“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” – Matthew 7:12

A common defense against doing something that you do not want to do is to complicate the task. The complication requires further deliberation which promotes delay. 

We do that a lot with our faith. We don’t do it consciously but think about how much time we spend discussing our faith rather than acting it out.

Simplicity is what is so great about this little verse in Matthew that is known as the Golden Rule. Jesus himself said this statement sums up all that is taught in the law and prophets. Doing what it says can greatly simplify our faith walks.

Here is how the Message translation states the verse: “Here is a simple, rule of thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.” 

Pretty simple. I love the action called out in both translations – “do to others” and “grab the initiative.”

How can we act and “do” the Golden Rule in our businesses? I love that the Golden Rule is the simplest and most all-encompassing description of customer and employee excellence. I find it amazing that such an ancient guideline could be so relevant today, in business and life in general.

An interesting thing about the Golden Rule is that the great majority of executives would say they fully believe it is the best way to create loyal customers and employees. Yet, customers and employees of these organizations do not feel treated how they would like to be treated.

Why is that? Is it because these executives have hired people who think and act differently than they do? That is possible. Most leaders struggle to hire people who fit the character of the organization.

Is it because these executives are just paying lip service to the Golden Rule and focus on short-term profits instead? This is a plausible explanation, but still not the root problem.

The root problem is that these well-intentioned leaders do not incentivize their employees to follow the golden rule and hold them accountable. 

Anyone in management can tell you that the three most important aspects of good leadership are clarity, accountability and measurement. We are great at measuring the bottom line, but not so good at measuring how that bottom line was achieved. We are focused on lagging indicators instead of the leading ones.

This can lead employees to drive for short-term profits at the detriment of long-term relationships with customers and employees. 

We all know that Wall Street is driven by quarterly numbers and with the average employee staying with a firm for less than five years, short-term thinking is rampant. Many incentive plans make short-term thinking far too profitable.

So – how can a well-intentioned executive influence their troops to strive for long-term customer and employee loyalty and bottom-line profits? 

The tool that more and more leaders are turning to is the Net Promoter Score. The NPS asks customers how likely they are to recommend your product or service to a friend or colleague and why. It creates a simple metric that the entire team can focus on improving. You can ask your employees the same question about their workplace.

The problem is not bad intentions, it is bad measurement. We’ll dive into the details of how to use NPS in future articles. In next week’s article, I want to show you some firms that have used the “Golden Rule” methodology of customer service to deliver fantastic outcomes for shareholders, customers and employees.