On the day that everyone finally notices your work, wholeheartedly approves of everything you have done and sings your praises, then what will happen? We all work so hard thinking about and planning for that day. Why? Maybe the approval of others is not as all it's cracked up to be. Maybe we don't need the whole world to know how great we are. What if knowing you did a great job yourself was actually enough?
When you decide to sell your house you call an agent...
When you call a lawyer because you need help...
When you are new in town and call a recommended restaurant to book dinner...
Work your way down the list. From stock brokers to hairdressers - whenever a new referral shows up, all the things it took to get them there... and then the phone gets answered by someone who is rude and unhelpful. Phone calls matter more than you think.
Is it really every girl's dream to become a princess, to be chosen by a prince and to have a multi million pound wedding watched on TV around the globe? Or is that the Disney corporation betraying you and selling you short? Dreams are too important to give up on and to delegate to an American cartoon and amusement park company trying to make a buck.
There's only one thing worse than saying "I am not allowed to" and that is admitting that "I am allowed to". The amount of freedom that we all now have to deliver our tasks, keep our own schedules, and do whatever it takes to deliver for clients is truly unbelievable. When you utter something like "I am not allowed to" what you are actually saying is "I want great results but I cannot take the initiative". But with initiative comes authority and responsibility for delivery. Once you acknowledge all of this, of course you have to do something about it.
Everyone knows that you cannot have heads without tails. Doing something new is like that. You cannot have success without failure so whenever you hear someone say "failure is not an option" what you are really hearing is "innovation is not an option".
Organisational change is an ongoing business necessity. Employees leave, and new employees are hired, new teams, departments, processes and structures are created as the company grows, and businesses adopt new technology to stay ahead of the curve. The challenge for anyone in business is to truly accept the urgency of the problem and of being hyper aware of the need to change. Once you can see how the way that you used to work has stopped working, then, and only then, can you dream up a new way, a better one.
A bully starts a fight - plays up in the office or online, gets pulled aside for his or her behaviour. Then the bully twists words, casts blame and somehow turns themselves into a victim. People around them back down, make amends, do what they can to assuage further tantrums and gives the bully another chance. And the cycle continues. Being a bully is a choice, but to some degree, allowing the cycle to continue is also a choice or at the very least a choice no-one truly wanted to make - a mistake.
Long term client relationships find their foundations in a proper arrangement. Here are a few examples...
The farmer's market: I want to eat local foods that taste great. The farmer's market wants to give me local foods that taste great.
Google: I want to find what I am looking for. Google wants me to find what I am looking for.
Apple: I want Apple to be cool. Apple wants to be cool.
The trick is to align your service provisions with the needs of your client.
Like any industrial revolution, none of what is happening around us is linear. It is all about the fits and starts. The mass market is replaced with a multitude of micro markets and now there is a long tail of choice for consumers of just about anything. eBay and Amazon connects buyers and sellers, manufacturing is outsourced, and online information exchanges puts us more in charge of our destinies than ever before. Everything is different now and there is a real opportunity for us all to run from the mediocre middle and develop best in class skills, to tell amazing stories, to easily spread the word, to be in demand, and to satisfy real customer needs.
The decades that brought us to ever increasing productivity and office jobs and an expanded middle class have come to an end. The internet is here and the world has changed. Now we have a gig economy, online news sites, different ways to watch TV and TikTok influencers. Things won't go back, this is the new normal.
The newspaper business, the car business, the record business, even the computer and phone business... one by one, all industries are being turned upside down, and it is happening so fast that we are having to adapt just as quickly. It's not nice, it doesn't feel fair, but it's here to stay and it is all we've got. The world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we've got, the better.