Enough Is Enough!

Posted: May 12, 2012 by Chris Stuckey in Leadership
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I’ve had it with fast food chains and their drive-thru’s. The pure reason for drive-thru’s, I thought,  was to speed things up so that you can get your food and quickly head to your next location? I have seen a slow decline in the whole customer service of fast-food chains in recent years and I’ve had enough.  Here is my list of questions and complaints while going through the “express lane” of the drive-thru:

  1. Why do you give an employee drive-thru duty when he/she can barely speak english? It always amazes me when I go through the line and stop to order at the window. Yes, I usually understand, “Can I help you,” but that’s where the communication breaks down for me and for the employee. In a lot of these occasions, either I have to repeat my order or I have to ask for clarification. I have no problem with hiring diversity in the workplace, in fact I am all for it. I think a better place to utilize the strengths are in the front counter.
  2. Why do you give an employee drive-thru duty when he/she is soft-spoken? Ever stopped to place your order to hear a low voice at the other end. The voice is so low you can barely understand them? This gets frustrating when the person repeats your order and you have to ask to repeat several times to make sure it’s correct. Or, what if the employee asks you a question about the order and all you heard was a mumble. I hate saying “What” or “Can you repeat, I didn’t understand.”
  3. Why is it then when the order is not ready, the employee asks the driver to pull up several feet? Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of the name, “Express Lane?” I don’t have a problem with it when it happens occasionally, but I am seeing an increase when this happens. All this does is cause a “drive-thru traffic jam” because it blocks the person who is behind the “puller-upper” to turn his wheel to get around the car and go on his way. I was in a situation about a month ago where I was the person behind the customer who had to pull up and wait. There was no lane to pull around him because it was one way. Even though I had my order I could not move because there was no where to go. The cars behind me waiting for their order could not pull up either.
  4. Why does the employee forget to put condiments into the bag?  It’s always frustrating when you get down the road, open up your bag and there are no, napkins, or straws. Yes, you can always be prepared by having a backup supply of napkins in your car, but what if you don’t?

And finally, for the customer…

  1. Why does the customer go through the drive-thru when you have a large order or ordering for a large group? The drive-thru is not for you. People who go through the drive-thru or just getting something quick and want to get on their way. You are only holding up that process. You need to park your car and go in.

These are my top questions and I’m sure there are more from other people. I would to hear them. Please comment.

My Favorite Application Is…

Posted: April 22, 2012 by Chris Stuckey in My Other Stuff
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I love all of the tools available to help us to keep up with our daily lives. If you have smartphone or computer, which most of you do, you know how many options that are available to you. I have tried a lot of these tools and I keep coming back to one application that continues to do everything I need it to do.  Evernote  continues to be my favorite application. According to Wikipedia, “Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A “note” can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten “ink” note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.” Best of all Evernote is available across all platforms so you can sync your “Notes” to your smartphone, tablet, computer, and internet.

I use Evernote just about everyday to record and keep up with a number of things. Here are just a few I use it for:

  • Passwords = With all the the accounts I have to keep track with, there’s no way I’m going to remember all of my account passwords. I also have other accounts I have to keep up with as a result of consulting with different company’s.
  • Conferences and Meetings = I attend a good number of conferences and meetings and need to write notes on what is discussed. Instead of writing notes on a pad notebook, which I often lose or misplace, I write them in Evernote.
  • My ideas and Thoughts = Have you ever been somewhere and a thought or idea popped in your head? Evernote is great for this. I always see things or hear something that gives me an idea to write down so I can remember it later.
  • Sermon and Quiet Time Notes = Evernote is great for recording the notes from Sunday Messages at your church.
  • Recipe’s  = I always come across recipe’s I see on the web I want to save for later. I will save the link of the webpage it comes from and put in Evernote.
  • Christmas Ideas = Have you ever been with a loved one and they mention an item they like and wished they had? No matter the time of year, you can quickly record it in your Evernote for future present ideas.

There are many other uses for Evernote. I found this article by Aaron Summer about the many other uses for it here.

Are You A Servant Leader

Posted: April 20, 2012 by Chris Stuckey in Leadership
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About a year ago I wrote the blog post, “There’s No “I” In Team.” In the post, I talked about how I was impressed by the leadership and “Team” philosophy at the  corporation where I was working. I wrote, “I have been  contracting for a large corporation for the past three months and saw some nice things while I was there. Great leadership qualities, which was surprising to me, considering the size of the corporation and how long they have been in business.” When the contract ended, often what was the secret for such a corporation. The corporation was Lockheed Martin in Marietta, Ga.

