B L O G
General
- Misunderstanding the Value Equation: Why Schools Have it All Wrong
- Income Inequality: Corrected Through Understanding the Concept of Value
- Get Personal in Business for Less Problems and More Profit
Posted by CJ Coolidge | Date Posted: August 1, 2020
Everything is changing. Not a new phenomenon, but an accelerating one.
The rate of change is so great, that more than 50% of US business execs are finally confessing that they are struggling with its pace. And, let’s face it, even the rate of change is increasing. I call it Hyper-Dynamics.
It effects everything in our lives, and our companies, much of which management tries to ignore.
Consider some changes we business owners tend to try to ignore.
Employee Ability and Aspiration: What an employee once wanted to do for you, he no longer wants to do. He may have matured in his current role, and desires a new challenge. She may now have young children at home, and no longer wants to travel. Children may have “left the nest” and she now wants to travel. The individuals which hold the IP in our enterprises are changing just as quickly as is everything else, but we have no systematic way to deal with these factors, and are inept at adjusting our roles and processes to take advantage of the opportunities these changes afford. Instead, we underutilize the people we have, and we just let then go when are mechanical models no longer require their service in the box we have externally defined.
Customer needs: What a customer wants from you today is different from what he wanted yesterday, and what he’ll want in the future. They are seemingly more fickle than ever. 80% of customers who leave would say that they were satisfied, or very satisfied with your service. But they left you, hoping to find a better value from another provider. Our offerings have been devised and “perfected” from our own perspectives. Our internal systems are mechanically created to provide what we think we should provide. Adapting to customer’s felt needs takes a back seat to our beliefs about the way things are. “That’s not our policy.” “We can’t do that.” We justify our position: “We’ve never had to do that before. We don’t need to start now.
Markets: The entire market has the potential of the international corporation. What was once a regionally valued offering may now be available from a remote producer in China. Outsourcing and off-shoring can render our offerings obsolete. When faced with these challenges, we make the false assumption that we just need to work harder at what has always worked before. We push our sales people to make more calls. We push our service people to work harder. We push our management to work longer.
Costs: Energy, healthcare, taxation, insurance, natural resources, and people costs are rising at unprecedented rates. The forces that are pushing them are not even within our control. But we believe that we must make their containment a significant part of our strategic management initiatives. We spend a dollar to save a dime. We focus on financial statements, correcting them, as if they were the business itself.
Product value: Whatever I can produce today will be more efficiently produced in the future. Shelf life of ideas is shorter than ever. Windows of profitable opportunity are smaller than ever. But we still function as if we can develop something, sell it profitably, and rest, as though we have arrived at something that will last. We resent the copy-cat, or the competitor that says he does exactly what we do, but at a better price. We gripe about the imitator from the 3rd world who unjustly sells to our customers.
There are many, many more, but these few provide enough to exhaust many the mechanically minded manager.
Our refusal to accept hyper-dynamics will, simply, lead us into disaster. Short term solutions will merely exacerbate our problems. Self delusion just guarantee the inevitable.
My solution? REALLY embrace change. I know it sounds trite, but the mere statement of the words does not prove the reality behind them. I mean embrace, welcome, anticipate, expect, and adapt.
With this, you’ll need to grasp the concept of absolutum obsoletum. Whatever we think works today is becoming absolutely obsolete . . . and sooner than I might think.
The solution comes with the change from a mechanical, change resistant organization into an organic, change adapting one. Change from the organization that orchestrates change to one that is able to flow with the change. These are entirely different approaches.
- Instead of telling your customers what you do, and expecting them to buy, learn to discover what they want and need that you can offer.
- Instead of determining what your company should be doing in antiseptic board rooms, let the front line employees tell you what their encounters with the real world are telling them.
- Instead of defining jobs for your employees, telling them what you want them to do, discover what they would do for you and your customers, if they could.
- Instead of losing sleep and fighting against rising costs, use your people’s creative and innovative energies to identify your own company innefficiencies and redundancies.
- Instead of thinking you have the totality of responsibility or all the answers, free your people to create entirely new, high value offerings for your current customers, and for customers not yet reached.
