Leadership

One of the underlying core values that is taught during our 16 week training is leadership. We do this through teaching strong customer service skills. "How can I help you," is a question leaders should be continuously asking their customers or clients. Well I like to call it customer service leaders. For too long people who work in the customer service arena have been walked on by rude and disrespectful customers. Our youth know this and can confirm this. So when you ask a teen what they would like to have as a career you will rarely hear, I want to work as a cashier at a grocery store. Many want to be in a way those rude and disrespectful customers. The person who is too busy to get off of their cell phone to place an order so does both in tandem. This is such poor manners. Everyone no matter their position deserves to be acknowledge, and hence our youth need to be taught that it is not necessarily a bad thing to work at a fast food joint. We need to feel valued as humans everyone from the migrant farmer to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Unfortunately our society has lost that respect that we have for our fellow workers.

Through out customer service teachings I teach the importance of listening. Jim Cathcart once said, "Listening is wanting to hear." We ask because we want to hear what the other person has to say and we mean it when we say, "Have a great day." We are so fortunate because our Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream shop is located right by a the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital. Everyday I get to meet courageous parents and their children who are fighting day in and day out for their lives. They bring their families in for a treat, but what they do not realize that they are the ones treating us with their stories of their struggles and successes and failures. The stories I hear will be ingrained in me for the rest of my life, all through scooping ice cream, who would have thought.

"Leadership is action not position." Donald H McGannon