Category Archives: Leadership

Expectations, Goals, Leadership, Objectives, Planning

Put it on Paper

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Here I go again, demonstrating to the world just exactly what sort of a business dinosaur I am. That’s ok. I don’t really mind. For those of you not exactly following what I am saying here, I would refer you to the title. I refer to paper. You know, that old technology, tactile foldable thing; paper. Most people don’t use paper anymore. If they want to take a note they usually type it into their omnipresent laptop or tablet, or if really pressed they will use their thumbs and try to tap it into their smart phone.

I remember attending a sales conference some time ago. For those of you who may not be familiar with sales conferences, these are events where the sales team goes to celebrate their previous year performance while also receiving their next year targets and objectives. I also understand that each day of the sales conference has a two drink minimum.

I am not going to discuss paper and its relationship to a sales team’s past performance. The paper that is normally associated with that is green, has pictures of past presidents (and others – Ben Franklin wasn’t a president, at least I don’t think he was) and is recognized as legal tender. In this case I am going to talk about paper and how it was used in relationship to the future targets.

Success in sales is a double edged sword. Do well and you are rewarded handsomely with commissions and recognition. On the other hand, do well and your next year’s targets will be raised so as to reflect your past success. They will usually be significantly increased. It is one of the basics of target setting. Beat them one year, expect them to be significantly increased the next. Such is the life and continuous challenge of being a top flight sales person.

At the sales meeting I was at, the Senior Vice President of sales had just finished congratulating the team on their past performance, when he turned everyone’s attention to the future. It was if he simultaneously and collectively hashed everyone’s “mellow”. He told them what their targets were for the next year.

The air left the room. There was an audible whooshing sound as the blood drained from the various sales leaders’ heads. What had been a celebration now sat precariously on the precipice of becoming an insurrection. The demanded growth was that large. It was impossible to achieve. It looked like it was going to get ugly.

This was when the wily sale vice president stood up and said.

“I don’t know how we are going to get to the number either, but the first thing we need to do is to put it on paper so that we can start working on it.”

He understood that while the goal sounded outrageous and unattainable, that the first step in generating success was to make the target real. Putting it on paper demystified it. It made the number real. And making the goal real, regardless of the perceived difficulty in attaining it is the first step in attaining it.

By putting it on paper you take something that may seem out of reach and reduce it to a number, or words on a piece of paper. Think about that for a minute. When it is on paper it is both bound and defined. It is no longer unbounded and undefined. It is real.

I thought this was a pretty spectacular way to regain control of the room. Sales people are not renowned for being the most forward thinking of strategists. Some of the really good ones that I have known are, but for the most part, maybe not so much. In any event, by telling the team members to write it down, and then taking a moment to pause in his presentation, which had the effect of adding more impetus to the request, he slowed the runaway new quota riot train before it could fully leave the last year’s performance station.

It took me a while to come up with that allegory. I am not sure that I fully like it, but I think I will leave it for now.

The simple fact of writing something down starts the planning and strategy process. Putting pen to paper. Once something is written invariably something else will be written next to it, or below it. Once the thought process starts other ideas will begin to evolve. Eventually plans and strategies will emerge. It won’t happen all at once. It will take time. But it all starts with just writing down the goal on a piece of paper.

Decision Making, Leadership, Performance, Sales

When Sales Fall

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We all know that senior management likes to see a sales volume graph that is a smooth line sloping upwards from the lower left of the chart to the upper right. If the economy and the market are growing and the customer demand grows along with the economy and the competitors don’t change their product’s or price and the government does not change any of it regulations and none of the multitude of other demand affecting factors changes, it is possible that this utopian state can exist…for a little while. However any unanticipated change in any of the listed (or any of the large number of unlisted factors) can and will change the profile of the slope from its desired direction.

Senior management must then lead and decide if the change is just a normal process within the market cycle, an aberration in an otherwise stable situation, or a longer term portent of an ongoing decline. As with most management decisions and strategies, only time will tell.

If time shows that it is indeed either a part of the normal market cycle or an aberration in an otherwise stable market, then there is no problem. Sales improvement can and will continue. On the other hand, if sales do not improve and the downturn turns out to be part of a longer term economic, market, customer or competitive event then significant business issues will ensue.

I have long been an advocate of the axiom: The best way to generate a good bottom line is to start with a good top line. This only makes sense. The more good revenue you have, the easier it is to generate good earnings. Good revenue is defined as revenue that includes a business sustaining profit margin. However if revenue has fallen, and the cost structure has not followed suit, then earnings too must eventually fall.

Senior management, the market analysts and the stock market in general do not like it when earnings fall in a company. Like the sales and the earnings, the price of the stock will also fall. Soon the investors and stock holders will request that senior management take action to improve their investment’s stock price, or they will request that they get a new senior management team.

When sales are stagnant and costs are relatively high with respect to sales, there are usually two paths that management can choose from in trying to rectify the situation. They can try and cut costs in order to resize the business to be more in line with the new revenue levels and hence generate a reasonable profit on the new lower revenue levels; or they can try and embark on a growth strategy in order to drive the revenue levels back up to where the desired earnings can be generated with the current cost structure.

Several factors can influence which path management may decide to take. Is there a cyclic nature to the sales profile where downturns and following upturns are common? How deep is the downturn? How prolonged is it? Is it industry wide? Is it part of a greater economic event? The answers to all of these questions, and many others can influence management’s decisions and responses to the reduced sales levels.

The general response to a sales downturn is to refocus on sales, but also to begin reducing costs. While layoffs are painful and take their toll on both the employees and the company, they do invariably succeed in resizing the company’s cost structure to be more in line with its current revenue levels.

This is cold. This is hard. It is also the truth. If we are to assume that the company must survive in the face of a prolonged reduction in sales, then this is in general the selected way to assure that a business is moved back into a profitable state as quickly as possible. Focusing on sales while reducing costs will eventually generate the earnings that a company needs for continued operation.