Besides, you and I already know that the greatest opportunities for excitement, value and profitability exist, not in the middle of the pack, but around the edges, where risk is sometimes the greatest. The rate of change means that yesterday’s performance is not the end. Everyday comes with new, high value opportunity. It’s up to you to find them, but you need to be looking, hoping and expecting.
And, best of all, you don’t need to go it alone. Get your people in the act. Teach them that you value their looking, hoping and expecting. Then, don’t ignore what they’ll show you.
You might as well make a lot of money, too.
The rate of change is so great, that more than 50% of US business execs are finally confessing that they are struggling with its pace. And, let’s face it, even the rate of change is increasing. I call it Hyper-Dynamics.
It effects everything in our lives, and our companies, much of which management tries to ignore.
Consider some changes we business owners tend to try to ignore.
Employee Ability and Aspiration: What an employee once wanted to do for you, he no longer wants to do. He may have matured in his current role, and desires a new challenge. She may now have young children at home, and no longer wants to travel. Children may have “left the nest” and she now wants to travel. The individuals which hold the IP in our enterprises are changing just as quickly as is everything else, but we have no systematic way to deal with these factors, and are inept at adjusting our roles and processes to take advantage of the opportunities these changes afford. Instead, we underutilize the people we have, and we just let then go when are mechanical models no longer require their service in the box we have externally defined.
Customer needs: What a customer wants from you today is different from what he wanted yesterday, and what he’ll want in the future. They are seemingly more fickle than ever. 80% of customers who leave would say that they were satisfied, or very satisfied with your service. But they left you, hoping to find a better value from another provider. Our offerings have been devised and “perfected” from our own perspectives. Our internal systems are mechanically created to provide what we think we should provide. Adapting to customer’s felt needs takes a back seat to our beliefs about the way things are. “That’s not our policy.” “We can’t do that.” We justify our position: “We’ve never had to do that before. We don’t need to start now.
Markets: The entire market has the potential of the international corporation. What was once a regionally valued offering may now be available from a remote producer in China. Outsourcing and off-shoring can render our offerings obsolete. When faced with these challenges, we make the false assumption that we just need to work harder at what has always worked before. We push our sales people to make more calls. We push our service people to work harder. We push our management to work longer.
Costs: Energy, healthcare, taxation, insurance, natural resources, and people costs are rising at unprecedented rates. The forces that are pushing them are not even within our control. But we believe that we must make their containment a significant part of our strategic management initiatives. We spend a dollar to save a dime. We focus on financial statements, correcting them, as if they were the business itself.
Product value: Whatever I can produce today will be more efficiently produced in the future. Shelf life of ideas is shorter than ever. Windows of profitable opportunity are smaller than ever. But we still function as if we can develop something, sell it profitably, and rest, as though we have arrived at something that will last. We resent the copy-cat, or the competitor that says he does exactly what we do, but at a better price. We gripe about the imitator from the 3rd world who unjustly sells to our customers.
There are many, many more, but these few provide enough to exhaust many the mechanically minded manager.
Our refusal to accept hyper-dynamics will, simply, lead us into disaster. Short term solutions will merely exacerbate our problems. Self delusion just guarantee the inevitable.
My solution? REALLY embrace change. I know it sounds trite, but the mere statement of the words does not prove the reality behind them. I mean embrace, welcome, anticipate, expect, and adapt.
With this, you’ll need to grasp the concept of absolutum obsoletum. Whatever we think works today is becoming absolutely obsolete . . . and sooner than I might think.
The solution comes with the change from a mechanical, change resistant organization into an organic, change adapting one. Change from the organization that orchestrates change to one that is able to flow with the change. These are entirely different approaches.
- Instead of telling your customers what you do, and expecting them to buy, learn to discover what they want and need that you can offer.
- Instead of determining what your company should be doing in antiseptic board rooms, let the front line employees tell you what their encounters with the real world are telling them.
- Instead of defining jobs for your employees, telling them what you want them to do, discover what they would do for you and your customers, if they could.
- Instead of losing sleep and fighting against rising costs, use your people’s creative and innovative energies to identify your own company innefficiencies and redundancies.
- Instead of thinking you have the totality of responsibility or all the answers, free your people to create entirely new, high value offerings for your current customers, and for customers not yet reached.
