Recently I attended a management meeting in which the roadmap of an organization was outlined.  While the actual roadmap was convincing the presentation of the same was dismal and anything but convincing.  What went wrong?  –  The presenter’s favorite terms were „I have accomplished such and such“, „I led …“, „I know …“ and „the most important thing for me is that we make money“.  Rarely if ever the presenter talked about the effort and accomplishments of a team or satisfying the clients of the organization.  Did and does this make a difference?  You bet.  It was a  presentation delivered top-down.  It served the one purpose of sharing information.  It failed in celebrating the past successes with the team and creating excitement about the road ahead.  This was really unfortunate.  Not surprisingly the presenter lost the attention and involvement of the audience after about 10-15 minutes into the presentation.

Regarding the second downfall of putting profits over customers, it was a shocking experience.  This was especially so because we were talking about an organization where customer interaction is key to business success.

Lessons learned:
(1) As much as you in your leadership role may have contributed to the success of your organization, never forget that it takes a team to deliver results.  A leader without a team is worth nothing.
(2) When you work for a client serving organization know your maxim of satisfying your customers.  It is not about maximizing profits; it is about customer satisfaction.  As much as profits are important for business, there will be no profits if you cannot satisfy your customers.