Being of Service

March 16th, 2009

I’ve been in professional services for… a long time. It’s been 15 years. And for much of that time, I’d say for the first 12 years or so, “services” wasn’t inspiring. In fact, it was just the opposite. It was deadening.

Speaking for myself and those that I’ve had direct contact with in the professional services industry, “deadening” is a typical experience of the professional services industry. Many of us go home on a Monday evening, almost too tired to do anything else. Then by Friday evening, we’re for sure too tired to do anything but sit on a couch or go to sleep. And so to say that work for us wasn’t inspiring is an understatement.

It wasn’t because of the work itself was boring, simple or just not exciting. I’ve worked on the best of the best. I’ve worked for the best consultancies in town on the most high-profile and coveted projects. The teams I’ve worked with were the best in the industry. The clients themselves were also top notch. So it wasn’t the work. It wasn’t the people. But it was the inherent point of view of services that kills. And that point of view is “get it done on time,” “get it done under budget,” “do more,” “make the client happy,” “just get it done” and most importantly, “make it more profitable!” How inspiring is that? Well for some it may be inspiring but for most is wasn’t. What it felt like is… running on a hamster wheel. Faster, faster, faster. More, more, more.

Now here’s the ironic thing. The industry is called Professional Services. And so we’re supposed to be professionals in providing service. But the point of view I just described produced everything BUT true service or Being of Service.

What I’ve written here is not news to anyone within the industry. But this may be- if you actually be of service, it can be inspiring. Let me give you an example.

This past week, I offered our services to a trusted and valued client (that could no longer afford to pay for our services) for free. Actually, within the past 2 weeks, I’ve done this 3 times. You may be asking “why?” Or in the words of one of the clients that got this offer, “Thanks for the offer – out of curiosity, what’s the rationale?” Well, like I told this client, it was because I still see the opportunity to still be of help (service) and I wasn’t going to let the fact that they didn’t have money to pay us stand in the way. It’s funny. This economic downturn has created an opening, an opportunity to truly be of service. It awakened me to what’s really inspiring about this industry- which is being of help to others. And I’m grateful that the economic downturn reminded me of this. And I’m grateful that our services have been so beneficial to our clients- so much so that I’m willing to continue working for those clients that have been so good to us during the good times whether or not they can pay for us in the bad times.

This model of free services isn’t scalable or sustainable but I’ll do it as long as we can and as long as it continues to inspire us.

Entry Filed under: Digital Onion News, PM Leadership