“In fact, it is a constitutive characteristic of being human that it always points, and is directed, to something other than itself.” – Viktor Frankl

The key to finding happiness at work may not have anything to do with you at all.

It was a bitter northern Colorado winter day last December. The kind of day when college students hopefully wait for the magical e-mail letting them know class is cancelled. It never came on this day.

The campus was a barren bright white desert as windswept snow swirled across an almost-empty parking lot. I was on campus early for a meeting and as I was walking on an uncleared sidewalk, I saw one of the campus facilities workers on the opposite sidewalk get off his adapted backhoe and start manually and meticulously clearing a portion of the concrete. He was diligently making sure that from edge-to-edge, the sidewalk was completely clear.

As we made eye contact, he stopped what he was doing and silently trudged over to a piece of sidewalk about 10 feet in front of me, and upon noticing me, vigorously restarted his tried method of clearing the sidewalk.

As I passed, I said, “Thanks.”

He looked up and said, “How’s it going today?”

“Okay,” I said, “Ready for the snow to be over! You?”

“As long as I can keep these sidewalks clear for the students, I am a happy man!” he said, laughing hard to himself.

There was no supervisor there to motivate him. There was no one even there (except me) to see and reward him for a job well done. Pay and benefits in that type of job aren’t the greatest. The task itself wasn’t especially designed to be motivating.

So, then, what was motivating him? Maybe a better question is: What was pulling him through the apparent drudgery of the work in the unforgiving weather?

The object of his behavior was not himself, not his paycheck, not some reward or recognition. It seemed to be something more. His behaviors and attitudes seemed oriented toward something more powerful than the usual motivation suspects.

The purpose of a university, the students – as he said himself – was the object inspiring his exceptional work.

He was working to deliver the higher organizational purpose and not for himself.

It is this space between, the invisible leader, between him and the purpose that modern organizations and their leaders need to be especially concerned with. This space, this energy, is characterized in the psychological literature as self-transcendence.

Why should we care?

If you are in your office right now, chances are that that at least one of the people in the offices on either side of you dislikes their job.

With 70 percent of Americans disengaged in their work and managers and leaders theorizing how to motivate a purpose-oriented millennial workforce, commitment and motivation bestsellers are in vogue.

The problem is that most of these books focus on things we can “do” to push employees and not the things we believe in that pull employees toward something greater that themselves.

We try to keep employees happy, not recognizing that happiness and well-being themselves are not sustainable objects of behavior, rather, as Maslow and Frankl hypothesized, these are the side-effects of pursuing a meaning or calling greater than oneself.

Studies back this up. Psychologists have found that when over 435 college students were surveyed, 68% of them indicated that a spiritual calling and sense of higher purpose at work was important to them. When over 370 employees were surveyed, 62% percent of them indicated that a connection to a higher purpose was a critical aspect of their work.

This is precisely why focusing on the psychological and spiritual notion of self-transcendence to a higher organizational purpose is critical in the modern workplace.

Self-Transcendence Pulls, Motivation Pushes

“It is one of the immediate data of life experience that man is pushed by drives but pulled by meaning.” – Viktor E. Frankl

There is a reason we have tow-trucks and not push-trucks. Basic physics tells us that, “…when you push there is one component of force that adds to the weight of the body and hence there is more friction. When you pull the vertical component of force is against the weight of body and hence there is less overall friction. So it is easy to pull than push an object.”

This physics lesson provides an example of why most motivation tactics in our organizations ultimately fail or are short-lived. We are trying to push people by offering rewards, big salaries, and flashy perks. This is hard and expensive pushing! And, it almost always is short-lived.

Self-transcendence, however, pulls.

Self-transcendence can best and most simply be defined as the phenomenon that occurs when one’s behaviors are oriented toward an object outside of oneself. In the workplace, studies have shown that one of the most powerful objects of this behavior is a higher organizational purpose that serves society and others beyond the bounds of the organization.

