Ken’s speaking topics include:

 Pervasive Leadership
 Complete Communication: Saying & Hearing it Right the First Time
 Change and Transition Management
 Customer Superstars

Pervasive Leadership

Highly effective leadership is, quite simply, leading others as you allow yourself to be led. A highly effective leader masters four disciplines:

• the discipline to follow
• the discipline to lead
• the discipline to give
• the discipline to forgive

The highly effective leader is the one who learns what his/her people need at any given moment and then actively seeks to meet those needs. You move your organization forward and in the direction of its mission, values and goals by serving those in your organization. By serving in a timely and consistent manner, you are creating a highly effective work environment in which others are led both by and to the vision of the organization’s future.

Ken Wallace will help you create and sustain effective leadership habits throughout your entire organization by:

• developing your people into leaders who are able and willing to take charge of an emerging situation to provide dynamic and shared leadership
• providing leadership scenario sessions to establish and strengthen decision making and problem solving instincts among your people
• helping people lead their own lives, not just other people’s time and efforts toward goal accomplishment
• creating a unique process of leadership behavior into which any personality can comfortably fit and function
• fashioning an empowered work environment in which everyone helps each other do their best jobs
• establishing work environments in which people can do “better than their best” and in which they experience professional and personal fulfillment and joy

Leadership Integration

Leadership in any organization needs to be fostered and developed at all levels and in all areas of the work environment. And not just any type of leadership skills, knowledge and attitudes, but progressive leadership. Pervasive leadership seeks to continuously improve itself as the model for change throughout the organization.

Ken Wallace helps you create and sustain clearly-defined and finely-tuned leadership skills, knowledge, attitudes and habits throughout your entire organization thereby integrating personal and organizational leadership with desired outstanding outcomes.

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Complete Communication: Saying & Hearing it Right the First Time

Who’s Driving Your Car?

An organization is like a vehicle: it is made up of many parts designed to work together to accomplish the purpose of getting from where it is now to where it is going.

We work at honing our talents, gifts and graces so that we can contribute to the building up of those in our organization and those whom our organization serves.

On-going learning and skill development are hallmarks of a highly effective and profitable organization because it is learning that enables us to better serve those around us.

The driver (for example, the Board of Directors, CEO, President, Owner, Managers) makes the decision where the vehicle should be going. However, the road upon which the vehicle travels is built by the work of those throughout the rest of the organization.

In order to arrive at its destination the vehicle must have fuel of sufficient quantity and quality.

Communication is the fuel of any organization – effective communication gets the vehicle to the chosen destination; ineffective communication causes the vehicle to sputter, choke and eventually stop.

Extending the metaphor, the fuel is a mixture of:

1. individual interpersonal communication skills

2. organizational communication infrastructure and processes

Both of these components either facilitate or frustrate effective communication.

Ken Wallace helps his clients refine their fuel so that it is high quality and high mileage. He teaches:

• How to communicate so that you understand and are understood the first time
• How to create and sustain an infrastructure throughout your organization that leads to consistent, thorough, accurate and timely communication
• How to use language correctly to motivate others to do better than what they thought they could do
• Highly effective communication processes and techniques that reduce ambiguity and increase clarity while reducing the amount of time it takes to get goals accomplished
• How to effectively communicate in times of stress, uncertainty, anxiety, fear, crisis and conflict so that the outcomes are better than you thought they could be
• How to supervise and manage other people’s time and effort motivating them toward accomplishing organizational goals
• How to lead others through change so that things get better, not worse

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Change and Transition Management

Machiavelli wrote in “The Prince” . . .

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

This is what makes change so difficult to make happen. Ken Wallace helps you identify everything that needs to be involved throughout your organization in developing a successful plan for change and a transition management process that ensures a minimum of disruption to the work environment and maximum productivity during the implementation of the change initiative.

It will be helpful to better understand some concepts of change:

Organizational Progress

An individual or organization progresses by effectively managing the process of transitioning from one state of existence to a more desirable one.

