How can you learn from other service operations leaders?

1 Identify your learning goals

The first step to learning from other service operations leaders is to identify your specific learning goals. What are the areas of service operations that you want to improve, develop, or explore? For example, you might want to learn how to optimize your service capacity, reduce your costs, enhance your service quality, increase your customer satisfaction, or innovate your service offerings. By defining your learning goals, you can narrow down your focus and prioritize your learning activities.

2 Find relevant sources of information

Gaining knowledge from other service operations leaders is the second step in the learning process. There are various ways to access their knowledge and experience, such as reading books, articles, and blogs on service operations topics; listening to podcasts, webinars, and audio books featuring experts and practitioners; watching videos, documentaries, and online courses; joining online communities, forums, and groups; and attending events, workshops, and conferences. All of these resources can provide valuable insights into service operations concepts and techniques that can be used to achieve learning goals.

3 Apply your learning to your context

The third step to learning from other service operations leaders is to apply your learning to your own context. To do so, you must experiment with new ideas, tools, and methods in your service operations processes and systems. Then, evaluate the results and impacts of your experiments using data and feedback. Afterward, refine and adjust your experiments based on your evaluation and learning. Finally, if successful, scale and standardize the experiments across your service operations functions and units. Learning from others is not enough if you do not translate it into action and improvement. You need to adapt and customize the lessons and best practices that you learn from other service operations leaders to suit your specific service operations environment, objectives, and constraints.

4 Share your learning with others

The fourth and final step to learning from other service operations leaders is to share your learning with the service operations community. By writing blogs, articles, or reports on your challenges and solutions, creating podcasts, videos, or online courses on your lessons and best practices, participating in online discussions and forums, and speaking at events, workshops, and conferences, you can showcase your achievements and learnings. Learning from other service operations leaders is a powerful way to enhance your skills, knowledge, and performance. You can leverage the wealth of information, experience, and wisdom that other service operations leaders have to offer to apply it to your own context. How do you learn from other service operations leaders? What are the sources, methods, and benefits that you use and gain from learning from others?

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?