Editor’s note: If you consider yourself a coach, work in any form of customer service and/or HR/Training, this book will cause you to think differently about some of your more chronic issues. I met Jim almost 30 years ago when we were both on the platform for the National Restaurant Association and “fell in like” immediately due to his unique approach to people and his very entertaining style. Both show brilliantly in this easy-to-read primer for how to treat yourself and your people (first). Spoiler alert: the result of focusing on the first two are happy, engaged customers.
Favorite Excerpt: “In this age of instant gratification, supervisors have a vending machine mindset when it comes to employee education; they put a team in a class and expect immediate conformity and results. But training and coaching is a process, not an event. It’s more like farming and gardening: you prepare the ground, fertilize, water, water, water, prune, water…and if you stick with it, voila! Results. Training, coaching and development requires patience. Unfortunately, patience is not considered a virtue when you operate in a global economy that moves quicker than two jiggles of a jackrabbit’s ass. But you can’t hurry love and the same is true for training.”