However some businesses decide that they may not want to adjust their cost structures in response to a downturn in sales. There can be any number of reasons for this. They may decide that the downturn is only seasonal, or will not be prolonged and sales will recover. They may decide that they were understaffed prior to the downturn and hence are right sized for the reduced sales levels. They may be culturally averse to the separating of employees. Regardless, they may choose to embark on a sales growth strategy as the solution to a sales downturn and the accompanying earnings and profitability issues.

While sales growth strategies are laudable approaches to a reduced revenue / high cost base issue, for the most part they generally prove unsuccessful. This again is directly due to the fact that sales levels have already fallen. Something must be changed in order to get sales levels to increase. This new event can take the form of adding additional sales personnel to address and sell to a larger number of customers, modifying the product offering to make it more appealing to the market, increasing marketing programs and promotions in an effort to generate more demand in the market, or a number of other modifications to the business equation.

The point here is that all of these and many of the other sales improvement modifications require that incremental investment and cost be put into the business in an effort to drive more sales out of it. Adding sales people, modifying or redeveloping the product, creating and implementing marketing programs and promotions, reducing prices, etc all take incremental investment and increase costs.

That means that even if you were successful and found a way to drive sales back up to the previous levels where they sustained the previous cost levels, the very act of driving the sales back up increased the cost basis. That means that you cannot be satisfied with just getting back to the sales levels you were at, in order to maintain the desired profitability levels, you must drive sales to levels above their previous amounts.

This too could be a good plan except for the fact that the market like nature, abhors a vacuum. There are relatively few “green field” opportunities where growth and market share can easily be obtained. Unless the overall size of the market is growing, it usually means that new business must be taken at the expense of another market competitor.

Obviously no one likes to lose customers and market share.

Market research has shown that in general it is five times easier to sell to existing customers than it is to sell to anyone else. This makes sense as you would suspect that if a customer has already made a buying decision in your favor in the past, that they would probably be disposed to make a similar decision in the future. But in a market growth strategy you are not only trying to sell more to existing customers, you are trying to sell to new customers. Someone else’s customers.
Logic would show that if it is five times easier to sell to your own customers that it would be five times more difficult to sell to someone else’s customers. This logic does not bode well for a growth strategy.

Sales and business growth are always part of the objectives of any business. Sometimes however, businesses fall short of their sales and growth objectives. This can and does happen in even the most stable of markets. Leaders must actively recognize and anticipate what is occurring. If the change is cyclical or just an aberration, then normal business processes should continue. If it is judged that there are other forces in the market affecting sales and that recovery is not imminent or expected of its own accord, than action must be taken.

As always, the sooner that action can be taken, the less severe it usually needs to be. Increased sales focus or cost reduction activities taken in March or April will avoid the desperation and severity of actions that must be taken later in the year. Regardless of when actions are taken, the costs associated with a business must be in line with the profitability objectives and existing sales volumes of the business. To focus on just the growth component of business solution (or just the cost component for that matter) would be similar to trying to adjust both the volume and the tuning of your car’s radio by turning just one dial.

Employees, Excellence, Humor, Leadership, Objectives, Relationship

Are We Having Fun Yet?

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Unlike the shows on television, business does not come with its own laugh track. You have to make your own. That doesn’t mean that business isn’t funny. It is. I mean both funny (ha ha) as well as funny (strange). There usually isn’t an audience around to tell you when you are supposed to laugh. You need to be able to figure that out on your own.

Perhaps I am a product of my time and generation in that I grew up watching many of the best observational comedians around. Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Jerry Seinfeld and the late great Robin Williams all looked at various aspects and idiosyncrasies in the world and brought out the humor and sometimes the absurdity involved therein.

I wish I had their eye for the detail and comedy that they found and related associated with everyday life. I don’t. Fortunately, I have found throughout my business career that I usually didn’t need their incisive eye for finding humor in the subtleties of business. The humor associated with business is usually never that subtle.

We all have the tendency to immerse ourselves in our problems and issues of the day. This is both a good thing in that it enables us to focus and concentrate on solving the problem, but it is a bad thing in that it has a tendency to enable us to take ourselves and our “issues” almost too seriously. When we do that we not only miss out on the humor associated with the work, we also tend to miss out on the enjoyment of the job as well.

I think the key here is that we all need to reserve a little piece of ourselves to be our own audience. We need to be able to be able to metaphorically stand off to the side and watch our own interactions. As we have seen on the afore mentioned television shows, it is the audience that will provide us with the laugh track and tell us when we are supposed to laugh at something funny, including ourselves.

Let me provide an example of how humor can raise its head at the most unsuspected of times.

A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away it now seems) I worked in a business unit where there was a significant amount of employee dissatisfaction. The business unit manager was a little bit of an autocrat (…okay, a lot of an autocrat, being of an even older business school than me at the time), but it had seemed to be a style that he had had success with. After all, he had risen to the top post of the business unit. Even so he understood that he needed to address the employee satisfaction issue, so he took an employee survey. He wanted to know why the employees were dissatisfied.

There is an old proverb: “If you truly want honesty, don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answer to.”

There would then to be held an all hands meeting where the results of the survey were going to be reviewed and the dissatisfaction issue solved. At the meeting it was revealed that the number one issue associated with the employee dissatisfaction was “Management did not listen to employee input on issues.” It seems that everyone wanted to be involved in contributing to the solutions associated with the business directions and issues.

There was a general murmur of agreement from the crowd accompanied by many nodding heads. The crux of the issue had been identified. The group was now awaiting the response and resolution. We were about to get somewhere.

The unit manager then said: “I don’t think that management does not listen to the input of the team. I think we should move on to the next topic while we review this one off-line”

I think this is where I had my first audience laugh track moment.

