a human being at the center of any engagement that you have with a customer or with an employee.

There's naturally going to be technology and data [00:09:40] that you'll be able to leverage to make things more seamless. And to make things more automated, which will be to the benefit of the employee or the customer. But at the end of the day, the most meaningful engagement that a customer and employee will be have is with another person that they either they do business with or that they.[00:10:00] 

Sure. Product with, 

[00:10:01] Matt: I think you're correct, uh, for a number of reasons, not the least of which, as you reference is the evolution of thinking around what service meets. And, you know, we talked offline about the parallels between employee experience and customer experience. And if we just stay with a minute for a minute with the customer experience example, [00:10:20] There was this expectation traditionally, of the consumer having to do a lot of the legwork to achieve level satisfaction or service from the, the enterprise, the, the organization.

And now we absolutely see with obviously the explosion of e-commerce, the democratization of access to services and content and information. [00:10:40] We're now starting to see the proliferation of more service oriented organizations. Such that even some of 'em, the more traditional providers, your big banks, your hospitals, your government organizations are also in a lot of cases working to streamline and take a more service-oriented mindset themselves.

Jonathan, I recently had on [00:11:00] the show here, Sim Suku, who is the previous CIO for the government of Estonia, who did a lot of work around their e residency program and creating better access for citizens into the Astonian government for things like. Permitting or licenses or visas and things of that nature.

And they had a very, um, what I'll characterize as a very [00:11:20] innovative view, but in reality was, was in a lot of cases, bringing. 20th Century best practices to 21st century traditional organizations. And I'm curious, as you look at the broader trends, what are some of the bigger forces that you're sh seeing in more of those traditional entities or more of [00:11:40] those big, if you will, those larger traditional shifts around service and service mindset?

[00:11:44] Guest 1: When I think about. Where the industry's going, where transformation is happening. There's one thing that I always talk to folks about that will listen to me, and that is we have entered a a [00:12:00] phase of humanity where everything has a sense of urgency. Everything has become an eyeball game. . And so what I mean by that is whether you're using a mobile device, whether you're using a physical product, your tv, whatever it is, [00:12:20] the human brain and society has moved to this.

You know, what value can I get from this now and how long will it be entertaining and exciting and interesting to me? And when it, when it's done, then I'm leaving to go find something else. And so when, when you think about service from that context, you really have to think. [00:12:40] Which companies are going to be around in 10 or 20 years, and it's gonna be those companies that adapt and that changed to engage and meet customers where they are and meet the behavioral and expectation needs of the, the oncoming generations.

I mean, we all know the story of how Xerox was [00:13:00] one of the strongest companies, you know, in the seventies and eighties. And because they didn't adapt and transform, you know, they had a huge plunge of value. and we, we've seen that across the board. Like I was talking to a friend of mine earlier about how MySpace actually proceeded Facebook, but Facebook ended up winning that competition, [00:13:20] you know, because they focused on services that they felt was gonna be more engaging for the generational audience.

And so I think that when you think about these entities, when you're talking about vague, when you're talking about finance, government, and so. You have to think about like how, how well are they gonna transform? I, so I use Capital One as as [00:13:40] a bank, and the reason I use Capital One is I started using them 15 years ago.

Cause everything was online, everything was in the app. I didn't have to go into a branch and everything was seamless. And if I contacted their service center, I got the answer right away. Right? Where a lot of banks back in those days weren't there yet. Now we're seeing a lot of. Move in that [00:14:00] direction.

And so I think we're gonna see a lot of these more, you know, archaic legacy enterprise companies or entities start to innovate so they can become more competitive. And so they can, so they don't lose in the market. 

[00:14:13] Matt: And compounding challenges, we each have a very strong and personal [00:14:20] connection to our own expectations around levels of service.

And this shows up in a generational sense. Uh, you know, a re a reference I've brought up here on the podcast at least once before is, you know, I'll look at my parents and, you know, I still remember my mother lamenting the. Of tellers in our bank and the idea of having to move most of her transactions to, [00:14:40] you know, online banking.

And now she absolutely loves it and loves the visibility and the access and has her own rituals and routines for budgeting. But it started from a place of. We're gonna now introduce technology. Technology feels like a less human interface. Money is an intimate and personal transaction with myself and the bank.

