Keynote Seminar for Leaders at Lands’ End Peak Season Kick Off Meeting

Blog Post: Monday Aha! Workplace Wisdom from October 18 2010

At Lands’ End their people make the difference.

Imagine what it would be like to work for legendary Lands’ End. Every year the company gears up for the peak season by hiring thousands of new employees (2400 this year) over a 10-week period and gets them trained and ready to process the tsunami of customer orders for the Holiday season. Imagine what it would be like to be one of the many employees who are cross-trained so they can start the day packing boxes and by mid-day be on the phone taking customer orders. Imagine what it would be like to work for a company that thinks nothing of sending an employee hundreds of miles to deliver a red jacket to a woman so she could have it for an important Holiday event.

Last Thursday I had the honor of presenting a keynote seminar for 160 of Lands’ End’s managers, supervisors and team leaders to kick off this year’s peak season. Over the next two months these leaders will be under immense pressure to deliver flawless service in a fast-paced environment where each day delivers a different set of challenges. The demands of the peak season means every single employee needs to be fully engaged and committed.

The key idea of my presentation, Making a Difference Starts with You, is for leaders to recognize the awesome power that comes from a simple act of acknowledging the efforts of an employee. During our 90 minutes together the group laughed, learned some easy mindfulness techniques and even shed a few tears as they gathered around “campfires” and shared their personal stories. The group left the session knowing that the simple act of letting another person know that who they are and what they do makes a difference to you can change their perspective — and in some cases the direction of their life.

This week find out for yourself what happens when you tell the special people in your life that who they are makes a difference to you and your organization.

Have a terrific week.

Barbara Burke

PS. I’d like to do a little acknowledging of my own. That is to thank Sandy Johns, Lands End’s Manager of Learning and Development, for all you and your team did to make last week’s event such a memorable experience.

This Monday’s Aha! is from my customer service fable about a service rep in a call center, The Napkin,The Melon & The Monkey.
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