In their book, Make Your Job a Calling, psychology professors Bryan Dik and Ryan Duffy found that when employees have a calling with a “transcendent summons” (that is, an outside object inspiring behaviors) “…they are more committed to their jobs and organizations, more intrinsically motivated and engaged, and more satisfied with their jobs.”

By creating and fostering organizational cultures that are oriented toward a compelling global purpose, thereby inspiring a self-transcendence to this purpose, we can pull employees toward a inspiring higher organizational purpose.

Because a higher organizational purpose and meaning is never able to be completely satisfied because of its global nature, the pull will always be there.

That is why in organizations with a deeply held and compelling higher organizational purpose, there is a constant striving to deliver the purpose.

That is why, I believe, in the bitter cold, that worker was meticulously clearing the sidewalk.

In this striving to deliver a purpose, happiness and satisfaction are then allowed to ensue – attitudes the American workforce could surely use right now.

This is a guest post by my friend Zach Mercurio.  Zach is a speaker, trainer, and writer who believes that what you do in your life and work will only ever be as good as why you do it. He has found that when people believe they matter, know why, and deliver that why consistently, organizations, teams, and their customers are happier, healthier and more inspired. www.ZachMercurio.com Blog: www.PurposeSpeaks.com

Click Here to Watch the Video Trailer (45 seconds)

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE’VE FILLED UP OUR TEAM AS OF 9 DECEMBER 2015 AND ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING NEW LAUNCH TEAM MEMBERS.

Would you like a free copy of my new book, The Mindfulness Edge?

We’re giving away 200 copies to our special Launch Team.

Below, you’ll find an overview of the book, and instructions on how you can receive a free copy and be part our Launch Team.

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How to Receive A Free Copy of The Mindfulness Edge

To receive a free copy of The Mindfulness Edge, all we ask is that you do the following:

1)  Help us spread the word the week of 29 February – 4 March, 2016 by sharing your unique link to our book launch promotion via social media and e-mail (click this link to see how it will work).

You would skip right to Page 3 of the promotion and be considered to have purchased the book in the promotion, so you will be eligible for all of the $100s of rewards for referring friends without having to actually buy the book.

2)  Sometime in March, 2016, we ask that you post an honest review of the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads.

3) If you apply and are accepted to be part of the “Advance Copy Team” on the form below (the link is in #4), we ask that you read the advance copy prior to 4 March, 2016 and post a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads the week 7-11 March, 2016.

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE’VE FILLED UP OUR TEAM AS OF 9 DECEMBER 2015 AND ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING NEW LAUNCH TEAM MEMBERS.

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Overview of:

The Mindfulness Edge: How to Rewire Your Brain for Leadership and Personal Excellence Without Adding to Your Schedule

There is a simple practice that can improve nearly every component of leadership and personal excellence and it doesn’t require adding anything to your busy schedule. In The Mindfulness Edge, you’ll discover how a subtle inner shift, called mindfulness, can transform the things you already do every day into opportunities to change your brain in ways that improve both the “hard skills” and “soft skills” of leadership.  A large body of research in neuroscience suggests that with mindfulness training, you can actually “rewire” your brain for leadership and personal excellence, while also becoming happier.

In this book, you’ll learn how mindfulness training helps you:

• Quickly improve business decisions
• Become more innovative
• Develop the emotional intelligence skills essential for creating and sustaining a winning team culture
• Realize the extraordinary leadership presence that inspires greatness in others
• Live a happier, more meaningful life

Advance Praise for The Mindfulness Edge

“This is an extraordinary book!  The Mindfulness Edge will help you take advantage of your greatest strategic asset: your mind.  This book offers a practical path to mastering your mind – and changing your brain in ways essential for effective leadership – with one simple habit.  Develop this habit and you will not only be more successful both professionally and personally, you’ll be more fulfilled as well.”

Skip Prichard – President & CEO, OCLC, Leadership Insights blogger at skipprichard.com

“I thoroughly enjoyed this valuable book.  Matt Tenney and Tim Gard show quite clearly how mindfulness can transform everyday activities into opportunities to change our brains in ways that improve essential leadership skills.  They also offer a practical, enjoyable path to consistently being the leaders we aspire to be.”

