On a recent stop at a coffee shop, I walked in and the barista was chatting with their teammates. So I stood patiently waiting to be helped.

This made me pause. Were any of these employees considering, “There’s a person here who pays our paychecks” or “We should help this person because they are key to our success,” was any of that on anyone’s mind?

Or how about, “Maybe this person is cold and wants a cup of coffee to warm up” or “This person might be in a hurry to get to something important” or even “This person might be getting coffee for a sick friend,” was anyone thinking any of these thoughts?

Again, I paused. What do companies train their employees? Is there any attention paid to teaching the thinking behind things or is it just what to do to get tasks accomplished?

It seemed obvious in my coffee shop.  No one was considering the fact that customers are the reason for business. No one was considering that the success of the shop was tied to the success of the person they were ignoring. No one was considering the needs of the person they were meant to serve.

It wasn’t until I chimed in with a little “ahem” that attention shifted…to the task. Taking my order and making it was performed with precision but it was delivered without warmth or human touch. I was, it appeared, a necessary evil, an inconvenience, a distracting speed bump on their daily highway.

Is this your business? Do you train the thinking behind what you do (helping people accomplish things) or simply how to do a job?

Without working to create a shift in thinking that focuses on people, every customer interaction will be reduced to a transaction to be completed rather than a relationship to be cultivated, and it is relationships that keep your business afloat for the long haul. Transactions may feel good short-term but you can’t count on them.

If you don’t want to end up delivering the mediocrity of my coffee shop, you will need to begin shifting thinking instead of just training tasks.

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