I looked around to see what everyone else’s reaction would be to what we had just heard. To tell you the truth it seemed as though there was a mixed set of reactions. Some were nodding, some were scowling and some were just blinking as if they were still trying to process what they had just heard.

There have been other similar moments that I recall:

There was the time the manager asked me why I had made a decision and taken action before consulting with them. I explained than the manager had specifically stated that he wanted his staff to show initiative and take actions and that had been the impetus for my behavior. He then explained that he wanted his staff to show initiative and take action AFTER they had consulted with him as to what initiative to show and action to take. These things had to be managed.

I also can remember a co-worker lamenting that she did not feel that management took her or her opinions seriously enough. This is a feeling that many new hires or less experienced employees are apt to feel. Of course she made this comment from her cube where every available flat surface was covered with crystals, cast pewter unicorns and her collection of beanie-babies.

Business punch lines are not delivered with the intent of eliciting laughter. They are usually uttered in response to some unexpected yet related stimulus. Asking for input when input is not actually desired. Taking initiative when initiative may not be really wanted.

Business and the work we do are important. I understand that it is how we all make our living and support ourselves and our families. We need to take what we do seriously. It is just that we need to be somewhat more self aware in that we should not take ourselves too seriously while we are doing it. We should not stop having fun just because we are in the office.

I don’t think that we should point out these foibles as they occur for the purpose of embarrassing others or ourselves when they are committed. I think it is better to look at ourselves and enjoy what we do. In general I expect to have a good time at work. And in general, and I think at least partially because of my expectation I do have a good time at work.

Enjoyment means smiling, laughing and sharing with those around you, both at home and in the office. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be focused when necessary. It does mean that there are times and places where the unintentional and unexpected humor of the situation should be recognized and enjoyed.

Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher said:

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

It is interesting in that it seems he had no discernable occupation other than to write proverbs, aphorisms and sayings. What’s not to love about that job? To me it sounds like a pretty good gig if you can get it. Of course he must have been pretty good at it as we are still quoting him all these centuries later.

It does make me wonder though, with all the good proverbs he wrote that have come down to us through the ages, how many bad ones did he write that we have never heard about? No one bats a thousand, and even the best baseball players only get a hit about a third of the time.

I am pretty sure to one extent or another we all enjoy our work. If we didn’t we would probably put in more time at trying to find something else to do. I wouldn’t say that I “love” my job as there certainly have been days where I have not only felt that I worked, but also felt that I have been worked over.

I do however realize that I have fun doing what I do. I believe the teams I work with have a tendency to recognize this and have fun as well. I think everyone understands that having fun does not mean not performing. It is always more fun to achieve goals than it is to miss them. As long we all understand that and continue to take the actions required to achieve our goals I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have some fun doing what we do.

Sometimes that means that we need to laugh with the others, at ourselves.

Achievement, Data, Leadership, Metrics, Performance

Statistics and Performance

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I always thought that Mark Twain was purported to be the author of one of my favorite quotes:

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

I have come to find out that in his own autobiography Twain attributed this quote to a nineteenth century British statesman and former Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. This fact perplexed me slightly so I continued my research a little further using those modern bastions of all knowledge, Google and Wikipedia. After an exhaustive five minute search I found that the general consensus is that no one knows for certain who the author of one of my favorite quotes is. This fact will make it reasonably difficult to give attribution in the future should the opportunity to use it come up again.

Be that as it may, it may be time for me to take the slightest exception with one of my favorite quotes. When you are looking at the performance of a business, the numbers don’t lie. Now the way the numbers are arranged can sometimes be confusing or even misleading, so the business leader needs to be aware and careful.

I don’t say this too loud or too often, but I think I may understand numbers reasonably well. Physics, Mathematics, Finance, I have studied them all. And believe it or not, to one extent or another they are all numbers based disciplines. In addition to this degreed book learning, I have had what could almost be called a moderately useful stint of practical numerical application in the business world.

I sometimes use this unbridled numerical capability and familiarity to complete the most difficult of Sudoku number puzzles in the USA Today newspaper, or various in flight airline magazines. Just to stay in practice and make sure that I still “have it”.

Since it appears that this is going to be a quote based discussion, I might as well continue in that vein. Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician (hence the source of the physicians “Hippocratic Oath”) said:

“There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.”

I think the corollary here is that if it cannot be expressed in numbers in business it is not fact, it is opinion. I have written and spoken in the past about the need for leaders in the business world to become increasingly more familiar with “numbers” of business as they matriculate up the leadership ladder. There may have been past instances of corporate wizardry where a leader intuitively knew what needed to be done (maybe Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates fall into this category), but their moves were invariably backed up by the analysis (numbers) justifying their moves. For the rest of us, as Robert McNamara said:

“Get the data.”

While I am muddling along focusing on equating science, facts and numbers, I probably should pay at least some heed to the power of opinion. While the truth may be out there, it will be people’s opinion of it that drives its valuation. As John Maynard Keynes, a man who is credited with some of the very foundations of economic theory (think of the source of Keynesian Theory) said:

“A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.”

Okay, enough quotation roulette. I hope you get my point, whatever it was.

Now back to the topic; in the business world, the proper statistics, when properly presented and interpreted are invariably a good indicator of business performance. That is correct. Statistics, which are the indicators associated with past performance, are usually good indicators of future performance. I understand that Mark Twain, Benjamin Disraeli and whoever actually created one of my favorite quotes regarding statistics are all probably collectively grumbling, wherever they are, but this is the case.

This brings us to probably the most common and clichéd quote in this dialog:

“Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results”

We have all probably seen it or read it on just about any investment prospectus ever written. Why is it there? To make sure that we all know that just because an investment that has done well in the past does not mean that it will continue to perform, or do as well in the future. Investment firms don’t want anyone to cry “foul” if they have not interpreted the statistics properly or if a statistical performance anomaly occurs in the market. So with this in mind I now ask the following question:

When we have the choice of making an investment, or are reviewing the continuation of an existing investment, which investment alternatives do we choose: those that have done well in the past, or those that have done poorly in the past?

