Having a servant mentality is defined loosely as a person's dedication to helping others, without the expectation of receiving anything in return....it is truly an altruistic way to focus more on others than on yourself. Applying this to our personal lives can be easy....we can help out that neighbor who has been under the weather mow their lawn, pickup dinner for that new young family down the street who just had their first baby, or volunteer at a local non-profit.

In our professional lives, the servant mentality can take on many different forms...and if done right will show your colleagues not only that you do value them, but will improve business results and overall will nurture your relationships by fostering a sense of T-E-A-M-W-O-R-K.

I firmly believe that regardless of what business role we have, we are ALL - at some level - responsible for the customer experience. Those customers could very well be your company's actual customers who purchase whatever product or service your company provides. More often than not, those customers are our internal stakeholders - the people we work with every day who also have needs of their own...needs that help them do their job better.

If you're in a sales position, your #1 priority should be solving your customer's problems....not "selling" them. You have to be of the servant mindset to do what is best for your customers...not worry about your commission check. You are there to serve them.

If you're in Procurement, you have several goals: cost reduction or avoidance, bringing positive change to the company through innovation, and listening to your internal stakeholders on what they need to get their job done, or, what issues they are experiencing that you can solve.

If you're in IT, you're mandated to manage technology for the entire company and every single employee within your company is, in fact, a customer. These guys have it rough as no one is happy when something "doesn't work" and they likely only hear from co-workers when something is broken.

If you're in HR, you're there for the start and end of everyone's careers within the company, while also managing disputes and making sure everyone at the end of the day is happy.

At the end of the day, we are all in this together and in truly working together to solve common problems can we ultimately reach our goals, whatever those may be.