Besides, you and I already know that the greatest opportunities for excitement, value and profitability exist, not in the middle of the pack, but around the edges, where risk is sometimes the greatest. The rate of change means that yesterday’s performance is not the end. Everyday comes with new, high value opportunity. It’s up to you to find them, but you need to be looking, hoping and expecting.
And, best of all, you don’t need to go it alone. Get your people in the act. Teach them that you value their looking, hoping and expecting. Then, don’t ignore what they’ll show you.
You might as well make a lot of money, too.
Posted by CJ Coolidge | Date Posted: August 1, 2020
The solution for all the economic and social woes we face will naturally occur with the improved understanding of value.
The World of Employment Will be Enhanced by Understanding Value.
Let me describe an entirely new relationship between a business owner and the employee which will raise everyone’s standard of living, and reduce the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.” As I have said, everything revolves around the understanding of value. Value can no longer be associated with time, with products of services as ends in themselves. Value must be aligned with the realized ability of a product or service to improve the life conditions for the buyer.
Value for an employee must be seen in the same way. An employee, recognizing the responsibility to provide value as the foundation for determining a worthy wage, must realize, then appropriately communicate, how his participation does just that.
The Employee Approach to Job Search will be Changed. Earnings will be Improved.
Employees will no longer be interested in merely trading time for money. They will be more concerned that their companies, and their company’s customer, are able to be positively and recognizably impacted by what they do. “Getting a job,” as though an employee is taking something from someone, will be replaced by rendering a service, as though an employee intends to make a real and recognizable contribution on his company and on the company’s customers.
The Employer Approach to Recruiting will be Changed. Earnings will be Improved.
Employers will stop recruiting for positions, too. Instead, they will be communicating their vision and mission, their reason to exist, and will be seeking good people who can align themselves to the completion of those missions.
Employers will not be looking for people to put in positions, so much as looking to discover the impact of having a particular person at work to fulfill the company’s mission, and to serve its customers. Employers and employees alike will not want to exchange money for things done, so much as for measurable impact of the things done. This will automatically raise the earnings for an employee’s service as he or she is able to raise the profitability of the employer. Job security will be of little concern.
Great employees who make contributions to the profitability of their employers will be desirable everywhere. Once an employee knows his best contributions, and is able to produce them confidently wherever he is placed, he will have confidence enough to know that will eliminate his fear of serving where there is a mission to be fulfilled.
The More You’re Worth, The More You’ll be Paid. The Greater Your Impact, The Greater Your Compensation.
Once value is understood in the mainstream of our economies and our lives, it will start to make no difference what any other person is paid. It will be understood that one’s pay will be less than the contribution made. Whether you are Roger Clemens, Lebron James, Bill Gates, or John Doe, once you understand how to look for and deliver value, you will begin to earn in accordance with the value you provide, and to your heart’s desire.
This is the key to a better future. It is the solution to most every economic and social problem. It is the only way that our long and well developed capitalism can endure. It is the best way to correct perceived income inequality.
We may not remember that there is no “free lunch,” but remember we must, if we are to survive.
The World of Employment Will be Enhanced by Understanding Value.
Let me describe an entirely new relationship between a business owner and the employee which will raise everyone’s standard of living, and reduce the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.” As I have said, everything revolves around the understanding of value. Value can no longer be associated with time, with products of services as ends in themselves. Value must be aligned with the realized ability of a product or service to improve the life conditions for the buyer.
Value for an employee must be seen in the same way. An employee, recognizing the responsibility to provide value as the foundation for determining a worthy wage, must realize, then appropriately communicate, how his participation does just that.
The Employee Approach to Job Search will be Changed. Earnings will be Improved.
Employees will no longer be interested in merely trading time for money. They will be more concerned that their companies, and their company’s customer, are able to be positively and recognizably impacted by what they do. “Getting a job,” as though an employee is taking something from someone, will be replaced by rendering a service, as though an employee intends to make a real and recognizable contribution on his company and on the company’s customers.
The Employer Approach to Recruiting will be Changed. Earnings will be Improved.
Employers will stop recruiting for positions, too. Instead, they will be communicating their vision and mission, their reason to exist, and will be seeking good people who can align themselves to the completion of those missions.
