They said it couldn't be done!
Craig Newmark, the majordomo of the very popular classifeds website, craigslist, described his "secret sauce for the site's success" in an interview in Costco Connection, the magazine for Costco members. (With all the stuff Costco has, who knew they would have a magazine too??) Turns out Craig is a Costco member. And a basic values kind of guy too.
His site gets 6.5 million - million - posts per month and has recorded up to 700 hits per second. It is localized to 190 cities in 35 countries. And, not confirmed or denied by Craig, the site pulls in about $7-10 million a year. Yeah, sounds successful to me.
So of course, Costco readers must know, what is the key to Craig's success?
In this high-tech, gizmos-on-steriods world, it is really refreshing to hear that Craig credits the site's popularity to one thing: the Golden Rule and the trust that comes from that.
"I'd like to be more cynical, but the Golden Rule really works. [The site] started off with the ethos that people generally share. Sometimes we have difficulty following through, but pretty much everyone believes in helping other people."
I love this. I've seen it work, too, in some hard-core situations as well.
A few years ago I was brought in as a consultant to help a company provide better customer service. Just like Craig, I've seen the best customer service results when companies really live by the Golden Rule. It's kinda simple, really, but boy the road is hard getting there. That's what I found at this one company...a very rocky road.
Turns out the biggest obstacle to delivering uniform quality customer service was serious conflict between the union and management: quality control, said management, was under their authority and the union felt this needed to be a part of the collective bargaining agreement.
Talk about bitter, the office cubicles were more like little "armed camps" where the missles were destructive emails -- and it all centered on the one department assigned to providing customer service. Everyone was unhappy: workers, union, management, customers.
I was so shocked at how cruel both sides could be that I was moved to tears. So I did what I always do when I am depressed: I prayed.
It wasn't a prayer of "What do I do now?" It was more like: "How am I supposed to think about this??" See, I was pretty ticked at both parties, who had over several years dug pretty deeply into their positions, and as a result had victimized workers and treated customers poorly.
What inspired me in this situation was remembering the Golden Rule, and the man who best exemplified it with his teachings and his life, Jesus Christ. (As a side note, I love knowing that almost every faith tradition in the world includes a basic tenet like the Golden Rule...must be a Truth!). Jesus had lots of opportunities in his career to look for blame, but instead he loved everyone unconditionally, knowing each one had an unbreakable relationship to the universal Spirit. Because of this, he was able to heal any problem.
This told me what I needed to do. I figured that first I had to love all the parties involved unconditionally. The Spirit who loves all of us unconditionally would tell me what to do. And I did get some great ideas!
Here's one: Every time I heard someone criticize another individual, or I caught myself doing it in my own thoughts, I mentally checked myself. I thought instead, "How does Spirit or God see this person?" The answer was always some form of with unconditional, unfailing love. A good discipline, and it did take discipline. But pretty soon I started seeing positive contributions that individuals were making to the department.
Then I suggested workshops for both management and staff where we could discuss the basic principles of customer service and they could come up with ideas for applying these principles to their workplace. I was warned from the management side that I should be prepared for disruptive behavior. Well, I got prepared with prayer. (Hey, would that be "pre-prayered"?)
I resolved to live that Golden Rule, and see people the way I'd want them to see me. I would see only the children Spirit-God made: caring, truthful, creative, productive. And that is exactly who showed up at the workshops! The participants found their common ground, freely shared ideas, and willingly suggested new ways of working for the benefit of the customer. This was the beginning of some good changes in the department.
The best proof to me of the change in atmosphere occurred at one of the breaks. A small cluster of workers came up to me and said, "You're different from any of the other consultants who have tried to help us. We feel like you really love us."
Yeah, the Golden Rule at work really works! Read more from Chris on the Practical Spirituality blog.
|
