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Character Development in CX is one of the foundations for being able to deliver the best possible experience for the customer. People never forget the way they are treated by others, and each person wants to be treated with respect, dignity, and truth. Every single customer wants and deserves to be treated with integrity. And integrity only comes from someone with a healthy spiritual character.   So, what is character? How do you develop character in your agents and from within your call center? In this episode of the Fast Leader Show, Jim Loehr shares how to do that. Listen as he expounds on how to lead with character.

In this episode of the Fast Leader Show, Dennis Geelen shares his insights on the importance of customer-centric innovation and why you should apply it in your call center or business today. According to research, 75% of businesses don't make it past year 15. Dennis Geelen believes that the cause for this is that companies are too inward-focused and are too stubborn. In order for a call center or business to survive and thrive, they must become outward focused or customer-centric, and they must deal with their stubbornness by being innovative. Listen to this episode as Dennis Geelen shares more about customer-centric innovation.

In this episode of the Fast Leader Show, Nir Bashan shares his knowledge and insight in how to be more creative in your contact center and help fill the creativity gap in your customer experience strategy. Leaders and executives today struggle to find new and innovative ideas to meet the customer's needs because they focus too much on the analytical side and forget to be creative - this is the creativity gap that we are trying to solve. According to Nir, being creative is one of the most important aspects if you want your agents to perform better and be more empathetic to the customer. Listen as Nir shares more of his insights in how to have the creator mindset!

Coaching for leaders and managers is essential to drive peak performance for your call center and business. According to Bill Eckstrom, the most effective leader behaves more like a coach. So, how exactly do you behave that way and what do great leaders do to increase sales, enhance performance, and sustain growth? In this episode of the Fast Leader Show, Bill Eckstrom lays out the strategies and tactics for you to apply coaching for leaders and managers. Learn how you can become more comfortable with discomfort and its importance in your call center and team's growth.

A good strategic plan is never enough unless you are able to drive results from them. Any call center or business can develop a good strategic plan, but not everyone can drive results and execute on them. So, how do you exactly develop a good strategic plan that drives results? How do you take action and get those gears in place and get your strategic plan from strategy to execution to results? In this episode of the Fast Leader Show, Sean T. Ryan of WhiteWater International Consulting, shares his actionable advice on how exactly you can do that!

The goal of a creative leader should always be to drive innovation for business. However, innovation for business is something very difficult to do on a consistent basis. Where do you get the inspiration? How do you exercise your creativity muscles that enable you to drive consistent innovation for business? In this episode of the Fast Leader Podcast, Cliff Goldmacher shows you a way to stay creative using principles in music and songwriting! Cliff shares the similarities between songwriting and innovation and how it applies for your business.

What is Organizational Health? What does it do and how does it positively impact an organization? In companies today, the focus has mostly been on being smart and being more intelligent. Everything is about technology and streamlining processes and tasks. However, according to Greg Ablett, that is not the only factor that contributes to a company's overall performance. Organizational health is important because it allows the company to operate without politics and confusion. It allows the company to perform better and helps team members become smarter therefore outperforming the competition. Listen to this episode as Greg Ablett shares more about organizational health and its practical benefits and importance.

Tom Connally was struggling with his work and he realized that he needed to change and bring his performance with his values. In order to do that, Tom started writing and journaling and doing small, incremental changes that eventually led to where he is now and made him a better person.

When Dr. Quinn was in the 6th grade, there was a popular boy in school who was good at basketball and almost every cute cheerleader loved him. Due to certain circumstances, he had to leave the school, and Dr. Quinn, wanting to be loved by the cheerleaders as well, saw it as an opportunity to replace him and become the best basketball player he could be. After working really hard, Dr. Quinn didn’t see any results, as even though he became the best basketball player, the cheerleaders still didn’t love him or notice him. But something else happened for the first time in his life. He realized he could set a goal and pursue it and turn into somebody new. And from his role as a point guard, he learned that it’s about making everyone else better. Although he never achieved his goal of becoming loved by the cheerleaders, Dr. Quinn learned something even more profound in his life.

Dave McKeown was about to speak on one of his first workshops when he was faced with the dilemma of not having enough money to pay the hotel bill. Not wanting to borrow money from his girlfriend (now wife), Dave put together his very first webinar where he was able to earn enough money to cover for his hotel bill. From that experience, Dave learned to always invoice his client 50% upfront and that whatever challenge he faced, there will always be an answer out there.