All things being equal, and pursuing an intelligent risk diversification portfolio, understanding long term investment return and interest rates, blah, blah, blah…..we almost always pick the one that has done well in the past expecting (hoping) that all things being equal it will continue to exhibit the same performance traits going forward. We very rarely select the one that has been performing relatively poorly expecting (hoping) that it is going to turn around. Why do you suppose that is?

Welcome to the world of statistics. You have taken the data points associated with performance in the past, extrapolated the line or curve forward and made a choice and prediction about the future. Statistically speaking that is probably the correct choice. But this isn’t a discussion about investments. It is a discussion about business. And the same exact concepts apply.

Herein lies a rub. Statistics can only be misleading if you don’t understand the underlying numbers. Hence my predilection and continued haranguing regarding the necessity of leaders being numerically literate. Remember there is another quote that may also be incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain:

“Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.”

The author of this quote also appears to be shrouded in the past as well, but like all the other good quotes of the period, it was attributed to Twain.

Let’s look at a simple statistical example to make my point. Let’s say that in the next measurement period (it doesn’t matter how long the period is) that a business sells one more product unit than it did the previous measurement period. This is good right?

Basically the answer is “yes” selling more, any more is usually always good, but how good? If it is your first measurement period in business, it’s hard to say how good without more data (statistics). If you only sold one unit the last period, and then you sell two units this period, that is sales growth, but it is still difficult to evaluate without more data. If you sold a thousand units last period, then one more this period might not be statistically important.

On the other hand all of those responses could be changed depending on the cost and value of the product being sold. If you are selling nuclear power plants as opposed to canned hams, a single unit growth in sales could be seen as spectacular, whereas the sale of a single additional canned ham might not be a cause for much celebration.

Statistically speaking selling one more than nothing is infinite sales growth but it is still only one unit. Selling one more than one is one hundred percent growth, but it is still only two units. Selling one more than one thousand is only one tenth of a percent growth. All represent the same one unit growth, but can be represented significantly differently in the statistical growth example. The wary leader needs to always be aware of how statistics are being used and the story that is trying to be portrayed.

Again, when using data and statistics unless a business can specifically quantify what changes it is going to make and how those changes are going to be translated into performance, like your investment decisions discussed earlier, you would expect the business to perform very much in the future as it is doing today. It is through this process that the market valuates companies, and it is through this process that companies provide their future forecasts of performance.

Leaders always need to be aware that statistics are extensions of the data. They are the way that the data is being presented and interpreted. The data is the fact. It is the consistency of the statistic, the interpretation of the data that is the key. Understanding the underlying numbers, and the analysis and statistics associated with them is required and essential for the successful leadership of the business. To not be able to do so is to be at the mercy of those that do.

Because as Mark Twain also (and finally) said (and this one is actually directly attributed to him):

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”

Change, Differentiators, Leadership, Management

Lead, Change or Get Run Over

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Normally when I start off on an article I have a pretty good idea of the topic that I want to cover. Call me old school but this antiquated idea of writing coherently about a single topic appeals to me. That will not be the case this time. I have been thinking about change lately and I decided that I need to step outside of my comfort zone and practice a little of what I have here to fore been preaching. Hang on; it could be something of a bumpy ride, at least for me.

Since I have just mentioned change, I think we will go there first. I am going to propose what I humbly call “Gobeli’s Axiom of Change”. It goes something along the lines of the following:

In order to change, you must do something different.

There are so many wonderful quotes about change that are available. I have used many of them in the past. I am particularly fond of the quotes attributed to Albert Einstein regarding change. He seemed like a pretty smart guy to me but I won’t use any of his quotes again here. If you want to read them, go Google “Einstein quotes change” and see what you get. There are not only a bunch of quotes from Einstein; there are a bunch of sites that have a bunch of quotes from Einstein.

However it has been my experience in business that change is not about quotes. It appears to actually be some sort of arcane concept that business people pay little more than lip service to. They are more apt to put up posters encouraging change and quote Einstein when it comes to change, than actually changing anything.

The idea of change and the quotes surrounding change make it seem like a lustrous concept that is neat and clean and simple. It’s positioned as if it is your patriotic duty in business to change. Change however is not clean and simple. It takes effort. It involves risk. It is invariably messy. That is just the way change works. This is because you are usually changing from something you know, to something you don’t know, yet.

It is precisely for these reasons that many managers will talk glowingly about the need for change, but will never ever do anything different. Doing something different would mean that there would have to actually be some change involved and that would subject them to the effort, mess and risks noted above. Therefore there is usually a significant amount of discussion regarding change and the need for change, but due to the inherent reluctance to change anything, very few things are ever done any different.

When it comes to change, remember what Einstein said:

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Based on this and other topics that I have covered in the past, one could infer that leading change, or leading anything in business for that matter involves more effort, and more risks than following someone else who may be doing the leading. I think it is pretty safe to say that is the case. In the past managing has been much easier and less stressful than leading.

The shuffling of papers and paying lip service to all the change initiatives used to be a safer, lower profile approach to business. There are many people who have happily gone through their careers on this path.

If that is truly the case, it brings up the question:

Why would anyone want to lead?

The simple answer to this question is:

Because things have changed.

It used to be that people who took jobs and worked reasonably hard were pretty much assured that they probably had a job for the rest of their lives. They had reasonable job security and could look forward to a pension when they retired.

As Dorothy said to Toto in the Wizard of Oz:

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

When was the last time you heard of someone having job security? How about staying at the same company for an extended period of time? Lastly, when was the last time you heard of anyone talking about a pension when not referring to a corporate or municipal bankruptcy?
I don’t think this is a case of Dorothy and Toto leaving Kansas. It is more like Kansas slipping away out from under them when they weren’t paying full attention to the landscape.

