The former CEO of Sprint shared his leadership lessons one morning…
- A leader should be “classy.” Yes, you have competitors – respect them similar to how Larry Bird & Magic Johnson competed in the NBA.
- “No infrastructure in our country that is more important than the development of our workforce.”
- Invest in your people, not just buying back stock.
- Also, everyone needs to understand how you make money – so he held an all employee meeting the morning after every earnings call.
- Culture is how things get done. Peter Drucker said “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and employees need to be engaged for a cause. Hesse made a wallet card with the Sprint Imperatives for every employee to carry with them.
- Customer experience matters. During Hesse’s time with the company, every meeting started with customer experience. This cascaded down. In addition, all departments were paid to reduce customer care calls, since it was a cross-functional issue. The person who owns the customer care budget does not own customer care issues (i.e., network connectivity, sales rate plan). When they found that most calls were “overages,” they became the first telecom company in the industry to offer an unlimited rate plan. They continued to reduce the problems that customers called about, and the customer care budget decreased with it.
- Focus on direct reports’ engagement scores, as this shows the effectiveness of a leader who drives decision making through empowerment. On 360 assessments, the most important measure is peers.
- “Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.”
Does your company have a cross-functional customer experience focus?
