You have just settled down to watch your favorite TV show (live or on demand) or Ball Game. You turn on the TV, and you have no signal.

Or maybe you have tickets to see your favorite team play live. You head out the door, and your car won’t start.

Undoubtedly in your lifetime you have experienced similarly irritating and frustrating situations. Some likely lead you to take action.

I recently saw an ad for a service that stated they were “99% reliable”. That’s a pretty good number… unless you are the 1%.

We are human, and we work with systems that are beyond our control, – power, communications, internet and so on – which can impact our ability to care for one another or our customers.

However, what about our ability to handle things we can control?

Let’s start with our attitude – is it a can-do attitude or an I-don’t-want-to-do attitude?

Are we willing to grow and learn as our business changes, or do we resist change and learning?

Do we look out for the team, or do we look out for ourselves by pushing work to others that we could do ourselves?

Are we working towards the future for our company and fellow employees, or are we a drag on others who are working for the future?

Positive energy, relationships and efforts buy good will with customers and fellow employees in the business world. This reservoir of good will provides a chance to redeem situations where errors happen (and they will).

Negative energy turns every customer interaction into a potential last interaction.

Only you (or I) can answer the questions above. 

Where do your answers lead you?

– Leton

____________________________________________________________________
“Letters From Leton” is a blog series comprised of the weekly updates that Leton Harding – President, Chairman, and CEO of Powell Valley National Bank, shares with the Bank’s team members. These newsletters are full of uplifting anecdotes and intriguing insights that are applicable beyond the Bank, so we want to share them with you.