Steve Pope, Head of Contact Centre at Harlands Group, shares three methods of improving leadership throughout the contact centre team.
Harlands 集团联络中心负责人史蒂夫•波普分享了提高整个联络中心团队领导力的三种方法
One basic aim of leadership is getting the best out of other people and this is crucial in contact centres because we’ve generally got so many people to lead.
领导力的一个基本目标是让其他人发挥最大的作用，这在呼叫中心是至关重要的，因为我们通常需要很多人来领导。
With ever more demanding generations entering the workforce, it’s imperative we find new ways to engage, develop and empower them, so they do their very best work with us, every day.
随着更多要求的新一代员工步入职场，我们必须找到新的方式去让他们更好地参与，并培养和赋能于他们，从而使他们每天都能有最好的工作状态。
In my experience, putting agents first results in high employee engagement and great customer service. Embodying a culture that develops leadership skills for everyone on the team always produces better performance results. There are better methods than old-school command and control management.
以我的经验，把员工放在首位将会带来较高的员工参与度和良好的客户服务。具体体现为在团队中发展领导力技巧将产生的更好绩效结果的文化。总的来说，相较老式的指挥和控制管理，有许多更好的方法。
Over my 19 years of contact centre management, I’ve adapted three sure-fire engagement methods to develop leadership at every level, which are presented below.
在我19年的呼叫中心管理生涯中，我采用了三种有效的方法来培养各层级的领导力，如下所示：
1. Find Meaning in the Work – Tell the team why what they do is so important
1、寻找工作的意义——告诉团队为什么他们所做的事情如此重要
In his well-known TED Talk “How great leaders inspire action”, Simon Sinek explores how leaders can inspire cooperation, trust and change with a simple leadership model. Applying this model in the contact centre creates an environment which helps your agents to do their best work for you.
Simon Sinek在他著名的TED演讲“伟大的领导者如何激发他人更好地行动“中探讨了领导者如何通过简单的领导模式来激发合作与信任，并用简单的领导力模型来进行改变。在联系中心中应用此模型可以创建一个帮助客服代表尽他们所能做好工作的环境。
Every company knows what they do. A product or service is provided to generate value. And contact centre exist as a support for customers who need help to get what they need.
每个公司都知道他们自己在做什么。提供产品或服务是为了产生价值，而联络中心的存在是为了帮助那些需要帮助的客户。
Some organization know how they do what they do to set them apart from the competition. Contact centre management should have standards(For example the 4PS standard) which tell their team how they’re going to deliver service including quality assurance and call handling metrics.
一些组织知道如何做才能在竞争中脱颖而出。呼叫中心管理层应该有标准（比如4PS标准）去告诉他们的团队他们将如何提供服务，包括质量保证和呼叫处理指标。
Not every organization knows why they exist in the first place. What is the purpose of the business? What does it stand for and why does this matter? This same principle applies to the contact centre team – they need both a purpose and a set of values to help them create their identity and be clear on how their success is measured.
并不是每个组织都知道它们最初存在的原因是什么？商业的目的是什么?它代表什么?为什么这很重要?
其实，同样的原则也适用于呼叫中心团队--他们需要一个目标和一套价值观来帮助他们创建自己的企业形象与特性，并清楚地知道如何衡量他们的成功。
If I want to get the best out of my team, then I always need the business to agree a vision of the contact centre’s purpose. In my current organization our purpose is summed up as; “Making every client’s life easier”.
如果我想从我的团队中得到最好的东西，那么我需要同意联络中心对于自己目标的憧憬。在我目前的组织中，我们的目标总结为:“让每个客户的生活更轻松”。
My contact centre team has broken this down into a strap line which is: “Get it right first time and build a positive relationship with every member, on every contact”. This is supported by a set of behavior and high standards which we’ve committed to living every day.
我的呼叫中心团队已经把这句话落实为：“第一次就做好，在每一次联络过程中与每一位成员建立正向积极友好的关系。”这是由我们每天所致力的一系列行为和高标准来支持的。
For example, in our daily team huddles, one of our priorities is to continuously improve customer processes. Each leader will ask their agents:
例如，在我们的日常团队会议中，我们的优先事项之一是不断改进与客户相关的流程。每位管理者都会问他们的下属:
· What’s stopping us getting it right the first time?
· 是什么阻止我们第一次就为客户提供正确而良好的服务?
· What’s the root cause?
· 根本原因是什么?
· Is it a bad process?
· 这个流程不好吗?
· Do our systems make it hard for you or is our behaviour getting in your way?
· 我们的管理体系或工作行为是否又碍于为客户提供良好的服务？
· How could we do this better than we do today?
· 我们怎样才能做得比今天更好呢?
We take their ideas, do an impact analysis, then work with our clients to implement the change.
管理者会接受员工的反馈与意见，并进行影响度分析，然后服务客户的过程中改变流程。
Asking for feedback from the team helps them feel included as decision makers in day-to-day operations.
从团队中寻求反馈与建议，将使团队成员在日常运营感觉自己是决策者，从而更有利于开展工作。
2. Building High Standards – Agree how you will behave to get the work done
2、建立高标准-同意你将如何表现来完成工作
I think we can all agree that Jeff Bezos has set the bar for high standards within a company. In a recent letter to Amazon shareholders, he explained that building a culture of high standards is well worth the effort as it enables the business to create better products and services for its customers and it can help attract and retain high-calibre employees.
我想我们都认同亚马逊CEO杰夫·贝佐斯为公司所设定的高标准。在最近给亚马逊股东的一封信中，贝佐斯解释说，建立高标准的企业文化是非常值得的，因为它能让企业为客户创造更好的产品和服务，还能帮助吸引和留住高素质的员工。
The standards are teachable and domain specific which means we need them to be crafted explicitly for the contact centre.
