There’s some unfinished business from last week’s article. The focus was on the need for businesses to clear the debris that distracts them from moving along their journey to service excellence and superlative customer experience. Whilst several examples of debris were discussed, there is still one more that needs to be brought to light. Human-based debris (any matter that obstructs a clear path to a desired destination).
The human component of any business is fraught with landmines that need to be navigated skillfully, if any meaningful work is to be accomplished. The reality is that many businesses suffer debility specifically because human issues are not addressed effectively. I am amazed at how many businesses I encounter where unresolved human issues is the order of the day. For many reasons, leadership and conflict become wedded as constant companions, with the result being an unmitigated and unchecked parade of internal collisions that pose a sustained threat to service and customer experience greatness.
Human-based debris abounds in many businesses. One of the reasons for this reality, is because many employee communities have not mastered the art of executing emotional labour. A business that invests in emotional labour, reaps the reward of congruence between its interpersonal exchanges and its interpersonal health, within both internal and external customer communities.
A business that invests in emotional labour, reaps the reward of congruence between its interpersonal exchanges and its interpersonal health, within both internal and external customer communities.
So, what is emotional labour? It’s the work that an individual does to evolve himself or herself to the point of being emotionally intelligent and well adjusted. Having done the work, his or her behaviour becomes rooted in the social spheres of compassion, mindfulness and care. Not by any means a new concept, but one not nearly well mastered enough to generate healthy workplaces.
The problem is that few businesses ascribe a sufficient level of reverence to emotional labour, in the same way that they do with sales, marketing, finance or even human resources (the sufficiency in this latter area is a bit questionable though).
The gap in reverence levels, I believe, stems from the fact that emotional labour is not a black and white concept like accounting. It is rooted in emotional effort and requires individuals to do a lot of transformative inner work, an exercise that attracts discomfiture. As we know, emotional management is not a subject that is taught at school and by the time adulthood comes around, what prevails is a hit and miss command over the ability to manage emotions and their accompanying impulses.
Emotional labour is not a black and white concept like accounting. It is rooted in emotional effort and requires individuals to do a lot of transformative inner work, an exercise that attracts discomfiture.
Hence, the multitude of adverse interpersonal collisions that occur on a daily basis in many businesses. In pretty much the same way that insufficiency in service delivery and inconsistent customer experience do not generally incite mass customer protest and so, are allowed to simmer, people collisions are addressed in like manner. As long as they don’t boil over, they’re treated more like a vexatious distraction, than a cause for urgent intervention.
But, in looking the other way, some businesses fail to understand that without emotional labour being a required competency for all employees, eventually, virulent emotional exchanges will become the order of the day, for both internal and external customers.
Emotional labour as a competency, allows an individual to feel comfortable in emotionally-charged situations and enables him or her to pilot interactive exchanges to viable landing points. When emotional labour becomes a core competency across a business, human energy becomes productive.
Emotional labour as a competency, allows an individual to feel comfortable in emotionally-charged situations and enables him or her to pilot interactive exchanges to viable landing points.
Recently, I witnessed a violent verbal exchange between the owner of a business and a customer. Fortunately, the situation didn’t escalate beyond the exchange of words. I couldn’t help but think that if either of those two individuals had mastered emotional labour, the exchange would have been less inflammatory and less energy would have been wasted.
Human-based debris accounts for quite a bit of service debris. In any business that is committed to nurturing potent relationships, the mastery of emotional labour is a gold standard tool that contributes to frictionless human and digital encounters, as the customer moves through his or her experience journey.
Securing emotional labour in place as a core business practice, is a herculean task. It requires leaders who have won their own emotional labour pilgrimage, to champion the casting of a business model that positions emotional acuity as a business value and a symbol of strength.
Human-based debris accounts for quite a bit of service debris.
Finally, let me say here, that the biggest winner will be the employee community that emerges with a keen level of mental and emotional vitality being possessed by its members who have completed their journeys of emotional labour successfully.
It’s a productive start to the pursuit of customer happiness. Wouldn’t you agree?