Employers will not be looking for people to put in positions, so much as looking to discover the impact of having a particular person at work to fulfill the company’s mission, and to serve its customers. Employers and employees alike will not want to exchange money for things done, so much as for measurable impact of the things done. This will automatically raise the earnings for an employee’s service as he or she is able to raise the profitability of the employer. Job security will be of little concern.
Great employees who make contributions to the profitability of their employers will be desirable everywhere. Once an employee knows his best contributions, and is able to produce them confidently wherever he is placed, he will have confidence enough to know that will eliminate his fear of serving where there is a mission to be fulfilled.
The More You’re Worth, The More You’ll be Paid. The Greater Your Impact, The Greater Your Compensation.
Once value is understood in the mainstream of our economies and our lives, it will start to make no difference what any other person is paid. It will be understood that one’s pay will be less than the contribution made. Whether you are Roger Clemens, Lebron James, Bill Gates, or John Doe, once you understand how to look for and deliver value, you will begin to earn in accordance with the value you provide, and to your heart’s desire.
This is the key to a better future. It is the solution to most every economic and social problem. It is the only way that our long and well developed capitalism can endure. It is the best way to correct perceived income inequality.
We may not remember that there is no “free lunch,” but remember we must, if we are to survive.
Posted by CJ Coolidge | Date Posted: August 1, 2020
My Dad used to say that Business is Business, and Personal is Personal. I think he was advising me not to mix my personal life with my professional life. It sounded like good advice, at the time, but the longer I live, the less realistic, practical and productive it actually is. We could have much better, faster growing, more profitable businesses if we changed the way we approach business and people.
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Business.”
There’s another business saying Dad used, and I hear even today: “Don’t take this personally. It is a business decision.”
The only time Dad ever said this was in situations where someone was getting axed, fired, laid-off, removed or replaced. It could be employee or a vendor.
Dad has no exclusive use of the term. Last December, just two days before Christmas, a friend of mine heard similar words. “This is not about you, Bill. It’s a business decision. We wish you all the best.” Then he was handed his walking papers.
“It’s not about you, Bill.” What a ridiculous statement. Of course it is about Bill. Why else is he at the meeting? Tell that to his family.
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Personal.”
We use an entirely different choice of words when we are courting a client, or new employee. We say things like:
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Business.”
There’s another business saying Dad used, and I hear even today: “Don’t take this personally. It is a business decision.”
The only time Dad ever said this was in situations where someone was getting axed, fired, laid-off, removed or replaced. It could be employee or a vendor.
Dad has no exclusive use of the term. Last December, just two days before Christmas, a friend of mine heard similar words. “This is not about you, Bill. It’s a business decision. We wish you all the best.” Then he was handed his walking papers.
“It’s not about you, Bill.” What a ridiculous statement. Of course it is about Bill. Why else is he at the meeting? Tell that to his family.
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Personal.”
We use an entirely different choice of words when we are courting a client, or new employee. We say things like:
“We care about you.”
“Your success matters to us.”
“We want to be your partner, not a vendor.”
“You can trust us. You can count on us. We have your back.”
These are unmistakably personal words. Some are even terms of endearment of sorts. So, we see that:
Business is personal when doing something pleasant. Otherwise, it is business.
It is personal when we’re giving; it is business when we’re taking.
It is personal when we’re helping; it is business when we’re hurting.
Flip Wilson’s character, said, “The Devil made me do it.” We say, “The Business made me do it.”
We want to take personal responsibility and get credit for the pleasant things we do. But we want no responsibility or blame for those that are unpleasant. We blame “the business.”
I have a shocking observation based on my 30+ years doing business:
All business is personal. Every business is personal. Everyday, all the time.
Think about it. Every activity, every decision, every system, every process, every procedure, every innovation, every creation, every interaction, every sale, every buy, every complaint, every problem, every solution, every idea, every interaction, every communication, every error, every misunderstanding, every lawsuit, every mishap, every success, every failure, all without exception are the result of personal involvement somewhere.
There’s nothing that happens in any business that doesn’t have a personal involvement. Everything in business is done by, for, at, or with people.
Example from The Bailey Building and Loan Association
It’s a Wonderful Life depicts the story of George Bailey, a man whose life is inextricably connected to his family’s business, The Bailey Building and Loan. The personal/business connection is made obvious in each of the business situations presented in the movie.
