Tag Archives: Business process

March 5, 2013 · 12:09 pm

Trust The One You’re With

I’ve written a number of times here on the screed about the subject of trust.  Most of the time I’ve written about how consumers need to trust the sources from which they receive marketing messages or the sources from which they get information.  Today I want to make it more personal but probably more important as well.

Each of us relies on other people to do business.  I’ve found that one of the most important factors in that process is trust.

Benutzer:dapete and Benutzer:Ezrimerchant shak...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In fact, I used to tell new employees that the only way they could get into serious trouble with me was if they did something that caused me to lose the trust I was going to give them unconditionally.   I was on their side until they proved that my trust was misplaced.  Lie to me just once – cause me to doubt that they were giving me the facts and all the information about a topic – and our relationship would be severely damaged, maybe irreparably.  I feel that way about business partners too.

I’ve dealt with people who I knew were holding back information.  Sometimes it was more a feeling than probably was warranted.  Several times it turned out to be a huge problem, as a meeting would take an ugly turn based on information that had been withheld but ultimately surfaced.  Often it’s because they didn’t want to give anyone bad news despite them hearing that bad news is just another situation we need to work through together as partners.  When someone finds reasons to delay a conversation or slows down a deal, my early warning system would go off.  It still does.

I’ve been told from time to time that I’m hard to deal with because I’m very open and blunt.  I’m told I’m a pleasure to deal with for the very same reasons.   On the whole, transparency seems to work.  It fosters trust although I’m the first to admit that over the years I’ve had to learn to be more tactful.  I think folks with whom I’ve worked would tell you a lot of things about me but one thing they probably won’t say is that I hide the truth or obfuscate the facts.  That’s about trust in my mind.

On a simple level it’s about someone doing what they say they will do.  On a larger level it’s about them being who they say they are.  You with me?

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February 5, 2013 · 12:18 pm

Early Dismissal

It’s snowing lightly here this morning. We’re a couple of miles from the local schools but I can hear the minds of every child putting out vibes for early dismissal. That’s a fine thing when you’re sitting in a classroom but it’s a very dangerous thing in business. Let me explain with a something that’s going on in my business.

I was speaking with a business partner a couple of weeks ago and in the course of conversation he asked me a question that was a complete nonsequitur. He asked if I knew anyone who wanted to buy a large quantity of something (yes, it’s totally legal). He is not in the business of brokering purchases of this stuff and neither am I. After I stopped laughing I asked him to send me more information. Rather than dismissing the idea of brokering a deal in a field that’s unfamiliar, I spent a few minutes running through my contact list and thinking about his question. I sent out a few emails to folks I knew who might know a buyer.

Strangely enough, a little while later I received a response from someone who had a buyer. This was not a person who has anything to do with what is being bought and sold but in his network he had a friend who is in that business. While we’re still putting the deal together, it’s looking good and could be a nice piece of business for everyone involved.

All of this happened because I am an advocate for never dismissing any idea out of hand. How many opportunities can you think of in your business that went by the wayside because someone with less vision than you dismissed them too early?  I’m not naive enough to believe that every good idea is fully formed when it first emerges from its cognitive womb, but I do think that in almost every bad idea is the germ of something that might be worth pursuing.  The problem comes when we dismiss them on the basis of the obvious bad thinking and ignore their potential.

Early dismissal is something that should appeal only to school kids.  It can be fatal when it’s practiced on a regular basis by business folks.  Think about that and let me know if you agree.

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December 21, 2012 · 10:57 am

Seven More Fishes

I started to write our Foodie Friday post and got part way through it when I realized that I had written it before.  Seriously – I had written a nearly identical post a few years ago.  Maybe it’s a sign that it’s the end of the year and the creativity tank is almost empty.  Fortunately, the holidays always fill it back up.

Thanks Saveur!

In any event, this is the last new post before Christmas (I’ll post Monday but I’ll probably begin the “Best Of The Year” series) and I wanted to touch upon the Christmas Eve tradition of the Seven Fishes.  The earlier post is below – after reading it again I thought I got it right the first time (funny how that saves you work later on!).  To those of you celebrating, Merry Christmas.  Whether we observe the day or not, we should enjoy its culinary gift!  To wit:

Our Foodie Friday theme today is La Vigilia, the Christmas Eve tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes.  Now what, you might ask, does a nice Jewish boy know about such things?  Well, having spent a great deal of my youth around my best friend’s Italian mother and grandmother while they cooked, I know quite a bit.  I know that they started to prepare this feast several days in advance, as they put salt cod into water to hydrate it (there was a running battle about using milk to do that).  I know that they spent many hours over the subsequent days preparing all manner of seafood – fried, broiled, and baked.  And I know that it all was mind-blowingly good.

There’s one thing I didn’t know, and still don’t, about the Feast:  what does it represent?  Everyone knows it came as a southern Italian tradition and there are lots of theories about the number 7.  But apparently no one knows for sure and that’s the business point to end the week.

All too often in business, we do things because that’s the way they’ve always been done.  When we ask why or what does it mean, there is much head-scratching and often there’s uncertainty but both are generally followed with a shrug of the shoulders and a supposition that someone higher up wanted it that way.  I used to tell new employees that they possessed a rare commodity: fresh eyes with which to examine all of our business traditions.  They were not supposed to take “because that’s how we’ve always done it” as a satisfactory answer if something didn’t make sense to them.  Sometimes as we dug down into the “why” we figured out a better “how.”

I’m not sure it’s important that we understand the “why” of La Vigilia, but that’s an exception.  In business, everything changes pretty rapidly and the traditional ways may no longer work.  Questioning the reasons why we do certain things is a critical item on the path to success and we should encourage it.

And now, it’s off to go find some fresh fish.  Buon Natale!

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