Even [00:15:00] if that cashier and that teller is somebody who I don't personally know, I feel better about interacting with them than perhaps opening up a new browser on my desktop. And it was a shift in her expectations around, you know, digital service didn't necessarily have to. Lesser than it actually could mean greater than.

And the definition could actually be enhanced. [00:15:20] You know, as organizations or as leaders think about service, what role do you think technology plays in helping define service in the future? And you referenced, you know, the human at the center of it, you know, what are some suggestions that you would have organizations trying to find that balance between humanity and more of a technology centric approach to service or service oriented?

[00:15:40] Uh, 

[00:15:41] Guest 1: The way I kind of think about it as you were chatting about it, I was reminded of all the valuable time that I get back to do things that I want to do because technology exists today. So I, I think of very simple examples of I don't have to go to the grocery store anymore. [00:16:00] 98% of my shopping. You know, I do on apps, so I don't need to go do shopping anymore.

And what that allows me is it allows me to spend time on things that I think are more important and more valuable for me as a human being and the purpose that I have in my life with my family and so forth. [00:16:20] So if you think about that type of a mindset and you transpose that into corporations or to products, when you think about a human-centric approach, What you want to do is you want the human beings that are engaging with your product to get the most value out of the outta your product.

You want them to [00:16:40] be engaged with it. You want them to love it. There's a term called emotional affinity where everybody needs their cup of Joe or a cup of Starbucks a day because there's an emotional affinity with that. With that brand or with that cup of coffee, you almost feel like it's essential. And I think what technology allows is if you do it correctly, it allows your [00:17:00] customers to feel that emotional affinity with your brand because you're not forcing them to go through all of these hoops.

You're not forcing them to deal with all of these bots per se, but you're integrating technology in such a way that it's seamless enough that it solves. 80, 90% of the things that they didn't want to have to deal with in the first place and allows them to get to [00:17:20] the core of, of what they love about your product and engaging with that.

And I think that's kind of where that sweet spot. For technology and service and technology and product, is to open up that extra time to engage and have more valuable experiences with your product. 

[00:17:34] Matt: Well, and as you referenced, it's also about providing choice and providing flexibility to the [00:17:40] client to determine the customer.

When they want to access certain levels of service, and that's right, some items are better done asynchronously through a bot or an email help desk, or a message board or a Slack channel, and some things require synchronous communication, and there's obviously considerations around things like privacy information and sensitive information [00:18:00] being transmitted back and forth, and all those things come into play around service.

Hey everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's discuss. And before we continue, I want to make you aware of my latest creative project this week at Work, presented in [00:18:20] partnership with my good friend Chris Rainey of HR Leaders. Each Friday will live stream on LinkedIn at 7:00 AM Pacific Standard Time.

That's 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time and 3:00 PM GMT for our European viewers. And together bringing the latest trends news on topics emanating from organizations. Everything [00:18:40] from culture to technology and the future of work joining is easy. Just follow me on LinkedIn, click the bell at the top right hand side of my profile and you'll get notified when we go live each week.

And whether you do experience the content live or later, if you've been following me for a while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun banter Chris and I have developed over the [00:19:00] years and whether it's been podcasts or digital event. We're so excited to, again, bring you the topics affecting today's workplaces and their leaders.

And now back to our discussion. You know, we, we began this conversation offline talking about the inherent parallels between marketing and [00:19:20] hr, customer experience, employee experience, how in a lot of journals that I read today, a lot of articles I'm reading today, there's an increasing amount of momentum around let's define them.

One and the same. I've previously said in this podcast that I believe that the eventuality of marketing and HR and enterprise context, context is going to be a a [00:19:40] merger. What are your thoughts around service from an internal perspective, and what are some of the lessons that you've been able to acquire or take away from looking at service inside the four walls of an organization?

[00:19:51] Guest 1: It was an old UK show that I watched when I lived in London, 15 years. And it was about a bloke who owned a call center there. [00:20:00] And one of his sayings, which I love today, is Happy people sell. And, and what he means by that is there's a direct correlation between the experience that employees have inside a company to the experience that they give outside the company.

And I've always been a big [00:20:20] believer that, well, customers are the heart of your company. Employees are the life. And if you think about employees as as the lifeblood, it's so important that employees feel cared about. They feel that they have a purpose. The vision that the company has is something that they are aligned to [00:20:40] that they can buy into.