- George saves drugstore: Mr. Gower, the druggist, has received a telegram with news that his son had died in combat. (personal) He is so upset that he mis-fills a prescription with poison. (personal) George sees the telegram and realizes Mr. Gower’s mistake. He saves him from certain ruin risking his job (personal) by not delivering the inappropriately filled prescription. (Personal)
- George rescues his business from 1st run on the bank: George witnesses a “run on the bank” and steps in, canceling his honeymoon. The “run” is caused because his customers heard something and reacted by demanding their deposits in cash. (personal) George’s intervention (personal) convinces them to take only what they need, (personal) thus keeping the bank whole for another day.
- Uncle Billy’s mistake, and Mr. Potter’s choice creates a problem: The bank is in its worst situation when Uncle Billy mistakenly leaves a deposit in a newspaper at Potter’s. (personal.) Potter knows what happened, and he keeps the money and calls the bake examiners. (personal)
- Mary Bailey, intervenes to save George and the Building and Loan. George is in dire straights, drunk and looking for a way out when his wife gets word of the situation and takes a course of action. (personal) She calls the bank customers and some of George’s friends and asks for their help. They overwhelmingly come to his aid with their savings and other significant contributions. (personal)
- The Bank Examiner changes his mind. The bank examiner, seeing the generosity of the community and support of friends, and caught up in the spirit of the moment, tears up the subpoena, and sings with the others. (personal)
It is inarguable. Business is personal.
In fact, a business can only work as well as its people work. The success of an enterprise is directly related and proportional to how well that workforce works together and with the marketplace and the community.
People! People! Everywhere!
If business leaders could realize just how personal business really is, they would prioritize an optimized workforce. It would cause companies to run better, to grow faster and to make more money.
Posted by CJ Coolidge | Date Posted: August 1, 2020
There should be little mystery about why the concept of value is so far off base. From our earliest training, we were taught to misunderstand it.
It Started in School. Purpose: Produce Workers for the Industrial Machine.
We built a system by which masses of people could be trained to become tools in an industrial machine. Around the end of the 19th century, John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and John Dewey aligned to create the system to produce the workers they needed to participate in the newly developing American industrial economy. And it worked wonderfully. America became the greatest industrial force the world had ever seen. By the millions, American workers entered the workforce, traded their time and their lives for paychecks, and, in doing so, forgot the central meaning of value.
Value became erroneously, acceptably, and inseparably connected with time, and with task.
For at least 2 generations, the definition was reinforced, solidified by story and culture, respected as the “backbone of the economy” as if getting and keeping a job was the prize, and the best economic contribution an American could make. People worked for 40 years, retired with a gold watch and a pension, and died within 5 years.
Generations of Americans were trained to believe that the highest contribution they could make was to have, and to keep a job. In fact, our very identities continue to revolve around this idea. The seemingly most important first question asked when introduced to a new person is, “What do you do?” The main reason parents give to support their children’s success in school is that this will enable them to “get a good job.”
We Keep Following the Model, Well Beyond its Benefit.
So things went, and so they continue. As long as America had a fairly stable, predictable demographic, and no international competitors to speak of, the system could successfully continue. We continue to follow the Carnegie/Rockefeller/Dewey education system, even better than ever. We admire it, require it, fund it, protect it, and demand it. That very system continues to produce more and more of exactly what it was designed to produce: people who believe a job to be the economic end game, people who associate time with money, and don’t understand value. The System Was Created for the World as it Existed in 1940.
The Foundations Have Changed.
The basic essential conditions which enabled our education system to produce the necessary contributors to achieve American Industrial greatness no longer exist. The demographic model is completely different. Technology supports quality international competitors for everything we produce. And it is no longer beneficial to have millions of people who don’t understand value. In fact, it is detrimental to our survival. It is proverbial that America needs to improve the public education system. All politicians say it. They just don’t know why, or how. Their own models are merely copies of the acceptable ones of old, with more bells and whistles. They still motivate students with the prospect of securing a good job upon graduation.
We Will Never Change the System if We Keep Listening to its Trained Advocates.
Adding to the problem is the very leaders of the educational institution themselves. These are professional educators, 2nd and 3rd generations of people educated by educators, not educated by real life, or by real economics.
