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What If Your Systems Helped You Love People Better · Called to Build

• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence is found in the little touches.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm currently on a seven day cruise with my wife aboard the MSC Seascape.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: The scale of this ship is difficult to fully appreciate until you are standing inside it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: At more than 1,100 feet long and roughly 170,000 gross tons, it can accommodate thousands of guests at a time, supported by a crew of more than one thousand six hundred people.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are more than two thousand staterooms, multiple dining venues, entertainment spaces, pools, shops, and countless moving parts operating simultaneously.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: An operation that large could very easily become impersonal.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you are serving thousands of people every day, efficiency has to matter.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Systems have to matter.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Schedules, staffing, food preparation, housekeeping, maintenance, entertainment, guest services, safety, and logistics all have to function together.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yet what has impressed me most on this trip is not the size of the ship.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is the little touches.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence begins with seeing the individual.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: My wife has a gluten sensitivity, so she has to maintain a gluten-free diet.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: On a ship serving thousands of meals every day that could easily become her problem to manage.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: She could be left to study menus, ask repeated questions, and constantly wonder whether what she is being served is safe for her to eat.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, the dining room manager meets with her each day to consult with her about her food choices.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a moment.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands of guests are on board.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands of meals are being prepared.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yet someone has taken responsibility for making sure one guest is personally cared for.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is not merely efficiency.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is excellence.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is also the kind of intentional, people-centered service I have written about before when discussing how to provide exceptional service to your customers.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: The second cake nobody asked for.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then came her birthday.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had ordered a gluten-free birthday cake for her.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: The wait staff brought it to the table while singing Happy Birthday, exactly as you might expect.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great moment, and the cake met her dietary needs.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But then they brought out a second cake.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: We had not ordered it, we did not know it was coming.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The second cake was not gluten-free, it was for me.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Someone had thought far enough ahead to realize that if my wife and I shared her gluten-free cake, she would have less of the cake that had been specially prepared for her.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So instead, they gave her a cake she could fully enjoy while also giving me a cake of my own so that I could participate in the celebration with her.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: That was the little touch.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that is where excellence lives.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence is often found in the part nobody asked for.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: We asked for a gluten-free birthday cake.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: They fulfilled the request.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: But somebody went beyond simply completing the task and thought about the experience surrounding the request.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Good service asks, what did the customer request?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence asks, what would make this experience complete?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: There is a world of difference between the two.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence at scale requires systems.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The larger an organization becomes, the easier it is for people to become numbers.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Customers become transactions.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Employees become positions on an organizational chart.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Church members become attendance statistics.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Clients become account numbers.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Systems are necessary.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Growth demands them.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: But systems should never cause us to stop seeing people.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the best system should help us see people more clearly.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: With thousands of guests and countless details competing for attention, excellence cannot depend on somebody simply remembering to be thoughtful.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be embedded in the culture.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Information has to be communicated.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibilities have to be clear.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: People have to be trained to notice.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Leaders have to establish a standard that values the person standing in front of them.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence at scale requires systems, but those systems should make excellence repeatable without making people feel processed.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is why I continue to emphasize that.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Systems should increase capacity without costing us our humanity.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Systems must serve calling, not control it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of the great dangers of growth is that we can become increasingly efficient while becoming increasingly disconnected.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: We can serve more people and know fewer of them.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: We can build larger organizations while creating greater distance between leadership and the people being served.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus never lost the individual in the crowd.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus never seemed to have the problem of allowing scale to erase the individual.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: He could be surrounded by crowds and still see one person.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Bartimaeus was crying out from the roadside while others tried to silence him, but Jesus heard him.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus was one man among many, perched in a tree, but Jesus noticed him.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: A woman reached through a crowd and touched the edge of his garment, and Jesus stopped.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: The crowds never caused Jesus to lose sight of the individual.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is, kingdom leadership modeled by Jesus.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: The size of the crowd never diminished the value of the person.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: For those of us who lead businesses, ministries, organizations, or teams, that should challenge us.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Growth is not permission to become impersonal.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Success is not permission to stop paying attention.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Efficiency is not an excuse for indifference.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, the greater the organization grows, the more intentional its leaders must become about preserving the value of the individual.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence changes when the Lord is the audience.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3 twenty three reminds us whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think we sometimes read that verse simply as an instruction to work hard, but there is something deeper happening in Paul's words.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: He is changing the audience for our work.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: The ultimate audience is not the customer, the boss, the board, the congregation, or the person signing the check.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Our work is ultimately offered to the Lord.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: That changes the standard.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: If I am working as unto the Lord, then I should care about the details nobody else sees.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I should care about the promise nobody else would know I broke.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I should care about the customer who cannot advance my career.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I should care about the employee who receives little recognition.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I should care about the person in the room who could easily disappear into the crowd.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is where excellence moves beyond a business strategy and becomes an act of faithful stewardship.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence is not perfection.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection and excellence are not the same thing.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection is about flawlessness.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence is about faithfulness.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: We will make mistakes.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Systems will fail from time to time.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: People will miss things.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: No organization will execute perfectly every time.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But excellence asks a deeper question.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have I faithfully stewarded what God placed in my hands?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: That includes the resources.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: That includes the opportunity.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: That includes the assignment.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And especially that includes the people.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is why customer care cannot be separated from calling.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Compassion itself can become a powerful differentiator when it is rooted in genuine concern rather than manipulation.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I explore that idea further in compassion as competitive advantage.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: People remember when they feel seen.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: There is a reason those two birthday cakes stayed with me.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: The second cake was not necessary.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody would have complained if it had never appeared.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: We had not asked for it, but somebody had thought about the person, not just the order.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is what made the moment memorable.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It communicated, we see you, we understand the situation, we thought about what would make this better.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Leaders should never underestimate the power of that message.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: In business, people remember when they feel known rather than processed.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: In ministry, people respond when they understand that they are seen rather than counted.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: In leadership, trust grows when people recognize that they are more than a means to an organizational objective.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Strong businesses are built on relationships, not merely transactions.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: That principle is central to building lasting relationships with customers.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: The leadership test.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps one of the greatest tests of excellence is not how impressive our organizations become, but whether the people entrusted to us still feel seen as we grow.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can we build systems without becoming mechanical?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Can we scale without becoming distant?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can we pursue efficiency without sacrificing relationship?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Can we serve thousands while still paying attention to one?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence is often found in the little touch.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: The MSCCscape is a massive operation.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands of people are being fed, entertained, housed, transported, and cared for every day.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yet one of the things I will remember most is a second birthday cake we never ordered.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is the lesson.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence is often found in the little touch.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is found when someone looks beyond the task and sees the person.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: For the kingdom-minded leader, that matters because our businesses, ministries, influence, opportunities, and people are all matters of stewardship.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: What God places in our hands deserves our best attention.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Build the systems, establish the standards, train the people, pursue efficiency, but never become so focused on serving the crowd that you stop seeing the individual.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the clearest evidence of excellence is found in the second cake nobody asked for.