Barry's Blog

A good friend of mine, Rick DeSoto, recently shared a small book with me (112 pages) that offers some excellent leadership principles, not only for work, but for life in general. The book, The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, is authored by Mark Sanborn, a well-known author and speaker who heads Sanborn & Associates, an idea studio for leadership development. The book has been a national bestseller on both The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. The idea behind The Fred Factor stemmed from the exceptional service Sanborn received from Fred Shea, who delivered Sanborn's mail to his residence in Highlands Ranch, a suburb of Denver. Sanborn has essentially taken Fred's excellent principles of service and written a book about them.

We learn of Sanborn's first encounter with "Fred" in Chapter One:  "I first met a 'Fred' just after purchasing what I called a 'new' old house. Built in 1928, the house was the first I'd owned and was located in a beautiful tree-lined area of Denver called Washington Park. Just days after I moved in, I heard a knock on my front door. When I opened it I saw a mailman standing on my porch. 'Good morning, Mr. Sanborn!' he said cheerfully. 'My name is Fred, and I'm your postal carrier. I just stopped by to introduce myself - to welcome you to the neighborhood and find out a little bit about you and what you do for a living.' Fred was an ordinary-looking fellow of average height and build with a small mustache. While his physical appearance didn't convey anything out of the ordinary, his sincerity and warmth were noticeable immediately. I was a little bit startled. Like most of us, I had been receiving mail for years, but I had never had this kind of personal encounter with my postal carrier. I was  impressed - nice touch. 'I'm a professional speaker. I don't have a real job,' I replied jokingly. 'If you're a professional speaker, you must travel a lot,' said Fred. 'Yes, I do. I travel anywhere from 160 to 200 days a year.' Nodding, Fred went on. 'Well, if you'll just give me a copy of your schedule, I'll hold your mail and bundle it. I'll only deliver it on the days that you are at home to receive it.' I was amazed by Fred's conscientious offer, but I told him that such extra effort probably wasn't necessary. 'Why don't you just leave the mail in the box on the side of the house?' I suggested. 'I'll pick it up when I come back into town.' Fred frowned and shook his head.  'Mr. Sanborn, burglars often watch for mail building up in a box. That tells them you're out of town. You might become the victim of a break-in.' Fred was more worried about my mail than I was! But it made sense; he was the professional. 'Here's what I suggest, Mr. Sanborn,' Fred continued. 'I'll put mail in your box as long as I can get it to close. That way nobody will know you're gone. Whatever doesn't fit in the box, I'll put between the screen door and the front door. Nobody will see it there. And if that area becomes too full of mail, I'll just hold the rest of it for you until you come back into town.' At this point I started to wonder: Does this guy really work for the U.S. Postal Service?"

Sanborn relates how for the next ten years, he continued to receive consistently remarkable service from Fred, and could even recognize the days he wasn't working as well! As a professional speaker who was particularly adept at finding and pointing out what's "wrong" with customer service and business, Sanborn began using his exceptional experiences with Fred in his speeches and seminars. Everyone wanted to hear about "Fred," and were excited to hear stories about him, whether they were in the service industry, worked at a manufacturing company, in high-tech, or health care. After observing his exemplary attitude and actions, Sanborn realized that Fred - and the way he did his job - provided a perfect metaphor for high individual achievement and excellence in the twenty-first century. These experiences inspired Sanborn to write The Fred Factor.

In this blog, we'll consider two of the four fundamental, guiding principles that comprise The Fred Factor. First and foremost, "Everyone Makes a Difference." Sanborn suggests that it doesn't matter how large or even how ineffective an organization is - an individual can still make a tremendous difference. Nobody can prevent someone from choosing to be exceptional in their work, and at the end of the day, the question that really matters is, "What kind of difference did I make?" As Fred Smith, the distinguished business leader notes, "most people have a passion for significance." There are no unimportant jobs, only people who, in the organization, may feel unimportant in their jobs. And when people don't see much meaning in what they do, they don't bring much value to what they do. Everyone wants to count, and to know that what he or she does in the organization truly adds value to the client and the organization. Passionate people in an organization do ordinary things extraordinarily well! G. K. Chesterton once observed, "All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe!"

The second fundamental principle is this: "Success is Built on Relationships." In Sanborn's case, Fred took the time to get to know him personally, his needs and preferences, and so his service became personalized because of their relationship. He then used that information to provide better service than Sanborn had ever experienced before. Because people are not a "means to an end," we build a strong foundation for success when we invest time with the client, getting to know their needs and preferences. Indifferent people can only deliver impersonal service. Amidst our technologically-driven society, leaders would do well to remember that employees are human, and that technology succeeds when it recognizes that its users are human.

For FinishingWell,

Barry Morrow