Because in essence, what ends up happening is if all of those things are true, then they become your marketing engineer. They become the people that. That tell everybody about your brand, they become natural horns, if you will. People can't see me, but I'm doing like a [00:21:00] horn where they're talking about how great my company is.

You know, how, how fun it is to work here, how well HR takes care of me. The culture's great, the core values aligned in me, and then it naturally becomes a marketing engine in and of. 

[00:21:15] Matt: and in an era where there's a lot of hang ring about hybrid [00:21:20] work and the freedom of independence, and you see, I seem like every other day I'm reading an article regarding some traditional company saying, Everyone get back to the office because productivity's dropped.

Because you guys are all working from home. Where lots of studies have born that out to be not factual. And the more [00:21:40] you dig into some of those questions, Aside from cases where there's a real operational imperative to be at a physical location, I mean, there's certain retail conduits, there's obviously first responders, and today predominantly teaching is still done in person.

So there are some roles that require to, you know, to be physically present. There are many roles and organizations that don't [00:22:00] require you to actually be at the work site, but that benefit from everyone being in a singular place of work and the challenge around. The shift from traditional organizations into hybrid organizations or even fully remote organizations is that it requires a complete rethinking of how informations flow throughout the [00:22:20] organization, how decisions are made, how power is afforded, and.

Claw back how you provide this, you know, how you provide a sense of clarity and transparency, but also provide a degree of, uh, comfort and security around legislation. Like it's a, it's a much more complicated, um, set of questions that you have to ask that [00:22:40] we ultimately take for granted when we're all in the phy same physical space.

A lot of these, the organic information economy that, that virtual water cooler. The drinks on Friday afternoon. These things take the place of what would otherwise have to be more intentional and thoughtful conversations in order to build relationships, build trust, and ultimately [00:23:00] to create some form of culture inside of an organization.

The reality is that. In most cases, organizations spend a lot more time thinking about their culture in an externally facing way, because it's the means of signalling to customers. What is their products, what are their services? Um, and ultimately what things do they stand for in an now a 21st [00:23:20] century landscape?

So as a means of generating. Awareness, impressions, and then ultimately sales and profit. Not as much time traditionally is spent looking at intentionality around this inside the four walls of an organization. And I'm curious when you think about service in a [00:23:40] traditional sense from a externally facing way, whether it's to your point, a more thoughtful web design to ensure there's less clicks and you know, Amazon is leading in this, you know, how, how few clicks can we get to between.

Your idea that I want to buy this, and how quickly the money comes outta your bank account. Like Amazon's are experts in removing steps in, in order to remove [00:24:00] resistance that ultimately increases conversion. And we've talked about customer service in a number of different contexts, whether it's face to face, whether it's, you know, that more traditional, um, telephone service.

So now, you know, digital service. What are some of those best practices that you've seen in a customer facing way that maybe perhaps. [00:24:20] Before, or even in this conversation, you thought now would be useful enhancements to bring inside of an organization? Yeah, I think you 

[00:24:26] Guest 1: covered a lot of topics there, so I'm gonna kind of parse through 'em a little bit if that's okay.

So the, the first one that you covered is the, kind of the transition to the hybrid work model and I, I did a research survey last week [00:24:40] and identified that 12% of people actually want to go back into the office and, and that's a huge, huge. Kind of finding that validates some of the things that you talked about earlier.

You have a lot of companies that are kicking against the pricks of that, that are trying to force folks to come back into the office, which is, in my mind, [00:25:00] kind of count counterculture. Cuz if your people are telling you what they want, And it's your responsibility as an organization to create a, an environment and a culture that enables them to get what they want.

And it also enables you to get what you need to kinda run and grow the business and so forth. So I think that's an interesting point that, that you, [00:25:20] that you brought up. I think when you think about. Things that work externally that you should bring internally. It reminds me of when I was the I IT services director at Autodesk, and I don't know how many big companies you've, you've worked in Matt, but oftentimes it seems to be the least customer [00:25:40] focused organization that there is.

And so in it, Yeah, when I came in to the IT team, I was like, Let's change this. Let's flip it on its head. Let's create an Apple genius bar in every facility globally, and let's, let's create a [00:26:00] satisfaction survey in a an effort score survey. And of course, this was 12 years ago, but let's, let's track the success of our IT team on the productivity.

