Tag Archives: life lessons

November 21, 2014 · 12:41 pm

The Same Old Thing

It’s the last Foodie Friday post before Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and I thought this might be a good time to reflect upon that meal. I’ll start cooking this weekend by making turkey stock and I’ll be doing a little each day right up until mealtime on Thursday. Hopefully the 25 folks in attendance will all get fed at the same time and fall asleep watching football in a food coma.

English: Thanksgiving cheer distributed for me...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If the truth be told, I don’t love this meal although it’s one of my favorite holidays. It’s a favorite because the family gathers together, something that’s a precious occasion as we all get older and become more spread out. But I don’t love the meal because it’s always the same menu with the odd little variation – a different take on a vegetable or maybe a new pie.  It’s kind of boring as a cook but I know the people who are being fed love it.  Which got me thinking.

All of us in business seem to be under a constant imperative to innovate.  To make our products better.  To change things up because if you do what you’ve always done you’ll get what you always get.  If you’ve spent any time here on the screed you know that I buy into looking at our businesses through new eyes as often as we can.  Then I think of the Thanksgiving meal.

The family likes the familiarity.  They look forward to some of the dishes that they only eat this one time each year.  They know what they’re going to get when they traipse over to Rancho Deluxe for the meal. Our customers are like that too, I think.  When you walk into most QSR chains you know what you’re going to get when you order a menu item. Whether you’re in New York or Los Angeles it will be the same.  For many people who are risk-averse, that’s comforting and critical.

The balance between innovation and stability is something we need to maintain as we go forward in our business thinking.  When I switched over to frying the turkey on Thanksgiving I still roasted one so the family could make the move in their own minds instead of me imposing my will.  We no longer roast a bird because everyone’s preferences changed.  There’s no need for any of us to repeat the “New Coke” disaster.

I’ll be serving the same old thing for Thanksgiving.  It makes my “customers” happy.  You?

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November 11, 2014 · 11:23 am

Happy Veteran’s Day!

Happy Veteran’s Day! If today’s screed seems familiar, it’s because I was reviewing what I wrote on this holiday last year and I decided I couldn’t improve my thinking so I’m letting the post loose on you all once more.  I hope you share my thinking, both about the post and the day.  Back to the usual raving tomorrow.

Often when a national holiday approaches I’ll go back over my posts to see what I’ve written about the day in the past.  I’ve written about Veteran’s Day, which we celebrate today, here, here, and here.

Joseph Ambrose, an 86-year-old World War I vet...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Feel free to go back and read them but I noticed a common theme that I want to repeat and  pretty big omission that I want to correct.

In each of those posts I thank our men and women who served to protect and defend this country.  I do again.  “My war” would have been Vietnam just as my Dad’s was WWII.  He served when his time came because he was needed; I didn’t since the war was winding down and the draft was ending.  Putting the politics aside is almost impossible when discussing the differences between those two conflicts but the service given by those who went is indistinguishable.

I also draw an inelegant analogy between those folks selfless service to us and how businesses ought to be dedicated to serving their customers.  I also touch upon the teamwork needed to succeed.  A long time ago Fast Company published an article which cited an interesting study:

After World War II, the US military commissioned S.L.A. Marshall, a Harvard historian, to do a remarkable study. The question he was asked to research was, literally, why are men willing to die in war? Marshall was allowed to advance and test a variety of explanations. Patriotism – people would die for their country. Or family – men would fight and die to protect their wives and children. The answer that finally emerged was small-group integrity. In a group of people where each is truly committed to the others, no one will be the first to run. So they all stand and fight together.

You know I’m a big proponent of teamwork and believe it’s critical to business success.  The article goes on to talk about managerial courage and how it’s tested and that brings up the omission I want to correct.  Too many of us talk about business as war from time to time, just as we do comparing sports to combat.  We need to stop that.  I used to say that the best part of what I did was that when I screwed up nobody died.  Protecting one’s country for a lousy salary and risking a life can in no way be compared to playing a game for a lot of money or running a business for an obscene amount.

So to my Dad, my other family members, schoolmates, and the millions who stepped forward when their time came to serve I say thank you.  We voted last week – you made that possible.  Think about that as you conduct your business the rest of this week and you serve customers. clients, and commercial causes, hopefully as well as the Vets served us.

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November 6, 2014 · 12:04 pm

Inbox

I got an invitation to use Google’s new email app, Inbox, yesterday. I installed it on my phone and that allows you to use it with a web browser as well. My first impressions are all positive. It’s a very intuitive interface and is much more visually appealing (and friendly) that the standard Gmail interface.  I’m not sure if any of you have got it yet (it’s still invite only) but I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or tips if you have.  You can email inbox@google.com to request one.

One thing I noticed pretty quickly is how much easier it is to deal with older mail. You can label mails as lower priority, snooze them (they go away from your mailbox for a bit), make them add themselves to “bundles” and other nice features.  This article from Lifehacker does a decent job explaining it.

Naturally, I had a broader business thought as I was using it.  The activities – reading and responding to email – were things most of us do every day (all day in some of our cases!).  But because I was approaching the activities in a new way and was looking at the information in a new way, I was suddenly getting more done.  My inbox is cleaned up and there is a system in place to ping me with reminders.  The information I use daily is better organized and much more findable.  That, to me, seems to be an approach we can all try out in many of our other business activities.  Look at the same old things in a different way with a different approach and maybe, just maybe, we become more productive.

What do you think?

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