This is the 4th of a 10-part series on Customer Leadership.

In this LEADERSHIP MINTS series, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Steelcase Inc. (founded March 16, 1912) and salute their Customer Leaders (a.k.a employees).
Those highly motivated Customer Leaders have consistently helped the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based company reign as the office-furniture industry leader for most of its 100 years in business.

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an example of a Customer Leader solving an installation problem on her own time.

Bare foot and sopping wet in her bathing suit, Brook groped in the darkened and deserted warehouse of a Steelcase dealer on a Saturday afternoon.

The Steelcase dealer sales representative was on a mission, a mission to insure that the installation of 50 workstations would begin TODAY in time for the customer to move in on Monday morning, just 42 hours away.

This was the launch of a big job —420 Steelcase workstations —installed in phases over 12 consecutive weekends. And expectations were running high. The customer was on site to be sure all was going well.

But all was NOT going well. The installation was in jeopardy. The installers needed 11 more electrical connectors.

Without those six-inch-long connectors the installation would have to be stopped. What to do?

After all, this was Saturday. It would be impossible to order the parts in time. The installers called Brook. She wasn’t home.

Continue reading →