This week was more about being a good leader as opposed to solving the most questions or knowing the most about some set of tools. This makes sense: the set of tools I will work with is infinite, so it would be better to be someone who can adapt to any situation and most importantly stay professional. This is important to me because when a fully new problem appears my first instinct is to drop everything and think about that, learning from it. However, in a managerial role, one of the priorities is to ensure everything is at least working first, then solve a specific problem. This balancing act is what needs to be done with finesse.

The first shock to me was being told that multitasking, while you may appear to be effective at solving many problems at once, may make a person appear aloof from personally helping a customer, which is an unwanted result. Rather, helping each person one at a time and asking my team for help for other issues can ensure each person is helped with full attention. Not all people have the same personality, and there will be at least one person who does not like being one of a list of those being helped.

I can apply these lessons straight to my customer service skills – be more approachable and limit how busy I appear, as not everyone likes how that looks.