Tag Archives: teamwork

February 12, 2020 · 3:49 pm

TLI

We live in a time when many people overshare. You know what I’m talking about. They post pictures of what they’re eating. They check-in and post about every place they go with the exception of the bathroom. Every random thought is posted with the hope of stimulating some response even when the thoughts are pretty vacuous and of interest to none but the author (Hey, be nice – this screed doesn’t count!).

It’s TMI – Too Much Information, and I’ll admit that at times I’ve been as guilty as anyone. In my defense, I’ve now accepted that you can’t win an argument on Facebook even when you’re armed with facts so I won’t be engaging in THAT anymore. But one thing that I find to be just as bad as TMI is TLI – Too Little Information and that’s today’s subject.

A real-life example. I represent over 500 different franchise brands. While I’m very well acquainted with several dozen, it’s not really feasible for my aging brain to retain complete information about all of them, especially the ones I don’t discuss very often. Fortunately, the network I’m part of provides an information page on each of the brands and often there are recorded webinars that provide even more information. The brands themselves maintain the pages. Some provide a few pages for us to read with key selling points, finances the candidate must have, etc. There are often sales brochures we can download and send. Most importantly, they tell us why their brand is different from their competition. The very best brands give us extensive information and it makes it easy to present their brand. No issues here.

A large number, however, gives us nothing. Oh sure, we know what the franchise costs and what the royalty rates are, but we don’t have any materials to send nor do we have any information beyond the very basics. It’s TLI and it makes my job quite difficult. How do I represent a brand that’s a mystery to me? What distinguishes one residential cleaning service franchise from another? How is your lawn service franchise unique? Why should someone invest in your franchise vs. another in the same category?

You may be guilty of the same thing. Do you give employees enough information about a task you’re asking them to complete? How about vendors? Do they really understand why and how you use their products so they can provide better service? All of us in business are constantly providing information to various constituencies. The key is avoiding TLI just as much as we all want to avoid TMI. Make sense?

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January 24, 2020 · 4:41 pm

Dumplings

This Foodie Friday, ask yourself why it is that every culture has a dumpling of some sort. When I say the word, your mind might initially flash to Chinese dumplings. After all, nearly every Chinese menu offers a dumpling or two (and often many more). You can usually get mandu at a Korean place. Italian ravioli, Spanish empanadas, Polish pierogi, Puerto Rican pasteles, Indian guija – heck, even Jewish Kreplach – are all members of the dumpling club along with dozens of others.

At the most basic level, dumplings are a wrapper filled with something. Generally, it’s meat or vegetables (or both) but it can be soup or it can be something sweet. They almost always can be eaten with one or two bites. I think they’re an apt metaphor for your business or your brand.

There is a core element. That’s your “why.” It’s not a “why” based on how you see yourself but on how your customers see you. What problem are you solving for them? How do you interact with them? It’s the messages you send and the reality that you provide (and those things had better be aligned and consistent!).

Dumplings have wrappers. I suspect many of us don’t pay much attention to the wrapper but let’s remember that the wrapper holds the whole thing together. The wrapper makes the dumpling possible. Your business has a wrapper. It’s your staff, your partners, and your suppliers. A great dumpling’s wrapper complements the filling. It’s of appropriate thickness and texture. It can be fancy or plain, but in every case, it is complete – without holes so the filling stays intact. Your team needs to be that way – without holes, appropriate to the essence. If the dumpling is broken, the odds are that the product that lies within is not optimal either.

I think every dumpling began with the filling, just as your business should. I am unaware, however, of any dishes that are just “dumpling filling”, despite having a child who would remove the wrappers and only consume the filling every time we had Chinese food.  The dish isn’t complete without the wrapper, the filling, and often the broth within that brings everything together. You need to pay attention to all the parts of your business as well – the entire experience – and not just focus on the filling. It’s just one part of the dumpling!

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December 26, 2019 · 7:00 am

Posts Of The Year – 2019 #4

I hope you all had a great Christmas holiday. It has become a tradition that I use the week between Christmas and New Year to recap the most-read posts that were written this past year. Today is the fourth most-read post. I published it last April 8 after seeing a photo of an old friend’s dad. While I have many great memories of his father, the one I wrote about is probably the most indelible. Enjoy.

My friend posted a picture of his father on social media the other day. Outside of my own father, he was probably the most influential male in my life as I was growing up in many ways. Aside from wondering why he’s aged and I haven’t as I saw the photo (that’s a joke, kids), it made me recall one thing that he did to teach my friend and me to be better baseball players: hitting curveballs.

My friend’s dad was no ordinary dad when it came to imparting that little piece of baseball knowledge either. He had tried out with the Yankees and the family lore is that had my friend’s mom not told him that she would walk on the marriage, he would have been signed and playing in Yankee Stadium. Obviously, when this guy tells you he’s going to teach you about curveballs, you listen.

For those of you that have never stood in against a pitcher with a lively curve, the pitch starts by heading at your head and breaks down and away from you. That’s what my friend’s father threw at us – pitches that started at our heads and broke in over the plate. Of course, once he felt we were getting complacent about standing in against the curve, he’d toss the odd pitch right at our heads to teach us to look for the rotation of the ball and to duck if it wasn’t going to curve. A fastball at your skull gets you focused very quickly!

Almost every player who makes the majors can hit fastballs. It’s the ones who can hit breaking pitches – sliders and curveballs – who become stars. It’s true in business as well. When things are going along according to plan and not diverging from the track they’re on, things are relatively easy to manage. Even if something appears dangerous (like a fastball heading for your ear) it’s relatively easy to get out of the way if you can see where things are heading.

Learning to hit business curveballs is something that you need to do if you’re going to elevate your game. You need to prepare for them by planning and recognizing that they’re going to show up from time to time. Your team needs to be ready, and you need to think about who can handle curveballs as you’re assembling that team.  People who are regimented and can’t deal with it when events start tracking differently are probably not your priority hires.

Mostly, you need to expect things to go wrong. After bailing out and hitting the dirt a couple of times, I realized that some attempted curveballs don’t break even when the rotation makes it look like they’re trying. It’s better to have to wash your uniform than to repair your skull. Your team needs to recognize that bailing out might be the smartest option when things begin to go awry. Watch out for those curves, learn to hit them out of the park, and your team can’t be beaten. Right?

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