I’m Neal Woodson and I help managers and their team members create better experiences for each other as well as those they serve. All of this is ultimately in service of building overall better workplaces and customer spaces that lead to better life for everyone.

The journey toward this goal started when I was 15 and got my first job. It was there that I got my first taste of the many ills infecting our workplaces which, over the many years since that auspicious beginning, were only confirmed.

In different jobs and roles, I’ve experienced over and over the impact of good and bad management on employees, and, by extension, customers. I’ve seen the trickle-down effect, both positive and negative, of good and bad behaviors and meaningful and not-so-meaningful priorities on teams, departments, and entire organizations and it has taught me a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve worked in restaurant, retail, and hospitality spaces in both line-level and management roles as well as teaching at the high school and college levels and leading corporate training and development. Through it all, it has become increasingly apparent to me, yet poorly understood by so many, that business’s fundamental purpose is service and that leadership is most effective when it is also about service, in fact, I’ve found that perhaps the point of life in general is largely about service. Thus I’ve made it my personal mission to spread this message, and in the process, to help make the employee and customer experience more humane.

One challenge I’ve seen though is that so many efforts to influence higher employee engagement and better customer experiences are focused on training the how, but key to my mission, in contrast, is first teaching people about the why of business (helping people) and then inspiring them to bring that to life. Passionately focused — as well as defiantly outspoken — on human-centered business and personal success, I write, speak, coach, and teach to help change the future of work for the better for all stakeholders.

In addition to my work furthering this mission, I’m  also a husband, father, son, brother, and friend who enjoys playing golf, uninspiring though it may be, travel, good food and drink, watching various sports, experiencing art, music, dance, theater, and movies, and volunteering in service of the homeless community.

If you are interested in any of the thinking here, please leave a comment on my blog (and subscribe if you haven’t already). You can also follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn where I post frequently. I’d love to hear from you and have you join the movement to make business well and life better. If I can be of service, let me know. Cheers!