Bob Hottman – CEO, EKS&H

“This is a game-changing book. Based on cutting-edge research and illuminated by real-world examples and practical guidance, The Mindfulness Edge can take your business acumen, leadership skills, and personal growth to a higher level.  I have read roughly 2,000 business books and this one is now in my top 10.”

John Spence – Named one of the top 500 leadership development experts in the world by HR.com

“I found this book very insightful. It serves as a practical training manual for improving self-awareness, and shows how self-awareness impacts nearly every aspect of leadership.  This book will not only help you to be a better leader, it will also help you to enjoy the journey.”

Gregory A. Serrao – Executive Chairman, American Dental Partners, Inc

“In The Mindfulness Edge, Matt Tenney and Tim Gard present – in an engaging and inspiring way – a practical method of ‘strength training’ for the most important ‘muscle’ in your body: your brain. This insightful book is a game plan on how to apply mindfulness training to create the self-awareness and mental agility needed for impactful leadership. This is a must-read for any leader looking to raise the bar of excellence, while also becoming happier!”

Chris Thoen – Sr.  VP, Global Head Flavour Science + Technology, Givaudan Flavours Corp.

“I truly enjoyed this book!  The applications and narrative herein apply not only to leadership but also to life.  With readable and to-the-point information on mindfulness backed by rigorous neuroscience, I strongly recommend The Mindfulness Edge to people new to the practice and to people with a long-standing interest.”

Tara Swart, M.D., Ph.D., CEO, The Unlimited Mind, Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan, and Author of Neuroscience for Leadership

“I recommend The Mindfulness Edge to leaders of all types.  The book offers a path to self-mastery through mindfulness and guidance for applying that self-mastery to enhance the effectiveness of your employees and company, thereby more positively impacting your clients.  The authors explain the practice in great detail, inviting reflection along the way, and show how mindfulness training can be easily integrated into daily routines with a measurable impact on your home, social, and business worlds.”

Rick Staab – CEO, InterMed

“If you want one book that dives deeply and eloquently into one of the single best ingredients for a healthy and effective brain, The Mindfulness Edge is it. Matt Tenney and Tim Gard pair up to give spot-on insights that will unleash some awesome things already hanging out in your head. Bathe your brain in this book and get ready to find a whole new you.”

Scott G. Halford — Executive Educator, National Hall of Fame Speaker, and author of Activate Your Brain

 “The brilliance of The Mindfulness Edge is that it deviates so significantly from the status quo.  Rather than merely add to the cacophonous volume of information and advice that overcrowds our mental faculties, this book offers practical, achievable guidance on how to skillfully embrace the chaos and complexity of today’s business environment so that we can uncover truly innovative solutions on our own.”

Martin Sirk – CEO, International Congress and Convention Association

“As the business and investment worlds tentatively shift their focus away from short-term transactions towards longer-term relationships, we need excellent leaders to strengthen this trend: Leaders with the skills to align our corporations and institutions with the needs of society, the economy, and the environment. The Mindfulness Edge is a timely and practical guide for those aspiring to this task.”

Colin Melvin – CEO, Hermes EOS

“The Mindfulness Edge offers a fresh and highly-practical approach to mastering mindfulness and creating inspiring, mindful workplaces.”

Michael Carroll – Author of The Mindful Leader

“Matt Tenny and Tim Gard haven written the first, really practical, neuroscience-based guide for enhancing leadership performance through mindfulness. You can start rewiring your brain now!”

Wibo Koole – Director Centrum voor Mindfulness, Amsterdam, and bestselling author of Mindful Leadership: Effective Tools That Help You Focus and Succeed

On a recent flight to a speaking engagement, I had a wonderful conversation with a senior leader of a midsize company. As usually happens, we got on the topic of how serving and caring for team members results in a better bottom line over the long term. This leader, who we’ll call Jeff, was as passionate about the idea of servant leadership as I am.