Transition is: “The process through which an existing circumstance, condition or relationship (real or imagined) is acted on in a manner that produces a new and different circumstance, condition or relationship.”

Progress is achieved when the “new and different circumstance, condition and/or relationship” is better able to help the individual or organization realize their personal or corporate vision and mission.

Ken Wallace, through his proven methods and tools, helps executives and organizations transition toward new and different sets of circumstances, conditions and relationships that enable them to accomplish better outcomes for their employees, customers, communities and nations.

He serves as a guide throughout the transition process ensuring that risks are minimized. His transition planning and implementation designs reduce the risks of performance and financial loss to the enterprise during and after the transition.

Ken is a transition strategy expert who is highly experienced in handling the challenges management teams face when confronted with the need for change in their operating environments.

He provides customized transition implementation planning and experienced leadership in transition management so that your outcomes are safely and confidently achieved with a minimum of resistance from and disruption to the operating environment.

Organizational Alignment

Alignment between management and employee perceptions of corporate strategy is critical for success in any organization. Also crucial is a mutual understanding of how the operating environment actually accomplishes (or fails to accomplish) corporate strategy.

Ken Wallace serves to bring into alignment the disparate elements of organizational life so that appropriate business strategies can be set in a timely manner and effectively and efficiently pursued at all levels of the organization.

Organizational Literacy and Core Competency Transition Skills

Ken instills literacy and core competency skills for management and employees at all levels in the following areas:

• Assessing transition risks and preparedness
• Transition leadership and management skills
• Accountability development and monitoring
• Managing differences between people to maximize teamwork and goal accomplishment
• Efficient communication between and among all levels, departments, functions and business units

Ken Wallace provides ongoing customized instruction and technical assistance that build clients’ internal capacity to regularly apply the principles, practices and methods that he teaches.

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Customer Superstars

Following are five speeches Ken gives on making customers superstars and how that helps your business and your people grow into stars themselves.

• Customer Service? You Decide!
• Foundations of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty – Make ‘em Successful!
• Customer Service or “Customers Serve Us?”
• The Optimal Process Design®
• What Your Customers REALLY Want and How to Give It To Them Every Time

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Customer Service? You Decide!

We hear much about customer service these days, specifically, how to treat customers in such a way that they keep coming back to you.

Customer service, we are told, if consistently done in the right way will increase the loyalty rate of your customer base; and this will lead to greater profitability because studies show that it takes six times as much money to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

There are all sorts of seminars, workshops, classes and presentations that instruct participants how to serve customers in an outstanding, memorable manner. You’d think that with all these offerings and all the people attending them that customer service would be alive and well in this country. My experience is that true customer service is experienced less often than it should be, certainly less often than companies proclaim that it’s done.

More often than not, I get the feeling that employees are doing me a favor by even talking to me, much less providing for my personal needs and addressing the primary reasons I even showed up in their place of business. Occasionally, I encounter a person who treats me in a genuine, warm and helpful way – and this is a refreshing experience.

What I have concluded is that customer service is a process that can be taught – employees can learn the steps that are necessary to meet customer requirements, demands, and needs.

But customer service is also a disposition: just because you go through a process doesn’t mean that the result will be customer service that leads to customer loyalty. No approach or process can force a person to truly serve others in a helpful and courteous fashion if that person is not disposed toward being helpful and courteous toward others. Such a person would merely drag the customer through a pre-determined process in such a manner that the result would not be satisfying to the customer but rather irritating and perhaps infuriating.

So customer service is both a process and a disposition. But it is more than that.

Customer service should not be done merely to give customers reasons to come back. It should not simply be an attempt to provide for the material needs and wants of those who come into your business. Its intention should not be just to demonstrate a pleasing personality or a disarming disposition. Customer service, in other words, is not just a pleasant process that you put people through with the expectation that beneficial results – for both customers and the company – will be assured.