这些标准是可传授可培训的，并且它是适用于特定领域的，这意味着我们需要为联络中心明确制定这些标准。
Here are three practical examples of high standards in my current team:
以下是我目前团队中三个高标准的实际例子:
i. The Daily Team Huddle – In project management, management know the value of spending 15 minutes every morning with the team. This can be applied in any work environment.
一、每日团队会议——在项目管理中，管理者知道每天早上花15分钟与团队在一起开会或交流的价值。这适用于任何工作环境。
Group huddles are a popular way of communicating with the team, with contact centres like Fat Face’s in Havant also using the initiative.
小组碰头是与团队交流的一种流行方式，哈凡特的Fat Face等联络中心也采用了这种方式。
Everyone gets a chance to speak about what they’ve been working on, how they’re managing their time, and what their work priority is for the day. It’s a team coaching session where agents can ask for help with a problem and get advice from their peers.
通过这样的碰头会，每个员工都有机会谈论他们在做什么，他们是如何管理时间的，以及他们当天的工作重点是什么。这是一个团队指导会议，在这里，客服代表可以就问题寻求帮助，并从他们的同事那里得到建议。
ii. Weekly Lunch and Learns – A common trait among good leaders is the willingness to learn and consider new ideas to drive efficiency. Every week, a new topic is discussed with a recent session being focused on “process automation”.
二、每周午餐和学习——优秀领导者的一个共同特点是愿意学习和考虑新想法来提高效率。每周都会有一个新主题被讨论，最近的一个会议的主题是“流程自动化”。
From their front-end experience, our agents came up with three ideas to improve the service they give to clients. These ideas led to systems being automated which resulted in a cost saving of one FTE per day. This practice empowers agents to come up with improvement solutions where they’re really needed.
因为具有丰富的一线经验，我们的座席代表提出了改善提供给客户的服务的三个想法。
这些想法导致了有效的系统自动化，并因此每天节省一个FTE（全职 员工）的成本。这种实践授权和鼓励员工在真正需要的地方提出改进解决方案。
iii. Monthly Leader/Agent meeting – These crucial meetings help us understand where an agent is in their career development. Agents share their achievements and struggles, and we focus on helping them find their true strengths – the parts of the job that light them up and help them do their very best work.
三、每月领导/座席代表会议 --这些重要的会议帮助我们了解客服代表的职业发展。客服代表分享他们的工作成就和奋斗，我们专注于帮助他们找到真正的长项--工作中让他们耀眼而有成就的那部分，从而帮助他们把工作做到最好。
3. Strength Spotting – How we help agents motivate themselves to do their best work
3、发现优势--帮助员工激励自己竭尽所能做好工作
One good outcome of having these types of high standards is the relentless focus on personal development.
拥有这些高标准的一个好结果就是对个人发展的不懈关注。
Over the years, I’ve noticed that many leaders focus their agents on developing weaknesses which are directly relevant to the job such as having high average handle times or poor customer satisfaction scores.
多年来，我注意到许多管理者将注意力集中员工如何提高与工作直接相关的弱点上，比如平均处理时间长或客户满意度得分。
Whilse these are important performance gaps; they shouldn’t dominate conversations between leader and agent otherwise you might end up with a parent/child relationship.
虽然这些是重要的性能差距，但他们不应该控制及支配管理者和员工之间的对话，否则你可能会以某些父母和孩子的糟糕对话而形成的不好关系结束。
Strengths spotting – a deliberate practice where leaders look for the
发现优势--领导者寻找优势的一种深思熟虑的做法
Behaviors that drive positive outcomes.
驱动积极结果的行为
I help my teams improve their performance by actively helping each person understand where they are excellent and giving them the chance to exploit this as an opportunity to shine. This is strengths spotting – a deliberate practice where leaders look for the behaviours that drive positive outcomes.
我通过积极帮助每个人了解他们的优秀之处来帮助我的团队提高他们的表现，并给他们机会来发挥长项。这就是发现优势--一种经过深思熟虑的做法，领导者通常擅长于寻找那些能带来积极结果的行为。
Over the last 12 months, more than 20% of my contact centre team has been promoted to bigger roles across our organisation. This has happened because their leaders helped them identify what motivates them to do their best work and then gave each of them the opportunity to showcase this strength.
在过去的12个月里，我的呼叫中心团队中有超过20%的人被提升到公司的更高职位。之所以会出现这种情况，是因为他们的领导者帮助他们找到激励他们尽最大努力的动力，然后给他们每个人展示这种长项的机会。
Contact centre agents are invaluable not just because they directly interact with your customers but also because they can provide insights into how the company really works, what customers think and how processes can be improved. And it creates a real sense of pride in their work which is a sure sign of engagement.
联系中心的员工是无价的，不仅因为它们直接与客户交互，还因为它们可以洞察公司的实际运作方式、客户的想法以及流程如何改进。这为他们的工作创造了一种真正的自豪感，这是一种参与的迹象。
Summary/总结
Over the years, I’ve found that employing three leadership tactics in the contact centre delivers a more motivated and more developed team.
多年来，我发现在呼叫中心采用三种领导策略，可以让团队更有动力、更成熟。
Firstly, give meaning to your people so they can connect with their work. Secondly, agree and commit to high standards so everyone knows what’s expected of them. Thirdly, deliberately look for strengths in each person so they can excel in their work.
首先，给你的员工赋予意义，这样他们就能与他们的工作联系起来；
其次，同意并承诺高标准，让每个员工都知道你对他们的期望是什么；