I asked Jeff about some of the specific actions he has taken over the years to better serve his team members. Although he shared several great practices, the one that really struck me was a step he takes in the hiring process as it applies to people who would have to change locations.

He mentioned that after he and his team have narrowed the pool of potential hires to their top choice, the final interview is scheduled. If the candidate has a family, the company pays to fly the family in to town and put that family up for a few days to allow them to explore the new town.

The last phase of the final interview is a dinner with the candidate and his or her spouse. Jeff’s focus during this interview is to get the spouse to open up about how he or she feels about the move, the new position, and the new location. He mentioned one specific interview in which the wife of the candidate made it very clear that the new location would put a significant strain on the family.

Although the candidate was a great fit in every other way, Jeff decided not to offer him the position. He knew that the strain on the candidate’s family and on his marriage would eventually lead to a lot of unhappiness for him and his family, as well as to suboptimal performance at work, and might result in the new hire having to leave after a few years, which would be more costly for the company over the long term.

A question I often receive during interviews or after keynote speeches is, “How would you summarize what a servant leader does differently than other leaders, in one sentence?” I believe Jeff provided a perfect example of this with how he handled the situation above.

A servant leader places equal or greater emphasis on identifying and helping to meet the legitimate needs of team members as he or she does on bottom results.

Although the legitimate needs people have will differ a bit from person to person, below are a few examples of very legitimate needs that every high-performing team member has:

• The need to be happy
• The need to feel safe
• The need to feel that they belong
• The need to continuously grow both personally and professionally

By ensuring that these legitimate needs are met for team members, a servant leader also ensures that she or he sustains a high-performance culture that attracts and retains highly talented, highly engaged people who consistently deliver bottom-line results.

What are some of the ways you work to meet the above needs for your team members?

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You’re driving in to work, and get stuck in horrible traffic. You’re going to be late.

You pull into the office parking lot 10 minutes after your scheduled start time. But your anxiety starts to wane a bit when you notice that there’s actually an open parking spot right near the front door.

You smile as you drive quickly toward the spot. It’s a miracle that a spot so close could be open at this time.

Your smile disappears, though, when you notice the sign in front of the parking spot. The words read, “Reserved for the CEO.”

Has something like that ever happened to you or someone you know?

Although the phenomenon of parking spots being reserved for executives seems to be pretty rare these days, we should look very closely at anything we do as leaders that could give the appearance that we are somehow elevated above team members on any type of pedestal.

The pedestals for leaders can come in many varieties. They can be very subtle, like simply failing to show a willingness to do what we ask team members to do.

The pedestals can also be much more obvious, like perks, or even pay.

There seems to be an inverse correlation between elevating oneself above team members and leadership effectiveness.

For instance, in an interesting article on CBSNews.com it was noted that the median annual compensation for CEOs of the public companies in the Customer Service Hall of Fame was a little over $3 million, while the median annual compensation for CEOs of companies in the Customer Service Hall of Shame was a whopping $14.9 million. This data suggests that there may be a correlation between selfish senior leaders and poor customer service.*

Of course, there is likely a correlation between being selfish as a leader and poor performance in most, if not all, areas of leadership. A leader who puts himself before his team members is going to have an incredibly difficult time creating and sustaining a highly-engaged, high-performance team.

This is why it is so critical that we look for and remove as many of the little ways we put ourselves on pedestals as leaders as possible. These are signs of selfishness. They are signs of inevitable failure.

A leader who can relate to team members, makes the effort to share in their struggles, and shows a willingness to do anything she asks her team members to do is likely going to be much more effective by every metric.  She knows that if anyone should be placed on a pedestal, it should be the team members who go above and beyond to do great things.

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Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m not an optimist, I’m a realist,”? Do you think those two things are mutually exclusive?

I certainly don’t. And I think it’s absolutely essential for leaders to be a perfect combination of both. Healthy optimism begins with being realistic about the current state of affairs.