With all that being said, it still doesn’t fully answer the question of why anyone would want to lead. This reminds me of a college survey that I once read a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The survey asked the question:

Which is a bigger threat to society: Ignorance or apathy?

The general consensus at that time was that no one knew, and no one cared.

I think the parallel here is that leaders do know and do care about what the threats to business are, and what needs to be done to avoid them. We have all heard the more than trite saying that the only constant in business today is change. I do not necessarily think that is true, or we would all be experiencing more change and it would be much easier to change than it apparently is. If change is truly a constant we seem to have far too many people constantly fighting against change.

I would not focus on the change function as a topic unto itself, but rather as a result of instability. When business seemed to be stable (and pensions were available) there was not much in the way of change. Now even this was not entirely true. Technology continued to change, but the way business and businesses worked remained reasonably constant. Hence the ability for the risk adverse follower to still make out a reasonable career existed.

The only thing stable about today’s business paradigm (I actually hate that word, but it does seem to fit well in this context) is the instability of business. I worked for a company that was once recognized as a world leader in their market with more than thirty billion dollars in annual revenues, and less than seven years later the company was bankrupt and gone from the market landscape.

In a business world where apparently so many do not know what to do, or are unwilling to venture forth with a plan, it would seem to me that the best way to go now is to lead. When it turns out that everyone is taking the safe route and everyone is following everyone else, then everyone ends up at risk. Inactivity or failure to act now presents a bigger risk than taking action, even the wrong action.

Leaders understand the risks involved with taking a stand or implementing change, and do it anyway. They don’t take unnecessary risks. They understand that the risks associated with today’s business environment are multiplied if they do not take action. They see that what was once a stable landscape is no longer stable. They understand that waiting for someone to tell them to take action is riskier than identifying the action that needs to be taken and then taking it.

Despite my affinity for quotes from Albert Einstein, I’ll close with a quote from someone else. John Cage was a renowned musician and composer. He said:

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”

In an ever more unstable business environment leave it to a musician to capture the essence of the new structure. Go figure.

Accountability, Achievement, Example, Leadership

Criticism

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One of the immutable laws of leadership is that leaders get criticized. Throughout recorded history, when a leader has emerged, so has the criticism of what they are doing. This has been shown to be true in this country all the way back to George Washington, the man who is widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of our country, and the first president of the United States. With the myth that has evolved around Washington and his leadership, it is difficult to believe that anyone would have, or even could have criticized him. They did. And many of them were actually thrown in jail for doing so. I guess they knew better how to deal with critics and criticism back then.

Can you imagine the prison issues that would occur today if they could still throw everyone who criticized the president in jail?

The point here is that Washington took a stand. Because of the stand he took, he was asked to lead. He had an opinion and a position, and actually had the temerity to act upon them. Washington was a Federalist. He supported a strong federal government. His critics were Republicans (who should not be confused with today’s republicans) who believed that the majority of governmental authority should be vested with the states.

Washington acted upon his beliefs and the criticism raged. There were editorials in several newspapers of the time literally calling for the hand of God to intervene in the activities. This was pretty scathing stuff for the time. You didn’t just call upon God for any old issue. If you were going to call upon Him you apparently really had to mean it.

But this was George Washington; the man who threw a dollar across the Potomac River; the man who chopped down the cherry tree and couldn’t tell a lie; the man who led the armies of the American Revolution and won. Here he was being criticized, more than just a little vigorously, for doing what he had been called upon and put in the position to do.

Fast forward about sixty years to another one of the great leaders of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Half of the then country was so critical of his activities and policies that tried to secede from the union. This plan obviously did not go over well and the result was one of the bloodiest conflicts in our nation’s history. It also ultimately cost him his life at the hands of an assassin who also did not agree with his policies.

So, enough of the history lesson. What is the point, you may ask.
The point that I choose to make here is that if you choose to be a leader, you are going to be criticized. Opinions and positions are polarizing. There will always be those that immediately agree with you, and those that immediately, and sometimes irrevocably disagree with you. There are going to be people that regardless of the obviousness, intelligence or palatability of the position that you are taking are just not going to agree with you. They are going to criticize you.

Once the criticism starts, how you handle it will tell much about your leadership character and capabilities. After many years of both dizzying success and abysmal failure at handling criticism, I will share some of the things I have learned in how to handle criticism. A sort of leadership behavioral Dos and Don’ts for handling critics and their associated criticism:

Do: Understand that it is easier to oppose an idea that it is to generate an idea. You may have spent a significant amount of time taking multiple factors into account in presenting or proposing something. You have created something where before your idea there was nothing. Not everyone can do this.

Understand that it does not take near that amount of effort to create any criticism to your proposal or idea. In fact, in many instances you may notice the criticism is almost instantaneous, especially if you present your plan in person in front of multiple people. Picture the image of pouring blood into piranha filled waters.

Don’t: Don’t question the intellect behind any criticism. As I just noted, it is much easier to provide criticism of an idea than it is to provide an idea. You may infer that I think that critics are only those people of lower intellect. This may or may not actually be the case. Now critics may defend their position in this intellectual argument by noting that by conserving their precious few available brain cells by only creating critiques instead of creating ideas, that they may actually be truly benefitting the company. They can state that you can never tell when you may actually have to rely on a critic to create a new idea, and they want those limited number of brain cells in reserve for when or if they are ever called upon for independent thought.

Personally when I need new ideas generated I prefer to call on people who have demonstrated the ability to think independently and generate ideas.

Perhaps you have heard how some people try to generalize society into the “haves” and the “have nots”. This may be incorrect on so many levels but I am not here to argue that point. I only use it as an illustration of how we like to categorize people. I think the equivalent bifurcation of people in business would be the “idea generators” and the “critics”, or maybe more accurately the “thinks” and the “think nots”.