Certainly, customer service is all of that, but if it was only that then it would only be a means to manipulate customers into thinking well of us and buying what we had to offer simply by performing generic and expected civil behaviors. No, customer service is more than acting nice and saying that the customer is always right, even when clearly in the wrong.

Customer service is a purpose, not just a process; it is a decision, not just a disposition. The true intention of front line employees – those who deal with customers day in and day out – is revealed and demonstrated by the decisions they make throughout the day regarding:

1) how they will treat customers all day long

2) how they want to feel about themselves at the end of the day

3) how they want their customers to feel about themselves and about the company at the end of each interaction with them

4) how they see the purpose of their job and the steps they will take to accomplish it throughout the day

5) how they will work together with others on the team to perform at the highest level of caring and competence for their customers

This true intention is what customers are left with when they leave the establishment. It registers in their minds and hearts as a certain kind of experience, positive, neutral or negative.

The combination of decisions that are made individually by every front liner determines the effectiveness of the customer service process; and this process is the means by which the purpose of the organization is materially manifested and by which it either thrives or dies.

Any training in customer service processes must involve clarifying and refining the decision-making processes that front liners use in dealing with customers – and with each other.

Customer service is what everyone who is tasked with doing it decides it’s going to be. What you first create in your mind and heart with purposeful intention will work its way out through your behavior into your relationships and to the bottom line.

Customer service? You decide!

What You’ll Learn:

• This program will teach your management and front line personnel dynamic ways to discover what customers want, what they need (which could be something totally different) and the behaviors they respond well to that will cause them to allow you to help them in the most satisfying manner.
• You will learn a simple yet powerful decision making process that will be used throughout every work day that will ensure customer satisfying behaviors and attitudes – especially when it’s most difficult to do.
• You can expect that attendees will perform better with less stress when dealing with customers.
• This program will also help participants develop a written game plan to deal with difficult people by dealing with the most important issues first – and they do not include the customer’s complaint!
• You’ll have fun while learning and you’ll be motivated to take action as soon as you get back on the job. You’ll also be eager to share what you’ve learned with peers, management and staff.

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Foundations of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty – Make ‘em Successful!

Everyone is involved with customer service and satisfaction – even those who do not come into direct contact with customers. For any organization, satisfying customers consists of a series of steps in numerous processes in which all employees are involved.

Without a clear understanding of these processes, their interrelationships, and why they exist, this intricate “web of service” can become snarled and inadvertently create a less-than- satisfying experience for the external customer.

This program slows down the processes and those involved in them by using proven techniques that focus participants on what really counts for their customers.

Using a simple, yet powerful, four-step process, participants develop practical and effective plans of action to design and implement a customer service infrastructure that results in the same high quality, satisfying service experience for every customer every time.

Beginning with understanding current performance as measured by the client’s internal and external customers, the process moves participants through awareness of current obstacles and on to improved processes.

Each of the following components of true customer service is explored in depth and action plans developed to integrate each into a comprehensive customer service strategy and process.

• Attitude (courtesy, sincerity)
• Communication (listening, paraphrasing, verbal/non-verbal expression of care, negotiating, making the customer right)
• Integrity (honesty, confidentiality)
• Value (giving more than is usual)
• Involvement (making it a fun and worthwhile experience)
• Gratitude (true appreciation)
• Walking the Talk and Talking the Walk (acting to implement the vision of stellar customer service and consistently communicating that vision)

The bottom line:

1) your customers’ success in getting what they want by doing business with you is more important to them than their satisfaction with your products and services.

2) How you give is more important than what you give.

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Customer Service or “Customers Serve Us?”

Have you ever felt whenever you were in a place of business that the employees really didn’t care whether you were there or not? I have even felt as if I were being viewed by owners and employees alike as existing for their benefit.

Far too many times I have encountered service personnel that made no attempt to hide their annoyance at my questions and comments. More often than not, whenever I’ve provided feedback that was intended to be helpful and constructive it has been met with joking, excuse-making, patronization or obvious, even if polite, disregard.