Today I heard from the retired Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Corporation, Micky Blackwell at a monthly leadership networking event I attend. He talked about his philosophy in business and in his personal life. His main point was, “Don’t be a self-serving leader, instead, be a servant leader.” I wrote down 10 points he made during his talk about his philosophy at Lockheed, and what he follows now:

  • We are all leaders. How are we going to lead?
  • We are either a self-serving leader or a servant leader
  • Christians ought to be all servant leaders
  • If you become a servant leader, you will always make a difference.
  • You have to have a servant leader in your head.
  • A servant leader has to have vision, and enlist trust into others.
  • We need to learn to love others.
  •  Servant Leader says, “What can I do to help you do your job?”
  • A servant leader will be rewarded by seeing his/her team succeed.
  • If the servant leader believes in his team, the people on the team believes in themselves.

I’m so glad I got to hear him this morning. Now I know why I experienced the “Team” attitude at Lockheed Martin. Thank you Micky.

Why Is This?

Posted: April 19, 2012 by Chris Stuckey in My Journey
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For the last two years I have been in the process of training to eventually become a Christian Counselor/Life Coach. In the meantime, I have been looking for part-time work along with Social Media Consulting work. It has been a longer process then I originally thought it would be. My friends and mentors keep reminding me that it’s not in my timing, but God’s timing alone. So, I have looked for other things to do such as  helping individuals and small businesses with their Social Presence on the Web.

Along with my Social Media Consulting work, I have been looking for Part-Time work to keep me busy and to help out with bills. It has been very frustrating to no-ends. Why is it this:

1) No such thing as going to the actual stores or locations to ask if they are hiring, even when there is a “We Are Hiring” sign posted out front. Every place I went I was

told to go online to fill out an application on the company’s web site. No longer can you fill out an application on site and give it to the manager. I even had one manager tell me to go over there, as he pointed,  and use the kiosk to fill out an application. This was basically a computer with internet that I had to go their website.

2) There are sites such as Career Builder,  Monster, and LinkedIn where you can house your resume and then send them to the company’s who have job openings. Here’s what I don’t get. You sign on to their website, apply for the position, and attach your resume.  After you attached your resume, then you have to fill out the form with, basically the same information that is on your resume. Why is this?  Isn’t I duplicating the work.

Saying all this, I know that networking is really the best way to land a job, but still, in a lot of cases, before you get that interview, you have to be in the company’s system.

Finally, I believe there should be a global system that all companies use. The applicant fills out their information once and that information is then added to the global system. The company then pulls the applicant’s information from the system.

 

 

The Leadership Of Bill Gates

Posted: August 9, 2011 by Chris Stuckey in Leadership
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Today I’m continuing my look at leadership qualities of  influential people who have made an impact on our society and what makes them great leaders. I want to focus my attention on the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates. I will focus on two qualities: his ability to “Think Big” and his willingness to give back to society.  

 Ability To Think Big

Bill Gates once said, “I want to see a computer on every desk and Microsoft software on each computer.” Great leaders think outside the box. They don’t limit themselves or their teams to simple ideas. They challenge the team to come up with their own “ big” idea. When Gates said he wanted a computer on every desk,  it wasn’t a simple idea.  At the time it seemed impossible to assume that every person would have Microsoft on his on her computer back in 1980, but today we see Microsoft Windows is on the majority of computers and Microsoft Suite, which includes Word and Excel, is used by business’s around the world..  The only competition is Apple computers. Because Gates and Microsoft were so big-thinking, they made a big impact on they way people run their lives today.

Giving Back To Society
Bill Gates was once considered the world richest man according to Forbes Magazine. However,  he is not anymore. Not because someone is making more money or more successful, but because Gates gave a lot of his earnings away.  According to Reuters, “Bill Gates didn’t lose his title as the world’s richest man last year; he gave it away by plowing billions into his charitable foundation, experts say.” Gates is currently worth $49 billion, but if he had not have given away any money to charity, he would be easily be worth $88 billion.  Gates and his wife, Melinda has so far given $28 Billion to their foundation, the largest in the United States. So, what does giving have to do with good leadership? Bill Gates is leading by example. If people see that he is giving away a billions of his own money, it just might encourage others to give what they have as well. Whether it be giving away money, time, or knowledge, a great leader can influence millions to make a difference and be a “Big Impact” on others’ lives.

 

 

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