Do: When criticized focus on the idea not the person. It is very easy to get defensive about our creations. Any criticism of them is almost too easy to take as a personal attack or direct insult on us. Whether this is the actual case or not is not important. Focus on the idea and content being supplied. Do not get wrapped up in the person providing or the method they are providing it.

Remember the old adage: Even a blind pig will occasionally root up an acorn. So it is with critics. Occasionally they can and even do provide valuable input. It is possible that one of their critiques will have merit. I personally have never seen this, but I have heard the business legends, myths and stories of it actually occurring.

Don’t: Don’t refer to your critic as a “blind pig” or any other name should their criticism eventually prove fruitless or unfounded. Take the high road. And remember “myopic swine” is not the high road either.

Remember that invariably facts will be your friends. Get the data. Do the research. Deal with the idea not the person. Reduce the criticism to a provable or disprovable point and work on it from that point of view. Leadership is about assimilating input, even inaccurate critical input. Leadership is not about getting those people who agree with you to align. It is about getting those that do not agree, the critics, to align.

Notice I didn’t say accept. I said align. It is possible that some critics will never accept your proposal or idea. After all, their criticism is as dear to them as your idea is to you.

When you look back at Washington and Lincoln, one of the traits that made them great leaders was the way they responded to criticism. Regardless of how harsh or personal or unfounded the attacks were, they dealt specifically with the issues or business at hand. They did not respond in kind to spurious criticism. They focused on the idea and the objective they needed to achieve.

Most importantly they as leaders moved forward with their ideas and plans. They acted. They got things done regardless of and in some instances in spite of their critics and criticism. They didn’t let the criticism get them down nor slow them down.

In business there will always be those that for whatever reason will tell you that your ideas or plans will not work. It is okay to listen to them, but it cannot be allowed to become the reason for not moving forward, nor can the fear of such criticism be the reason that you did not bring forward a new idea.

Analysis, Data, Decision Making, Leadership, Recognition

You Don’t Know

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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. Continue reading You Don’t Know →

Accountability, Excellence, Leadership, Simplification, Uncategorized

Complexity and Incompetence

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Thank goodness for Spell Checker. I wasn’t paying full attention to what I was doing here when I started writing and initially misspelled “incompetence”. Talk about the potential for poetic justice on an article title like that.

 I have to give attribution for this topic to one of my friends in Austria. He was talking the other day and one of the things he said really resonated with me. So many times it seems that we like to think of our work as complex. Part of this business complexity definition desire may be based in how we may want to equate our self worth with the accomplishing of the difficult or complex, and part of it may be related to the positioning of an explanation if the goal is not attained. Either way, in reality we need to accept and address the fact that business is really not that complex.

 So much of business is built on the basics. Set a goal and then follow through. Create something of value for your customers. Say what you will do and then do what you have said. Treat the business’s money as if it were your own. Tell the truth. Ask questions. Read. Learn from your mistakes. The list can go on, but the components of the list are all equally simple and axiomatic.

 Those last few on the above list were proudly stolen from a wall chart that I saw regarding the basic rules for conduct in a kindergarten classroom – really. There were many others on the list that I thought were equally good an applicable (don’t hit, don’t hit back, etc.), but I didn’t want to go overboard here.

 I think you get my point. Many of the precepts that we have learned regarding basic human interaction (dating all the way back to kindergarten) form the foundation for conducting business. I have noted in the past that at its most basic business is about the interactions between people. Business is not done organization to organization. It is done person to person. It’s really not that hard. This brings me back to what my friend said. He said (and although I am quoting, I am also paraphrasing):

 “Claiming “complexity” as a reason for a business issue or performance is either the defining of a basic level of incompetence or the providing of an excuse for non-performance”

 I think he put it very well.

 The only piece that I might add would be to address our innate desire to make what we do seem important. On a base level it is difficult to equate doing something that is simple with doing something that is complex. We all want to succeed at the difficult or complex because we feel it has more value than succeeding at the simple. However in business, as with almost everything else, it is not the case.

 More specifically it is the ability to do something simple, and not to just do it (as the famous footwear commercial says) but the ability to do it very well, that makes it important. It seems all too often we juxtapose the goal of just getting something done with the goal of getting something done well, and then claim that the complexity was the cause for the performance difference.

 Complexity can neither be a reason nor an excuse for business performance. At the levels which business leaders must operate, there really can’t be that much room for complexity. Financially speaking, business leaders are not being asked to understand differential equations or Fourier analysis techniques. It is the simple concepts of Profit and Loss that we need to know. Are customers satisfied or not, and why? Are commitments met? It is the simple that needs to be our focus.

 It is interesting (at least to me) that I have had cause to cite Albert Einstein on several occasions in the past. Einstein is primarily associated with the development in physics of the theory of relativity, and other higher contributions to scientific thought. I seem to find myself applying him regularly to business as well. Maybe that is the definition of a truly smart person (Einstein, not me); they can be applied equally well to multiple fields.

 Einstein said (and this is a direct quote):

 “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

 Remember, Einstein reduced the entire theory of relativity to a single, simple equation:   E = Mc²

 The inference here is that if the theory of relativity can be expressed so simply, there should not be much in business that should either be considered or expressed to be complex.

 Perhaps that is where the complexity issue lies in business. Business currently seems to embrace and value complexity. It seems that some people in business either can’t or won’t expend the effort required to understand issues well enough to make them simple. Linking this back to my friend it would appear that those who can’t get a good enough understanding of the topic are incompetent, and those that won’t get a good enough understanding of the topic are looking to use it as an excuse for their non-performance.

 I think the issue is becoming more and more pervasive in business as we have created entirely new sets of business vernacular to assist in complex explanations of simple topics and issues. For example, now instead of having a “strength”, we now have a “core competency”. The definition of competency (according to Websters) is adequacy. Instead of being strong we are now merely adequate? If it is not core, it must be peripheral. Is there even such a thing in business as “peripheral competencies”, and if so, why would you even have them?