One of the key jobs of leadership is to create – or co-create with team members – a compelling, optimistic vision of a future that is a significant improvement of the current situation. In many ways, there can be great advantages to creating a vision so optimistic that it doesn’t even seem possible. This can inspire team members to accomplish something truly great, and can often result in actually achieving what hadn’t seemed possible when the journey began.

One of example of this was the vision John F. Kennedy’s proclaimed to the nation at a Joint Session of Congress on 25 May, 1961, when he announced the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. At the time, NASA had essentially no idea how they could possibly put a man on the moon, nor any of the technology that would eventually be used to do it. The US had lagged behind the Soviet Union in even getting a man into space.

But the vision was so compelling to so many people. As a result, the goal was achieved when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on 20 July, 1969.

Before we can chart a course for such a compelling vision, though, we must be absolutely clear about our starting point. In an oversimplified example, let’s imagine that we’d like to get to Paris, France. However, we’re not sure if we’re starting in Cape Town, South Africa or Sao Paolo, Brazil.

It would be quite a challenge to chart a course to Paris in that case, wouldn’t it?

Similarly, if we don’t have highly realistic, accurate knowledge of the emotional climate of our team, our strengths and weaknesses and those of team members, or other key elements of executing a strategy, even the best strategy is at risk of failing.

We must be able to see our current situation clearly: not how we feel it is – which can be very biased – or how we hope it is, but how it actually is. We need to be brutally honest about where we’re at in order to have the best chance of successfully planning and executing on a plan to get where we want to go.

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As leaders, one of our priorities should be to learn what’s important in the personal and professional lives of the people on our teams. We can learn these things through informal conversation, or we can learn them via a more systematic process like having regularly-scheduled, “How can I serve you?” meetings.

Once we learn what’s important to team members, another priority should be to help team members do the things that are most important to them.

I recently had a chat with Kristen Hadeed, the CEO of innovative commercial cleaning company called Student Maid. The company only hires college students with a GPA of 3.5 or better, which inspires confidence in clients.

Student Maid’s most disruptive innovation is their incredible workplace culture. The leaders at Student Maid invest a lot of resources in developing team members both personally and professionally, and building authentic relationships with team members.

The culture that Student Maid has built is probably its greatest competitive advantage.

Most cleaning companies experience incredibly high turnover, only able to retain employees for an average of a few months. Student Maid retains employees for an average of two-and-one-half years and, in most cases, the employees leave only because they have to, when they graduate. They cannot be a team member at Student Maid if they’re not students.

One of the most important elements of the culture at Student Maid, is the level of care the leaders demonstrate for team members. The leaders at Student Maid realize that a team member’s personal life is just as important as her life at work. If a team member isn’t happy at home, or in his relationships, or is struggling in school, he is certainly going to bring at least a portion of the problem to work, and that is going to affect his performance.

During my discussion with Kristen Hadeed, she mentioned the newest initiative at Student Maid, which is a wonderful, systematic way of helping team members in their personal lives. Inspired by Matthew Kelly’s book, The Dream Manager, a new position was recently created at Student Maid, called the DreamLeader.

This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post, to continue reading, please click here.

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The zygomaticus muscle aids in lifting the corners of the mouth.  You could try exercising it right now if you like.  Now, you are probably smiling.

A very powerful tool for better serving and caring for team members – with a very large return on investment relative to the effort – is to exercise your smiling muscles more often.

The encouragement to smile more doesn’t mean that we should ignore or repress unpleasant emotions when they arise.  We should certainly acknowledge those emotions and investigate how they are manifesting in the body.

However, once we are objectively aware of an unpleasant emotion in this way, there is no reason why we can’t smile at the emotion, and smile at ourselves. We might smile with the thought, “Hello there anger. I see you. Here’s a smile for you.”