What can be done to make the experiences we have with American businesses more enjoyable, satisfying and fun? In this program you will learn the seven “Fs” of making customers’ experience with your organization outstanding and memorable.

Participants will learn how to use each of these approaches at the appropriate times for maximum benefit for the customer. The various customer types will be identified and written action plans for each type will be devised for immediate implementation back on the job.

Immediate improvements in customer satisfaction levels will result.

• Focus on others not on yourself
• Feelings of others are more important than our own feelings at the time
• Following the customer first by listening and understanding, then leading them to the best product/service for them
• Fun – making the experience memorable by making it fun and interactive
• Forwarding information received about customers to other departments/branches/people so they can serve these customers better (None of us know as much about the customer as all of us know)
• Funnel the customer’s attention and interest into broader possibilities and opportunities
• Future state of the organization is linked to the way we treat customers right now

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The Optimal Process Design®

There are two sides to optimal performance. One side deals with structures, processes and procedures, tools and measurement. This side deals with management of “hard” objective data: facts, figures, charts, etc. that can be examined and “seen.” The other side has to do with attitude, creativity, commitment, buy-in and self-discipline. This “softer,” intangible side deals with leadership: when leadership is present, the right things get done in an efficient, enthusiastic way.

When leadership is absent, things get done but often without achieving the intended results. Optimal Process Design© (OPD) targets both the personal (leadership) and the process (management) sides of performance for immediate improvement and sustained progress toward better results.

Participants will learn how to use the twenty elements of Optimal Process Design© to move their organization and themselves forward faster by:

1) Identifying who current internal and external customers are

2) Clarifying current corporate assumptions and business objectives

3) Clarifying current personal assumptions, goals and objectives of employees

4) Determining what internal and external customers needs and want – currently and in the future

5) Measuring how well internal and external customers are being satisfied

6) Determining how external customers are using the organization’s existing products and/or services

7) Deciding who the organization wants as its external customers and determining the similarities and differences between these and existing internal customers

Determining the current processes for meeting internal and external customer wants and needs

9) Identifying opportunities for improvement within each of the existing processes

10) Conducting formal creativity sessions with all employees to generate ideas that will result in improvement in providing customer what they want and need

11) Structuring work schedules to include guided and unguided individual T2 (Think Time) sessions as part of all management and employee job descriptions

12) Devising an optimal management “shell” structure that serves as a guiding template for developing customized business strategies and tactics for both internal and external customers

13) Developing a focused approach to turning a subconscious negative mindset among employees into a positive mindset that drives the organization forward toward goal accomplishment

14) Developing pilot implementation schedules

15) Assessing pilot project(s) and communicating results to all employees in a timely manner

16) Developing short- and long-term plans of action for improving the identified steps of the processes

17) Devising a monitoring system to follow-up on implementation efforts and results

18) Designing corporate celebration, fellowship and recognition opportunities

19) Identifying and enlisting “Process Champions:” one for change, another for stability

20) Creating a supportive and encouraging work environment in which people can do “better than their best”

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What Your Customers REALLY Want and How to Give It To Them Every Time

What are the “moments of truth” that your employees must manage with every customer?

What do YOUR customers really want from you and your organization?

Can you be 100% confident that you’re giving it to every customer every time whether it be on the phone, in writing, in person or via your marketing and advertising campaigns? You will be after you’ve attended this program!

You will learn:

• How to clearly determine what your customers really want
• How to give what your customer want to them every time you have an interaction with them
• Essential communication skills for consistently effective customer service
• Conflict resolution and prevention skills and strategies
• Attitude development and control
• Negotiation skills for “both gain” outcomes
• Developing effective customer service processes for increased customer satisfaction and company profitability
• Setting and managing customer expectations
• Service mission development and communication
• Service recovery strategies and techniques
• “Give ‘em the Full Q.U.A.R.T.®” (Query, Understand, Align, Raise, Trade) Customer Service Process Model

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Is Ken Available for Your Next Meeting?

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