You might be your company's most valuable employee (and not know it)

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Being self-employed I tend to value my time above all other things. Time is money, as they say, and doubly so when you don’t have a guaranteed salary.

One of the tasks that takes up a lot of my time is shipping stuff to clients. Between printing, packaging, addressing, driving to a shipping service, and waiting in line, entire work days seem to vanish.

So, when my wife and I relocated last year, I was thrilled to discover that a Post Office location was 0.2 mile from our new house. It takes 30 seconds to drive there. It's a tiny building featuring only one employee, and hardly ever any other customers to contend with.

Nearby, smooth, simple. Perfect.

But I always felt a bit off in there, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Then after a month of making 2-4 drop-offs per week I figured it out: the woman who worked there never acted like we had met before. She treated me like I was a new customer every single time.

It was like she didn't even see me.

What a difference

One day I was out running errands a couple of towns over. I had a package with me, intending to swing by the Post Office on the way home.

That’s when I passed a UPS location.

What the heck, I figured.

Two guys in their early 20s greeted me the second I walked in the door. Cheerful and eager to help, they chatted with me through the ho-hum routine of collecting shipping information. When they asked what I did for a living and found out I was a magician and speaker, they got even more excited.

“Oh man, that’s so cool!”

“I love magicians!”

I noticed as I paid that the price was a bit higher than I was used to at the Post Office, but it didn’t really matter. I walked out smiling.

A few days later I needed to mail a package. I pulled out of the driveway and, instead of turning right for 30 seconds, I turned left and drove 15 minutes to visit my new friends Josh and Jon.

When I opened the door they both looked up, grinned ear-to-ear, and chorused,

“Brian!”

Suffice it to say, I’ve never gone back to the Post Office. Not once.

Being indispensable

Josh and Jon are each what Seth Godin calls a linchpin. Linchpins are people who make themselves indispensable by doing the work - human work - that isn’t in the job description.

Human connection is an art, not a science. No one can write down the instructions for how to make others feel heard, understood, and valued. It takes creative thinking, constant attention, and tremendous effort to do so. It requires getting out of one’s comfort zone and pushing aside the fear of failure, because goodness knows not every customer is going to respond in kind.

Low-level employees aren't paid enough to do that. They don’t get rewarded for going the extra step to make a connection.

Linchpins do it anyway. It’s their gift to the world.

As companies grow in size it can be easy to forget that the lowest paid employees are often the people on the front line with direct access to customers and clients. It's in your organization's best interest to take care of those people.

Your success just might depend on it.

We'll do anything to feel valued

Last summer I was in the market for a new car. I drove over an hour back to the Hyundai dealership near our old place where I bought my previous two cars. There's also a Hyundai dealership 15 minutes from our new house, and I’m pretty sure they sell the same vehicles. In fact, I'm betting they would offer me the same price.

Yet I drove an hour out of my way because I had become friendly with the staff over the years. They always asked about my recent work trips, remembered details from our last conversation, and generally made me feel interesting.

When making a major purchase like a car, that feeling of being heard is priceless.

One more example, even more drastic:

My grandmother has a friend who lived in New York City but retired to West Palm Beach (which describes 90% of the population down there). Her friend flies back to NYC every three weeks for a haircut at the salon she’s been going to for decades.

I’m certain that West Palm has top notch hair salons. She’s not making a 5-hour round trip flight for the haircut. She’s flying back for that warm feeling of being truly seen and heard.

Your organization needs people with people skills

LinkedIn recently reported that the No. 1 skills gap in America is interpersonal communication. Hiring managers desperately need people who are good at people, and can't find enough of them.

Just the other day I enthusiastically walked into my favorite UPS but was stopped cold by a woman behind the counter.

"Where are my guys?" I blurted out.

"They're not in today. Something I can help you with?"

I introduced myself, she reciprocated, and we shook hands. We had a very pleasant conversation, and Taylor made me feel just as welcome as Josh and Jon always do. That's not a coincidence; somebody at that particular UPS must be hiring for or training people with people skills.

Somebody figured it out.

That doesn't mean you get to take advantage of generous people who go out of their way to make you feel welcome. You still need to be receptive. It's really easy to treat customer service employees rudely when we're in a hurry or frustrated with a previous problem. I'm guilty of it, and I'm sure you are too.

Sitting in an urgent care clinic recently I asked a nurse who was taking excellent care of me (I'm a nervous patient), "Sofia, what do you love about your job?"

She replied, "Well, what I used to love was the people. But lately everyone is just so rude. Patients don't appreciate us or even treat us like people anymore. I've been thinking about quitting."

That's a damn shame. We need more people like Sofia on the front lines, not less.

Shared responsibility

We can't just rely on people like Josh, Jon, and Sofia to make us feel valued. Human connection is reciprocal. It must be a two-way relationship. So it's on us to do our very best to be kind, courteous, and respectful when dealing with people, even if you already missed your flight or are running late to a meeting.

We're in this together.

The companies who seek out linchpins, who give them space to do the human work that isn't in the job description, who understand that it doesn't always work but encourage them anyway - those companies will thrive in the new economy.

And as customers, we'll get a much better experience.