Archive for Behaviour

The difference between “leading” and “being in front”

// July 23rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Behaviour

Being better is always about metrics. You need to define the scale on which you measure ‘good’ before you can become better. “Better” as a label always leads to “better… at what?” So knowing how you’ll measure a good performance (and subsequent improvement) is always the right place to start. The issue is that so many companies use a group metric to label themselves as ‘leaders’.

Leadership is about knowing the path you’re walking, and being prepared to push a few branches out of the way to get there.  Leading an industry, or a market, or a sector, isn’t about comparison to everyone else – it’s about comparison between you and where you want to be. It’s working to reach an ideal, not to outpace a crowd.

Many businesses use competition to define success. “We’re better than XYZ, so we can’t be doing that badly.” “We’re in the top ten in our sector!” The internal picture of success is defined by other businesses, or through financial results. An average across the sector for service/price/skill is reached. The average experience then becomes the benchmark of a decent performance, and as long as the business does better than that, everything’s okay.

This is not leading. This is just running faster than the rest. This is being in front. In front of the curve. Of where you think everyone else is . And as long as your only goal is to be just a little cheaper, smarter or quicker than your nearest competitor, you’ll always find yourself scrabbling. And without knowing it, you’ll let the pack define where you go, rather than having a direction and following it.

Rejection And Criticism

// April 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Behaviour

Rejection.

If a client chooses another option over the one you’re selling, there are two things you can do.

The first is to attack the client directly – accuse them of being unprofessional, complain that you didn’t do your best and deserve another chance, bad-mouth the competitor, complain and use all your sales skills and existing knowledge of the client to try and guilt them into reversing the decision.

The second is to take it on the chin, to wish them well and tell them that the door is always open if there’s anything you can ever do for them. Keep it professional and objective, get feedback on what you could have done better, and stay in touch.

Guess which one means you might get the business back eventually? That’s right – the one most of us don’t do.

Criticism.

There’s a poster on my wall at work that says “If you’re tired of people exposing your mistakes, don’t attack the people. Attack the mistakes.” I’ve seen a few people in the industry respond to criticism by publicly attacking the critic. How does this make you look more credible? If you have issue with the review, address the review, not the reviewer. Attacking people, instead of issues, just weakens your argument. Or, just for something different, be confident enough in what you’re doing to ignore the criticism. If you don’t credit the reviewer, don’ respond publicly – just ignore it. Drawing attention to nasty things someone said about you on the internet doesn’t create anything but antipathy. And I’m pretty sure we’ve got enough of that already.

If it works, do it again. if it doesn’t, do it again. And don’t feed the trolls.