Smiling results in numerous benefits to you personally. When you smile, you:

• Are likely less caught in an unpleasant emotion, and therefore more productive
• Are likely to be more relaxed and think more clearly
• Look more attractive (some research suggests this is quite quantifiable)
• Probably project greater confidence
• Can boost your immune system
• Are likely to have reduced heart rate and blood pressure

There are three main reasons why smiling authentically (which includes smiling eyes along with a smiling mouth) more often helps us to lead more effectively:

1.  Smiling is highly contagious.  The more often we smile, the more often the people around us are likely to smile.  When other people smile, they are likely to receive all of the benefits mentioned above.

Imagine how productive an entire team of people would be if they spent significantly more time experiencing the benefits above.  Imagine the long-term effects of a culture that more consistently experiences the benefits listed above, such as attracting better team members, reducing turnover, and reducing sick days taken.

Even if you could improve those things just a little bit, without any investment of time or money, it would clearly be very helpful in terms of achieving better business outcomes.

As leaders, we can improve those things a little bit by simply smiling more.  We set the tone of the team culture.  Why not ensure that tone includes more smiling?

2.  People trust us more when we smile.  Trust is one of the core foundations of effective leadership.  The more trust we inspire in team members, the better able we are to influence behaviors in a positive way.

3.  People feel more cared for in our presence.  When people feel cared for in our presence, we further increase the influence that results in people going the extra mile for their team, not because they have to, but because they want to.

Here’s a simple idea for improving your ability to smile more often.  Find some ways to remind yourself to smile any time you change activities or posture.  For instance, any time you’re about to open another e-mail, switch websites, start working on a different task, stand up, sit down, etc., these changes can serve as reminders to take a breath, notice what’s happening in your body, and smile for a moment.  You might like to start with just a couple activities for the first week, and then add a couple more each week.

As a side effect of this practice, you’ll likely notice that in addition to the professional benefits, you’re significantly happier, too.  You’ll discover that smiling authentically can actually give rise to the emotion of joy.

Your joy is a gift to others.  It’s another lovely way to better serve and care for team members.

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If you’re like most people I know, your to-do list is pretty long.

I find it very helpful to reflect on which things are important enough that I need to be sure I’m doing them on a weekly basis, even if that means only taking a few small steps in the right direction. Otherwise, I’ve found it’s so easy to get distracted each day by the “urgent” issues that come up that I neglect what I’ve determined through analysis to be most important to my personal and professional success.

Have you taken time to reflect on which activities are so important to your personal and professional success that you should definitely commit to taking at least some action on them each week?

I’ve also made a list of things that are so important that I commit to doing them every day.

The list includes things like doing something to help at least three people, learning something new, and working to ensure that every interaction I have with other people is positive, and leaves others at least a little bit better off than I found them.

However, one of the items on the daily list of things that I have found are most important to my personal and professional success is very counter culture.

This article was originally published on the Huffington Post.  To continue reading, please click here.

In the early 1900s, a metallurgist named Harry Brearly began working on a project to improve the barrels of rifles. The inside of rifle barrels are grooved to cause the round to spin, which improves accuracy. But the steel barrels of Brearly’s day seem to wear down quickly as a result of the friction between the round and the barrel.

Brearly believed that he could combine different metals with steel to create an alloy that would be more resilient to the friction. He experimented over and over again, until he ended up with a heap of scrap metal that hadn’t proven to be any more resilient to wear than the current barrels of the day.

Several months after experimenting with one particular combination that included 12% chromium mixed in with the steel, he noticed something a bit peculiar. While all the other samples of metal had rusted, the steel / chromium combination had not. One of his failures eventually become what we now call stainless steel.

It seems that we are conditioned by many elements of our society to hold on tightly to the notion that failure and mistakes are bad, and should be avoided. Thus, most people fear failure, especially in the workplace. They are worried that if they fail, they will never advance, or perhaps even be fired.

As leaders, a simple way to serve our team members is to give them permission to take risks and fail, and to even encourage failure.

By creating an environment where there is less fear of failure, we improve the well-being of the team members. In addition to simply being the right thing to do, this also improves the performance of teams in many ways, like reducing sick days, improving emotional intelligence, and improving decision making.

