Paradigm Shift from "Serve us" to Service

Paradigm shifts because ...even if you are on the right track you would get runover if you sit there...

...For even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give...

I got a coupon from a popular fast food restaurant for dining there the previous day. It said just answer a survey over the phone and get a sandwich free. Sandwiches are not great motivators but the interest about what they wanted to know from such surveys prompted me to call. The voice of the chairman of the company said, we value your opinion and care to make a difference. Then went on the survey asking questions about the restaurant, its location, timeliness, temperature & quality of the food, easiness in placing order, neatness of the people, the customer service and the neatness of the restaurant and even the rest rooms. This is because of the heavy competition from the food industry and one can loose a customer even if ones service fails for once!!!!!! Quality is staying up to the mark every time. It was clear they strive for continuous improvement and innovation in service. But their underlying driving force was service to others to serve themselves better.

Technology has grown to drastic heights and is at present readily available to one and all—at least more than what it used to be some time back. Everyone can deliver the goods in the line of requirement. But how good can one get to satisfy the customer? How can a customer settle down on one source when almost everyone is equally good and one is not able to find the minute technical edge of one over the others??? They sail by the wind that serves them better. Hence for the organizations only route to destination success is service.

Several years ago Chuck Colson made the observation that, when the Communists took over Russia in 1917, they did not make Christianity illegal. Their constitution, in fact, did guarantee freedom to religion. But what they made illegal was for the church to do any "good works". No longer could the church fulfill its historic role in feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, housing the orphan, educating the children or caring for the sick. What was the result? 70 years later the church was totally irrelevant to the communities in which it dwelt. What Lenin did by diabolic design, most churches have done by default. But result is identical. Church is irrelevant to most people. Failure to serve was failure to survive!!!!

Now it becomes clear why, like a renaissance of its own, service organizations have mushroomed up and spread like fungus. Service has attracted clients from all over the world as the word globalization becomes more and more pronounced in all prominent sectors of business.

In the above paragraphs we have seen only about the shifted side of the paradigm that is prevalent at present. What was it at the past??? And what led to this???

Before there were money lenders and pawn brokers who never went about searching for people to borrow money from them. The ones who needed them came to them for money. The nationalized banks in certain developing countries followed the same strategy. Getting loans and operating accounts in those banks were not made easy. As a result many eligible customers who could have utilized the banks were reluctant to use them. The people suffered marginally but the ones who missed out the most were the banks who failed to capitalize on the market. It seemed as though the customers had to serve them by coming to them because they were kings. But that was how it was previously and it seemed to work that way for a long time. A system, a paradigm. It was as strong as the feudal system in the medieval period of Europe. That of course is the other example.

The feudal system had an hierarchy where the ones in the bottom of the pyramid served the ones at the top. The ones in the top were the kings and the nobles and the ones in the bottom were the peasants and workers. A system, a paradigm.

But that was the medieval period and everything has changed with renaissance and other events like the French and Russian revolution, not forgetting the war of independence of the big democracies of today. Common man has become more important than ever. A paradigm shift in the area of serving has taken place.

Mentioning the system of democracy, it has stormed into most major countries. The people want to choose the ones ruling them, and to rule them the rulers have to serve them, and not just serve them but serve them the best.

Now there are private sectors and the private banks. Their infrastructure was no where comparable to the government sectors. But they won over those public sectors and banks that were already prevailing.

But how? From "serve us" to service. There was pull marketing and push marketing, searching from databases for all prospective customers and keeping proposals to them offering amiable service. The result was evident. They are the most successful bankers because of their inclination to serve. People nowadays do not even mind to pay service charges for being served. Of course how many on this planet, honestly, do not like being served???

Computers are now easily accessible to common man because of the user-friendly operating systems with pictures and animations, not to mention their optimal cost. The outcome is that more computers are sold as common man has started buying it. This service oriented approach has paid off in a huge way. It has made the owners of these companies the most successful businessmen monetarily.

All the above instances on fast-foods, democracy, banks, computers and the failure of churches in Russia project the same point.

ONE 'serve to stay served the best'.
The other is nothing but its converse—'failure in service is failure to suceed and even survive'.

There can be an endless list of such citations if once can start thinking of it. It would be insane not to site Walmart and Microsoft on these lines. serving common man wih low prices and user friendlines respectively has taken them along way.

So it is apparent for the ones who are acquainted enough to find that the most successful figures in this modern world are the ones who have the inclination to serve and the ability to serve the best. Moreover these are the ones who are successful and governing the world indirectly but serving everyone on the outside.

This means that, when they say, their motive is service their concealed motto is to serve themselves much more by serving their customers. The rulers rule this world of today staying concealed, by successfully serving the public, the masses.

In short in this information age, and in computer language, if you are in the domain of business and if your login name is success then your password is service. This was never the case before. The ones who were ruling got served.

Therefore the paradigm that was present in the yester years till the medieval age was the people at the top getting served by the masses who were under them. But alas!!!! Nothing lasts for ever!!! Change alone is not subject to change; everything else in this universe is subject to it... The served found out for themselves that they need to serve the ones at the bottom to even stay at the top, leave alone reaching the apex!!!!! We are now in this paradigm wondering if it will change. Who knows when it will change? But it might change too. In time, with time.

There have been many paradigm shifts ever since man came into existence. These were in the fields of science, events, systems and organizations. But one of the biggest shifts is the shift in the approach of man to survive. That is because its impact is on anything and everything. Hence this paradigm shift of "serve us" to service assumes importance. I am not sure if it was identified before but I am convinced that it deserves to be.