Instead, having filled the pits in their service, they scramble to pave the potholes—the minor problems and annoyances. It’s as though the leaders aspire to create a complaint-free service rather than an extraordinary one.

You want to get two things wrong, have the customer bring those mistakes to your attention, and then hustle like mad to fix those problems.

These sentiments don’t describe “achievements,” at least in the sense of plaques and certificates. Rather, they are describing moments of courage.

We’ll also encounter the seemingly unthinkable: strangers who become fast friends in 45 minutes, as a result of following a carefully structured series of questions (which you can download for yourself).

She realized: I can do this. I can be this person.

visiting the stars of service experience: the Ritz-Carlton, Disney, General Electric, and Southwest Airlines.

the former forces us to think about the script.

But are we focusing as much energy on increasing positive variance from week to week?

So “fresh starts” happen not only on New Year’s Day, but also on any other landmark date. If