A Key to an Innovative Culture

Encouraging failure is also absolutely essential if we want to have an innovative culture. People tend to think of innovation as creative ideas that are immediately implemented as they were conceived, resulting in some breakthrough product, service, or internal solution.

This almost never happens. Most innovations began with one idea, which a person and/or team began turning into reality, which was then changed countless times before the actual winning solution was discovered. Or, the innovation was the result of a failed attempt to solve one problem that solved another, entirely different problem, as we saw above with the “invention” of stainless steel.

Thought experiments can be helpful, but nothing provides better learning than actually making something and trying it out. This is the core idea of essentially every highly innovative organization. As it’s stated at Google, “Launch early and iterate often.”

If we want to create a culture where people feel safe to work on projects that challenge the status quo, and are likely to fail, we need to let people know that we expect them to do that. Even more important, we need to back up that expectation by accepting people’s failures. The moment we punish failure – even with something as simple as our body language – is the moment innovation starts to die in our organization.

Of course, the suggestion is not to allow repeated mistakes in the performance of basic job requirements. That is a recipe for mediocrity. The suggestion is to encourage people to go beyond their minimum job requirements and try new things that challenge status quo.

We may initially think of the idea of providing time for experimentation of new ideas as an expense. I think this is a mistake. We should look at it as a great investment. Even if only one idea out of ten eventually becomes a product or service that adds greater value to our customers than our competitors can offer, the return on that investment would likely be tremendous.

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motors, put it this way, “Many people dream of success. Success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. Success represents the one percent of your work that results from the 99 percent that is called failure.”

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Does your organization ever deal with a customer or member who is just a royal pain in your backside?

The answer, of course, is most likely, “Yes!” We all encounter customers or members who make unreasonable demands, complain about everything, or perhaps even verbally attack our team members.

We can offer our team members a tremendous service by firing those types of customers. We just kindly inform the customer that we don’t feel we’re the best fit for them, and politely refer them to some other organizations that could help them meet their needs (perhaps to one of our competitors).

This can benefit the entire organization in big ways.

It can be a little scary to fire a customer that seems to be a significant source of revenue. However, in many cases, these customers who wreak emotional havoc for our team members aren’t as valuable as we may think.

These customers probably don’t generate any referrals for us. According to the Pareto principle, these customers probably account for the vast majority of time spent dealing with complaints, and they cost us productivity by emotionally draining our team members.

Compare that to our best customers. The customers who are well-aligned with our core values and who are so pleasant to work with that they likely energize our team members. These customers are also most likely referring new business to us. Thus, these customers are significantly more valuable to us than what we can measure just in terms of the revenue they provide us directly.

With whom would you rather spend more time and energy?

Clearly, our time is much better invested with the positive customers than with negative ones. A simple way to spend more time with the 20% of our customers who are likely producing 80% of our results (Pareto principle again) is to kindly fire the 20% of our customers who are producing 80% of the customer-related problems we deal with.

Another benefit of being open to some variation of this idea is that it can send a powerful message to team members about how much we care about them.

Imagine that we have verified that a customer has been terrorizing a couple of our team members with irrational, unreasonable demands, and emotional attacks. Instead of asking our team members to suck it up and appease that customer, imagine that we instead speak with the customer, apologize for any difficulties they encountered while working with our team members, and kindly and politely let them know that we’re not the best fit for them and refer them to someone else.

The message to our team members is clear: we value you more than we do the revenue from a customer who is unhealthy for you and our organization.

This can clearly be tied back to bottom-line results using the logic above. And, another bottom-line benefit is that we may just retain a talented, valuable team member who might have left if they had to keep working with a demoralizing customer. Reducing turnover can have a huge impact on the P&L.

Perhaps more important, though, we may be truly serving both the former customer and our team members. We may refer the customer to someone who is truly a better fit. And, we are certainly creating the conditions for greater happiness for all involved, and stronger personal relationships with team members, which makes coming to work each day much more fulfilling.

Is this something you have tried with your team?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this approach.

Please leave a comment if you’d like to share.

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