Of the workers that we support. So how often did they have issues? When did we get, how easy did they get back to their issues? How much downtime are they having [00:26:20] because of hardware, software, and so forth. So we really thought about it from the end user perspective, which was, this employee needs to do the job.

They don't want to be hampered, they don't wanna be blocked, they just wanna do their job. And so then it really flipped on its head a traditional IT organization. And I really think like that's how you do an external [00:26:40] organization, right? If you're like, Well, we don't want the customers to have more, more barriers, more challenges to using the product than they have to.

If you use that same concept internally and you really implement it to where you look at, okay, well how do we track productivity? How do we track happiness? How do we track, you know, culture, those types of. [00:27:00] Then it really, those types of KPIs, drives, drives different behaviors than, Oh, how expensive is it?

Oh, how expensive is hr? Oh, how expensive are these other shared services roles? Right. Um, their cost centers rather than treat treating 'em as value centers, that can create productivity, um, inside the employee base, if that makes sense. 

[00:27:19] Matt: It makes total [00:27:20] sense. And on one hand, I, I understand that a shift to more of a service oriented department.

In a service oriented department to begin with. I totally understand the perspective cause I've, as you mentioned, worked in large organizations where it was often resource constrained, stretch beyond [00:27:40] belief. Yep. There wasn't, it wasn't malicious. It wasn't like it got up in the morning and said, Yeah, there is 

[00:27:43] Guest 1: never is.

They 

[00:27:44] Matt: just never get into money. Yeah, exactly. Just the resources are constrained and those that are available are going towards keeping whatever legacy systems are being propped up. And in the case of multinationals I've worked in, you're often, it's a fun, it's a jurisdictional issue where certain jurisdictions [00:28:00] have more advanced levels of service than others based on profitability and things of that nature.

So there's, there's complications to just simply service in those environments. Uh, I'm curious for you, you set about creating really clear measures of success both for your team and then for your team's impact within the broader organization. Did that have an effect? [00:28:20] The strength of the business case that you were able to build internally and therefore did that have any benefit on the resourcing or the support that you were able to receive internally in service to meeting your own goals, But ultimately the organization's brought our goals.

Yeah. 

[00:28:35] Guest 1: I mean, a, a few years ago when I founded aum, I [00:28:40] invented. A new methodology co the service tech maturity model, which is a, you think about it from a product set, there's a hundred features inside of it that a best in class services team would have externally and in internally. And what that model will enable any, any company that has a digital footprint is to prove that [00:29:00] customer service is a profit center.

And because I was able to change the language, Of the value that customer service or customer experience brought to the organization. It changed the investment appetite of the C teams across the many companies that I worked with. And so by simply changing the language and [00:29:20] changing that value, all of a sudden you started to see an enormous amount investment in the customer experience, customer service teams.

And then because of that, that investment followed through to the customers themselves. And because the customers themselves were feeling like they were treated better, they were. Revenue went up, the overall valuation of the company went [00:29:40] up, and then there was more money to invest in other organizations inside of the team.

And so really thinking about how do you change the narrative from Cost Center to Profit Center, leverage that language structure to work with executives at the power cores that make the decisions to then then invest appropriately to your end customers, then [00:30:00] enables funding that's needed in other organizations inside the.

[00:30:04] Matt: You've worked for a lot of very iconic brands that have had success across a number of industries. I think about companies like Microsoft, Kabam, and now of course with a Rise. Virtual Solutions, a real breadth of organizations located in different areas. Each have their own [00:30:20] culture, their own stories, their own mosaics of people that work in the organization themselves.

What have those experiences taught you about service? And you know, I guess maybe a more direct question, Jonathan would be is, as you've gone into your latest opportunity, what's something that you've learned about service that you maybe didn't bring from before? Something that's unique from this last experience that you took [00:30:40] away or have evolved your thinking around service?

[00:30:42] Guest 1: I think across those companies and a few of the other ones that I've, I've worked with, it's interesting, like, Every company has a different culture, right? And every company has a different power core that drives the decision making and then different imperatives of what success [00:31:00] looks like. And so when I look at the companies that are really customer centric and customer focused, those tend to be the companies that have the highest degree of stickiness, re by revenue, growth, and relevancy, you know, down the.