 I have digressed, but only in such a manner as to illustrate that we need to understand and accept that the only complexity that leaders have in business is the complexity that they themselves create, accept and impute to the business.

 This sounds somewhat trite even to my own ear as I think it over. And I am sure that there will be many who will think that this is an over simplification of many of the issues facing businesses today. I am also sure that there can be several seemingly complex examples of issues that they will proudly point to and describe as too complex for simple descriptions and solutions.

 But I think I am going to leave the challenge out there anyway.

 I’ll would look to Einstein (since he seems to be generally recognized as a pretty smart role model) and respond by saying that if they can’t describe the problem in more simple terms then they probably don’t understand it well enough yet. I think my friend was on to something in that if people say that they can’t understand it well enough to make the complex problem simpler then it may be time to question their competency to do the work. If they won’t understand it well enough to make it simple, then it actually does sound like they are making excuses for their non-performance of the desired tasks, which would also entail a leadership intervention and action.

 Complexity is something we choose to have in business. We seem to have built up almost a myth around it when it comes to business. We have created new words and methods to make the simple sound, look and even be more complex, and I think business is suffering for it. If we started to look at complexity as a lack of understanding of the issue, an excuse, or even incompetence, I think that we would see things become much simpler, very quickly.

Achievement, Creativity, Leadership, Process

Stop Using Best Practices

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Businesses, like just about everything else, are always looking for the best way to do things. Businesses also like predictability. They like to know what the response or result will be to any specific action that may be taken. It is because of these drives and desires that when something is dubbed a “Best Practice” all businesses seem to flock towards it. While on the surface this has all the appearances of a good thing, in reality I think it has a tendency to hold businesses back.

I think the idea of “Best Practices” is a business construct created by consultants to position themselves as invaluable to the progress and evolution of business. In other words, it was created so someone could get paid for it. This would be similar to a music critic who tried to position Justin Bieber as invaluable to the progress and evolution of music. I guess you truly have to be a “Belieber” to buy into either of them. I also do not know of any music critic that would propose such a thing, and still be allowed to retain their music critic membership card, or music critic certification, or music critic secret decoder ring or whatever it is that allows them to be accepted as some sort of music critic. Even so, there are people who are actually “Beliebers”, and there are also businesses that buy into the idea of best practices.

Personally I am a Jazz and Alternative Rock kind of guy. I guess this musical preference may also indicate why I am more attracted to the more original and less formulaic ways of doing things.

I am concerned that when someone claims that they have developed a “Best Practice” that they are inferentially removing the possibility that there may be some other different or better way of doing things. After all, what can be better than a best practice? An even better than best practice? A new and improved best practice? This also brings up the question to me of: who gets to declare something a “Best Practice”? How do they know that their “best practice” is better than anything else, including those methods that may not have even been tried yet? My view is that they don’t.

I seem to have gotten off into musical allegories here, so I guess I will try and continue in that vein. Just because John Phillip Souza may have developed what some music critics now consider to be the very best practice when it comes to the genre of music that is known as “Marches” does not mean that he has developed a best practice for music, or marching bands for that matter. In fact as I sit here the idea of people who march to the beat of a different drummer continues to work its way into my consciousness. To take this idea even a step further, I think I remember watching a college football game on television last year where at half time the band actually played a heavy metal song by the band Metallica, instead of a Souza march. As I recall it got quite an ovation from the crowd.

I think any business that aspires to something other than their own optimal performance is limiting themselves. The idea here is that optimal performance is a moving target. As times, competition and conditions change, so will the optimal performance target. I think this will be the case, as in a different case, for each individual business. It is the differences and the different approaches to their optimal practices that generate differentiation, and competitive advantages for businesses in the market.

Best practice has a tendency to be thought of as a process, or a way of doing things. The idea being that if you do things in the best way possible, you should end up with the best possible result. Herein lays the issue with best practices for me.

Any process that is deemed to be best without first comparing and adapting it to both the existing business environment and the known and desired goals will probably not work. For me the definition of a best practice is the process that will get the business from where it currently is to the goals that it has set for itself the fastest, least expensively and the most efficient way possible. Notice how the best practice is dependent on both the starting point and the desired end state.

There are many purveyors of the best practice solution who would posit that this is not the case. They would say that the proper system is to change the business to adapt to a known process. This sounds suspiciously to me that a consultant (or the equivalent) has generated some sort of process that if rigorously followed should generate a positive result. Instead of going through the effort of adapting the “Best Practice” to the current or new business environment, it is positioned that the environment must be changed or adapted to the process.

Wait a minute. How is that again?

That to me would be the equivalent of deciding on a time signature (beat) and a chord progression in music and then stating that all successful songs will need to follow that guideline. Classical music, waltzes, polkas, pop, rock, jazz, bluegrass, etc, etc, will not all fit into this best practice guideline. It is the creativity and ingenuity of the musician who takes their knowledge of music and generates a new song that determines how successful they will be. If there truly was a best practice in music that was to be followed, all songs would sound monotonously similar.

Just as it is with the creativity and ingenuity of business leader who takes their knowledge of the components of the business and combines them in a new way that creates a new more efficient business model or (gulp) practice.

Too many times it seems that businesses want to look at their practices and processes in isolation of the goals and objectives. As a would-be musician I practice in order to maintain my current (low) level of musical proficiency, and to hopefully improve. My goal is to play as well in the Jazz band as I do when I practice. I find that each time I perform with the Jazz band, by the very nature of having others in the band who I interact with during the performance, each performance is different from how I practice.

Sometimes it is better, and sometimes I wish I was better. It is the difference between having proficiency and trying to apply a best practice. It is the performance that counts, not the practice.

