Over time I have learned that I don’t know everything. I am going to pause for a minute here for several reasons. The first is for effect. The second is so that I can let the hysterical laughing and rampant applause in general die down. The third is so that I can go and pick my wife up off the floor. I believe that she was so convinced that I did in fact know everything that my admission that I didn’t has created such a shock to her system that she fainted. That must be it. I am sure of it. It is one of those things that I do know. Doesn’t every wife believe in the infallibility of their husband?

At least that is the interpretation of her response that I am choosing to believe.

The next thing you know I will be asking for directions when I am lost, or reading the instructions on how to put something together before I actually start to do it.

Nah…..

Now remember I said I didn’t know everything. I didn’t say that I didn’t know anything. (My wife is now looking at me out of the corner of her eyes again. This time I am not sure how to interpret her behavior.) I would like to hope that after all the experience that I have gotten (Randy Pausch, the author of “The Last Lecture” said “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted”, and there are so many things that I have wanted and not gotten that I could conceivably be considered one of the most experienced people around) and all the book learning that I have done in college and elsewhere, has enabled me to know a few things.

One of the things that I do know is that there is more information out there about every business topic, business issue and business opportunity than can ever taken into consideration when a decision is to be made an action taken. I didn’t let this fact stop me. I openly suggest that you don’t let it even slow you down. I do think that you need to be aware of it, and prepare for that rarest of rare days when one of your assumptions, decisions or actions turn out to be the wrong one. There is also one other thing that you need to be aware of when making decisions or taking actions in business.

Everyone is fighting a battle that you don’t know about.

I saw this line on a LinkedIn splash page of all places. Like so many other seemingly non-business related comments or topics, this got me to thinking about business, sales and how to lead.

I have stated in the past that business is all about the person to person interactions between people. All too often we have our decision made and our actions decided. All that is left is to align everyone else with our obviously well thought out and logical approach to things. It should be easy. We are already on to the next topic in our minds. Only the people who should see the obvious wisdom of our leadership, don’t seem to be catching on as quickly as we would like or expect. They seem to have their own views as to what should be done.

It’s hard to have a broad view of things in business when you don’t have a broad responsibility. You have to think in terms that are larger than the topics and areas that you can affect. Not everyone does this. That is an understatement. Very few people seem to do this. You have to understand something about the battles that other people are fighting. You have to do this while understanding and fighting the battles that are your own. It takes extra effort.

You have to understand the issues that external competitors are visiting upon sales opportunities as well as the unknown / political issues that the customers themselves are bringing to bear when arguing pricing or deal desirability with the sales team. Having been there, it should be understandable why so many sales teams seem to get more frustrated with their own companies than their competitors, when they focus solely on one internal metric instead of the broader customer requirement.

Conversely, the same can be said about the sales team that only looks at the sales volume and does not take the time to understand the company’s cash flow or profitability issues when they bring a customer opportunity to the table. Orders are always good, but it is the answers to the questions such as if and when the company will get paid that will keep the company in business. It may be hard to understand or even believe, but there is actually some business out there that is not worth having. The key is to be able to identify and differentiate it from the other more desirable types of business.

The point that I am so clumsily trying to make here is that we all are going to encounter resistance in the normal course of the execution of our business responsibilities. How we deal with that resistance will have a great deal of impact on how we are to be perceived as leaders. We all have a tendency to only examine issues from our own specific perspective or point of view. The leader will try to understand the larger issues, even if they are not responsible for them. The leader will try to understand what the unknown battle is that the other person is fighting.

The question that then arises is how does the leader know what they don’t know?

Despite the very Zen sound of this question, it is somewhat the basis of leadership. It is not enough to know that someone is providing resistance to a desired course of action. It is more so knowing why they are providing resistance and how to resolve, reduce or avoid it altogether.

Fortunately, there are few people who are so contrary in nature as to oppose our every idea solely on the basis of who made it. Those that do behave this way are normally referred to as “spouses”, and again fortunately, most of us do not work in business with our spouses.

What that means is that in general, there will probably be either a known or unknown battle that people are fighting that will be a cause for any perceived resistance to your plans and activities. Understanding what the external pressures and unknown battles are will enable the business leader to position their requirements in such a way as to avoid the conflicts associated with these unknown battles.

It’s not enough for the leader to say what they don’t know. They have to understand why they don’t know.