Companies that focus only on revenue, they tend to jump [00:31:20] over dimes to get to pennies. Companies that are only focused on technology and product, they tend to release cool products and technologies, but maybe the market isn't ready for them or the market isn't adopting. So I think you have to have that, uh, hybrid approach where you're looking across what are the core values of the company, what's the purpose, the guiding principles, and [00:31:40] then what's the vision and what do we stand for?

Then how does that bring value? internally, and then how does that bring value externally? I think more specific to your last question is one of the things I've learned, cuz over the last three years I've run a completely decentralized team, so there's been no offices, right? And so one of the things that I've learned is oftentimes in, in decentralized [00:32:00] teams, accidentally, people start to create narratives in their own head that aren't true because they just haven't seen another person in a while, or they haven't engaged with another person to, to not validate what they're.

And so what I've learned is that. Asynchronous real time type of communication all throughout the day [00:32:20] on Slack versus like email or on something like Slack is so important to keep that engagement with every person in the organization. I do so much more in asynchronous communication and talking with people than I ever did in earlier jobs because it's so necessary to keep the people that are on their different decentralized islands around [00:32:40] the globe that work for me to keep.

Connected to the center culture, the central vision, and to help them feel valued and feel that their purpose is appreciated. And that's something that I really learned over the past few years around services. Cause then, If they fill that, then they provide great service for our customers. It's really 

[00:32:57] Matt: contagious, isn't it?

Yeah. It's one of those [00:33:00] things where when you have that service mindset, when you have that service orientation, it very much permeates throughout the organization and a term we used earlier that I want to come back to is this idea of servant leadership. And as somebody who has built and scaled and innovated within service organizations for years, [00:33:20] I know you have strong opinions about the idea of servant leadership and service.

I'm curious if, if, for the leaders that are just starting out in this path, That maybe haven't thought about their roles or their organizations or their functions as service organizations or service functions or service roles, how can they begin the path to maybe take that mindset or apply that [00:33:40] lens to their teams, their work, their organizations, ultimately in service to delivering better work?

I think 

[00:33:45] Guest 1: it's as simple as 30 minutes each week you sit down with a pen and a piece of paper. You eradicate all noise and distractions. And you just write down how can you help [00:34:00] people, whether it's people in your personal life, in your professional life, whatever. Just start the process of how can you help somebody else?

And I think if you do that enough, enough weeks in a row, all of a sudden you, you become this service oriented service leader where you're constantly thinking about, my [00:34:20] job is to be helpful, to be of service. To drive value and it becomes second nature after a while if it's not artist second nature for you.

And then if you continue to do that, you'll be surprised that. Oh, wow. I could really help a lot more people than I thought that I could. I could make an impact on somebody's life, not because I need something in return, [00:34:40] but because I just want to be helpful. Because when I'm helpful, the rest of the team runs so much better than if I'm focused on X, Y, or Z, or this deliverable or that deliverable, or what people think of my performance or whatever.

If you just focus on how you can help. It's gonna make the biggest difference for 

[00:34:57] Matt: any leader. Jonathan, it's been a really [00:35:00] fascinating conversation and I really enjoyed your perspective. I'm gonna link all of your details in the show notes of this podcast for folks who wanna reach out to you specifically.

Um, you have such a breadth of experiences. I'm looking forward to continuing this conversation offline. Just wanna wish you really well in the future. 

[00:35:15] Guest 1: Yeah, thanks Matt. It's great to, to come on the podcast. Be an honored guest of yours and, and [00:35:20] I've also loved listening to your other guests. I'm glad that I able add a little bit of wisdom as it work to the overall conversations.

Thank you.

[00:35:37] Matt: N O HR is a digital transformation consultancy [00:35:40] working at the intersection of strategy, technology, and people operat. We partner with organizations, private equity and venture capital firms to accelerate value creation and identify the organization's highest leverage initiatives. And this can take place in many forms from strategic planning and alignment to technology, [00:36:00] procurement, implementation, and integration along with organizational design, process reengineering and change management.

With our proven track record of working with complex high growth organizations, we provide a lens that goes beyond the balance sheet, increasing enterprise readiness, resilience, and [00:36:20] value. For more information, check us out@bentohr.com.