Driving an adherence to the idea of implementing an existing and defined best practice will stifle the creative ability of leaders to try and evolve and create new models for the business. The constraint of trying to change and to fit the business to the defined process limits the ability of the leader to define a new way or new direction, and the business’s ability to adapt to the changes in its environment. They will be locked into trying to recreate something that may have worked in the past practice, but may not fit with the current members of the business and the performance that they are being asked to give.

In music you look for people who have capability and proficiency, and can combine their talents with others to make the music. In business I don’t think that adherence to a best practice can be a substitute for capability and proficiency, and it may in fact hinder a business’s ability to change and adapt, especially when the music changes.

Leadership, Management, Negotiation, Planning

Arguing and Negotiating

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When two people are have a discussion with opposing points of view it is usually called an argument. Webster’s Dictionary (an all time favorite of mine) defines an argument as: “An argument usually arises from a disagreement between two persons, each of whom advances facts supporting his or her own point of view.” This is a great description for what goes on between two friends when they are arguing if the beer does in fact taste great or is in fact less filling. I don’t drink that particular beer so it doesn’t matter to me.

However, if these two individuals are no longer representing themselves in the beer argument, but are now representing their respective different companies with opposing points of view, they are no longer arguing. They are negotiating. Going back to Webster’s we find the following definition for a negotiation: “a discussion set up or intended to produce a settlement or agreement”. To me these two descriptions appear to be the two sides of the same coin. There are many reasons to have an agreement, one of which is to avoid future disagreements. Once there is a disagreement you definitely want to have a negotiation to resolve it as an argument probably won’t provide a solution.

Now we are getting somewhere. When two people disagree, they have a discussion called an argument. When two companies disagree, they send people to have a discussion called a negotiation.

One of the key points required for both arguing and negotiating is to clearly establish what each participant’s starting positions are. Who is claiming what, and who is denying what? Who says “yes” and who says “no”. Who says “up” and who says “down”. Who thinks they should be paid a lot of money and who thinks they shouldn’t have to pay any money at all. That sort of thing. This is a very important point in the process.

If the two parties find that their initial positions are similar, or even the same, then it will be difficult to have a meaningful argument, and the negotiation will consist mainly of nodding heads and the shaking of hands. This type of premature negotiation has a tendency to leave both parties vaguely unfulfilled from the negotiation process.

The next part of the process should be the justification and validation of the respective initial positions. I think this is the key part to many arguments and is critical to any negotiation, or argument for that matter. The respective positions on the topic in question need to be defined and justified. Why does each participant believe that they are correct, and why do they believe the other party is not?

In a recent discussion with my wife (it was a discussion not an argument as she does not allow me to argue with her) she put forth the position that “I should have fed the dogs”. I never feed the dogs unless I am specifically asked to feed the dogs because she always feeds the dogs and if I also fed them we would very quickly have obese Chihuahuas. Hence my position was that I do not feed the dogs unless asked to feed them. We therefore started out with very well defined positions for the ensuing discussion with our differing points of view (argument).

As you might guess this was a discussion that I was not going to win.

Fast forwarding to the end of the discussion, it was decided (by her) that either I was asked to feed the dogs and forgot, or I was asked to feed the dogs and did not hear the request. The fact that I was at work in my office in another building in another part of town when this request was made was inadmissible evidence. So I went and fed the dogs.

In business, depending on who has made the claim or demand, there may be a similar tendency to accept the same type of behavior and response when it comes to requesting positional justification prior to a negotiation. Why does on party feel that they are due a large sum of money from the other party? What specifically justifies the claim? What specifically validates the amount? In too many instances businesses seem to rush to try and deal directly with the claim, regardless how potentially outrageous it may be, before they understand the basis for the claim itself.

Please do not misunderstand me. For the most part most businesses perform and act in a reasonably appropriate and logical manner. They usually only make claims requiring a negotiation when there is a justifiable cause for such behavior. I think that part of the reason for this general behavior is that businesses are usually made up of honorable and logical people. Those types of people are prone to logical and honorable behavior.

I also think that logical people fully expect to have to be able to justify and defend any claim that they may make. If in general the first response to any claim being made is to ask for a justification of why the claim was made, then there is a certain amount of preparatory work that should be expected.

When it comes to customers, sometimes this check and balance claim expectation validation can break down. In today’s hyper-competitive world, where the customer is always right and vendors strive to be identified as “partners” instead of just “vendors”, customer service is sometimes the only differentiating factor available in the market. In this new commercial world where the speed with which you respond to a customer request or demand can be the difference between keeping that customer and losing them to the more responsive competition, jumping when the customer says jump is rapidly becoming the expectation.

In this type of environment, where “partners” are working together to achieve a mutually beneficial solution (It’s true. That’s what it now says on every sales presentation I have seen, and they wouldn’t be exaggerating, would they?) it is sometimes easy to forget to ask why partners are making any specific demand, or making the claim that they are making.

Vendors and customers ask these sorts of questions of each other. Just as good fences make for good neighbors; these good questions make for good contracts and relationships. Sometimes partners can forget or neglect to ask these questions. Those exclusions can eventually make for some significantly misplaced expectations, expenditures and possible difficulties in the partnership relationship when the necessary reset on the expected demand response occurs.

Good customer service and customer relationships require vendors to not only understand what is wanted, but why it is expected. Asking for this justification of demands and claims is not the sign of a weak partnership. It is more the sign of an engaged relationship. To blindly respond to any customer generated stimulus will create an unbalanced and unsustainable situation. In this event the desire for a partnership will devolve into more of a master and servant arrangement where one party makes demands and the other fulfills them.

Asking for the justification of expectations, demands and claims is probably the best way to validate what the other party actual desires. Are they looking for a problem to be rectified, or is it something else? Are they testing your responsiveness, or do they have a genuine need? Is there something that they actually want, or are they just seeing what they can get? It is not the sign of distrust in the partnership. It is more the sign of parity in the relationship.

Or as in the case with my wife, it was probably just my turn to feed the dogs.