Nathanael Zurbruegg has been chronically ill since he was 3 years old. He has been through 3 failed kidney transplants, over 4300 Dialysis treatments, and 3 lung infections. Doctors have said he shouldn't be alive for 6 times by now!   Having been through this many challenges in life, Nathanael shares his strategy of having a victorious mindset in life and having an attitude of never giving up. No matter how hard life may get, there is still hope. It's important not to focus on the negative, but instead focus on the positive. Listen to this episode as Nathanael Zurbruegg shares how we can have a victorious mindset that can overcome life's greatest challenges.

Patrick S. Frazier was working in IT when he got promoted into Operations. Filling in the new seat, Patrick experienced many struggles in leadership, specifically in delegation. He tried to delegate, but the result was a bad employee experience. His boss visited him and spent some time with him to share some wisdom regarding having the courage to let others fail. Through this experience, Patrick learned a valuable lesson in leadership which he now carries on to this day in his coaching practice.

Ty Montague had a career in advertising before getting into the business transformation business. He was doing very well in that job and was finding great success, except for the fact that he hated it. For Ty, the day-to-day activities was not satisfying and it seemed like he was just adding more problems to the world. He was able to get over the hump when Ty faced his fears of leaving the company and starting his own business and making positive change for other people.

Ryan Coon’s company was facing a major decision in choosing which part of their market they wanted to focus on. There was a great divide between them, and it was a great challenge to try and fix it. In order to resolve this situation, Ryan Coon got over the hump by talking to the customers and getting feedback from them and simply using that feedback to drive the company forward.

Dan Bruder was asked to start a bank during his early 20s. He didn't have any experience yet, but he didn't back down to the challenge either. In order to accomplish this, he needed to work harder than anybody else. He didn't have any idea about multiplicative leadership where he could do more with others, and he only focused on how he could do things better by himself. While working on this role, Dan realized the potential of success through the help of others when he hired a second-in-command that was really talented. However, after a year, this person quit. Her reason was that the role was not challenging enough. Dan was putting on too much of the responsibility to himself making her job too easy and squashed her potential and inhibited her ability to be great. From that experience, Dan got over the hump and learned a very valuable lesson in delegating and helping others activate their own potential.

David Wachs was working for a venture capital firm back in 2004-2005 when he got fired by his boss for allegedly losing some stocks. Not having any money left, David moved back to his home in Arizona and started his first company, Cellit, which quickly became a huge success. It was initially a struggle to launch the company at first, but David got over the hump by trusting in himself and working hard, which eventually resulted to the company’s success.

Jan-Benedict Steenkamp was doing very well in the academe when he hit a hump in his life. He was regularly writing many academic publications but became dispirited and demotivated when he was not able to see how his publications could move the needle in someone else’s life. Through reinventing himself, JB started writing business books where leaders and managers could read what he wrote and make a positive impact in their lives. Despite facing opposition from others around him, JB continues to do what he loves and make a positive impact to those around him.

Nate Regier was trying to sell to a particular CEO who kept poking holes in everything he was saying. Nate was trying to backpedal and explain but things just kept getting worse and worse. Finally, the CEO pushes Nate to the point where Nate decides not to compromise any further because it would no longer make him feel any integrity in the work that he provides. After seemingly being kicked out from the office, Nate was surprised when the CEO called him and says he's hired. The CEO appreciated his conviction to stand up for what he truly believed in. From that experience, Nate learned that if he wants to be a top leader, he needs to be able to go toe to toe with the worst and to have the backbone to never compromise with his beliefs.

After the IBM Watson team won the Jeopardy challenge, Neil Sahota was fighting for the ecosystem model to try to open up the platform. A lot of the people was trying to engage the tech people, but Neil was trying to target the businesspeople. According to Neil, the businesspeople understood the problems more, they were on the ground, and if they were trying to build solutions, they were the people that need to be at the table with the technologists. Neil initially lost that fight, but he never gave up.   Neil convinced them that if they had five of the best technologists in the world then they would be thinking about self-driving cars and missions to Mars, but if they had five of the best doctors in the world then they would be thinking about curing cancer. What if they were to put them together?   During that epiphany moment, people realized the amazing impact that technology can bring across every sector if they were to join together business and technology. This amalgam between business and technology became one of Neil's biggest humps that he was able to overcome.

Julie Winkle Giulioni took a role that looked so prestigious. By the end of the first week, she knew she made a dreadful mistake. All of her instincts told her to run for the door, but she didn't. At that time, she decided that she needed to make a one-year commitment and was going to make the best of that situation. While it didn't turn out the way that she expected and it didn't send her down the career trajectory that she dreamt of, what she did do was mind that experience.   It was a rough environment, but she decided each day to look for where the learning was, where could she try one new thing, where she could exercise one new skill, or just get a little bit better at anything. It got her through the year, and it was probably the richest growth experience that she'd had in terms of know the grit that she had and her ability to get through and make the best of it.