Dick Richards

First published in Industry Week Growing Companies Edition

Almost every business leader with whom I have consulted has been passionately interested in customer service. Billions of dollars and uncountable hours are spent improving it. Yet most shopping trips, flights, or calls to a help desk remind us that the general state of customer service remains abysmal.

Why is this so? One answer to that question involves artistry, leadership, and mythology.

Leadership is an art. The artistic medium of leaders is the energy of followers. Just as a painter activates the energy of paint, a leader activates human energy. So leaders must be acquainted with human energy in the same way that a painter must be acquainted with the spectrum of color.

One well-known theory describes four kinds of human energy: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. We expend physical energy when using our bodies. Mental energy is activity of the mind. Emotional energy arises when we have strong feelings. Spiritual energy emanates from being inspired by something larger than ourselves: an idea, a cause, a god, or a country. These four energies are to human energy as primary colors are to the color spectrum; everything else is a mixture of these fundamentals. Leaders must understand the four forms of human energy, how they interact, and how they appear in behavior.

Poet Robert Bly says he believes there is a fifth form of human energy, “mythic energy.” Bly does not expand on this belief, but from the body of his work one can surmise he believes mythic energy is the result of archetypal forces at play in the realm of human beings. In less lofty terms, mythic energy may be at play when we believe our spouses ought to be divine, our mothers earthy, our fathers wise, and our leaders heroic.

I believe Bly is correct. So leaders also ought to be aware of how mythic forces such as divinity, earthiness, wisdom, and heroism interact with one another through the people around them

We might better understand the consequences of expecting our spouse to be divine by examining myths about divine romantic partners. We might better appreciate the value and costs of expecting heroism from leaders by examining myths about heroism. We might also better understand customer service by examining myths about people serving other people. But, guess what? There don’t seem to be many such myths.

Our mythologies do contain tales about serving a country or god, but not serving one another. Since God is persona non grata in most companies, we are left with borrowing myths from war; about winning, destroying enemies, and marching triumphantly. This may not be the most fertile imagery to provoke service to others, and may contribute to viewing customers as enemies.

Our mythologies also contain stories of servants getting back at their masters by such means as sleeping with the master’s wife, poisoning the master’s food, or otherwise causing mayhem. This may partially explain why employees sometimes sabotage the organizations that provide their jobs.

We are suffering a kind of “myth-hunger” about customer service. If you lead an organization, and you want improved service to customers, you can do at least two things to satisfy that hunger.

First, tell tales of extraordinary service that come from your organization. Tom Peters made a splash some years ago by telling tales of customer service that are now legendary; tales about Nordstom and Federal Express for example. Find stories from your organization’s past or present and tell them over and over for years and years until they take on mythic proportions.

Second, get your people talking about when they received extraordinary service from someone else. Ask them, “How can we be like that?” One of my clients created an understanding of world class service by asking employees to talk about times when they had an over-the-top positive experience as a customer. The stories bred suggestions about what might be done in their company.

In the absence of a rich body of mythology about service to others, a leader can practice the art of leadership by creating one.

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