First to Help Others

(Ermelito Limsipson – Perugia, Italy) It was around 1 o’clock in the morning when I checked my email and got a message from my bestfriend yesterday. She was asking me to make her a privilege card for her small business, which will be opened next week in the Philippines. Few minutes after reading her message, I just found myself creating 4 kinds of privilege cards for her to choose from. She was very happy when she received my ideas for the cards.

(J.M. – USA) Rolled The Cube today: FIRST To Help Others! Arrived at a training session for a client today with a PowerPoint on our flash drive. The client couldn’t get their computer to allow a log in. What to do? Run 3 city blocks to the car to get our computer and 3 city blocks back to salvage the training session for the 25 attendees and other presenters. Thanks to my Employee Matt D for showing ‘The Boss’ how to live The Company Cube!

(from Texas, USA) After taking a couple of days off last week, I arrived at work Monday with a couple hundred emails and many tasks and issues that needed to be addressed. An urgent item that needed my attention was coordinating a conference call with our Region Staff to discuss service gaps at one of our facilities that had damaged our relationship with a good customer.

Before setting up the call, I emailed the manager of the facility requesting a copy of the formalized corrective action plan. The manager responded that she did not have a plan to present. This manager does not report directly to me and I was frustrated by her response and also with her Director for not “holding her accountable”. My first thought was to respond to the manager and her director chastising them for not only damaging the relationship with the customer but for not taking the necessary steps to address the operational gaps. Fortunately I had The Company Cube on my mind and chose instead build a bridge by being “The First to Help”.

When the manager answered the phone, I simply asked her how I could help her. She thanked me for calling and explained that she had never been on one of these conference calls and was not sure what was expected from her and that she was very nervous and intimidated. I offered to work with her on the root cause analysis and corrective action plan and told her I would postpone the call for a couple of days to give her more time to prepare. I closed by telling her that even though she did not report to me, I was always there to help and support her and that I would “have her back” on the conference call. She was immediately relieved and very appreciative of the support.

Then I called her director and asked if he had an objection to my involvement with his manager in this capacity. He was very happy with the offer and explained to me that his manager was fairly new and was still a little bit overwhelmed. He had not been able to spend as much time training her as he would have liked. He also assured me that she would be a very good manager, given time and the understanding, compassion and support that I had shown her.

(C.D. – USA) I work as an assistant or technician in a clinic. It was a busy morning that day at work. I was paged by the front desk person that a patient was waiting specifically to see me for an evaluation. I looked at my watched and it was 12:00 noon. I had to make a choice – shall I take my lunch or see her? The small voice inside of me urged me to see her, so I called her in. It took longer to see the patient, but we both were happy when we were done. It was time for my lunch!

Just as I was about to head to the lunch room, I was paged again to go to the front desk. At this point, it was 1pm. It was the lady who is very particular. The little voice said it’s not going to take much time to help this lady and my co-technician should be back to work from her lunch.

As I worked with the lady, she brought up issues different from the reasons she came in. It was another moment to make some choices again – shall I be present to her other need or dismiss her because my lunch is waiting and the afternoon patients are adding up? The voice inside of me said attend to her – she is another person placed before me. So I stayed with the lady to answer her questions. She left pleased.

When I went to our lunch room, my co technician asked me for a glass of water while I was up. I was uptight then because of the time limitation. My immediate reaction was “Don’t talk to me.” I wanted to eat my lunch. On the second thought, I had another chance to serve. So I gave her a cup of water. I came back to work after lunch, finding the afternoon was not as busy as I had anticipated.