The people who have such a vested interest in the preservation of the very system that creates the economic problems we are beginning to face are the same ones who haven’t a clue about the way things really work. They are so separated by time and space and education that they actually believe the unworkable utopian, anti-capitalistic solutions they are now building into the millions of Americans they touch.
Yes, America needs to improve our education system, but very few can even anticipate the extent of the alteration required. Still, at the core of the educational change, will be the understanding of value. We are far from this.
I heard a Comment by John McCain Which Offered a Glimmer of Hope.
I heard this in John McCain’s speech at the Republican nominating convention. He was speaking about some of the systems we try to preserve in our country today.
“I know some of you have been left behind in the changing economy and it often seems your government hasn’t even noticed. Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That’s going to change on my watch. My opponent promises to bring back old jobs by wishing away the global economy. We’re going to help workers who’ve lost a job that won’t come back, find a new one that won’t go away.”
McCain is talking about the need to educate our people in a way that fully understands the concept of delivering value. As the world changes at hyper-dynamic speed, the old beliefs and systems that were undergirded by those beliefs need to change.
Value must be understood. People must take personal responsibility to continually update their education so that they can stay current in this ever changing world.
It Started in School. Purpose: Produce Workers for the Industrial Machine.
We built a system by which masses of people could be trained to become tools in an industrial machine. Around the end of the 19th century, John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and John Dewey aligned to create the system to produce the workers they needed to participate in the newly developing American industrial economy. And it worked wonderfully. America became the greatest industrial force the world had ever seen. By the millions, American workers entered the workforce, traded their time and their lives for paychecks, and, in doing so, forgot the central meaning of value.
Value became erroneously, acceptably, and inseparably connected with time, and with task.
For at least 2 generations, the definition was reinforced, solidified by story and culture, respected as the “backbone of the economy” as if getting and keeping a job was the prize, and the best economic contribution an American could make. People worked for 40 years, retired with a gold watch and a pension, and died within 5 years.
Generations of Americans were trained to believe that the highest contribution they could make was to have, and to keep a job. In fact, our very identities continue to revolve around this idea. The seemingly most important first question asked when introduced to a new person is, “What do you do?” The main reason parents give to support their children’s success in school is that this will enable them to “get a good job.”
We Keep Following the Model, Well Beyond its Benefit.
So things went, and so they continue. As long as America had a fairly stable, predictable demographic, and no international competitors to speak of, the system could successfully continue. We continue to follow the Carnegie/Rockefeller/Dewey education system, even better than ever. We admire it, require it, fund it, protect it, and demand it. That very system continues to produce more and more of exactly what it was designed to produce: people who believe a job to be the economic end game, people who associate time with money, and don’t understand value. The System Was Created for the World as it Existed in 1940.
The Foundations Have Changed.
The basic essential conditions which enabled our education system to produce the necessary contributors to achieve American Industrial greatness no longer exist. The demographic model is completely different. Technology supports quality international competitors for everything we produce. And it is no longer beneficial to have millions of people who don’t understand value. In fact, it is detrimental to our survival. It is proverbial that America needs to improve the public education system. All politicians say it. They just don’t know why, or how. Their own models are merely copies of the acceptable ones of old, with more bells and whistles. They still motivate students with the prospect of securing a good job upon graduation.
We Will Never Change the System if We Keep Listening to its Trained Advocates.
Adding to the problem is the very leaders of the educational institution themselves. These are professional educators, 2nd and 3rd generations of people educated by educators, not educated by real life, or by real economics.
The people who have such a vested interest in the preservation of the very system that creates the economic problems we are beginning to face are the same ones who haven’t a clue about the way things really work. They are so separated by time and space and education that they actually believe the unworkable utopian, anti-capitalistic solutions they are now building into the millions of Americans they touch.
Yes, America needs to improve our education system, but very few can even anticipate the extent of the alteration required. Still, at the core of the educational change, will be the understanding of value. We are far from this.
I heard a Comment by John McCain Which Offered a Glimmer of Hope.
I heard this in John McCain’s speech at the Republican nominating convention. He was speaking about some of the systems we try to preserve in our country today.
“I know some of you have been left behind in the changing economy and it often seems your government hasn’t even noticed. Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That’s going to change on my watch. My opponent promises to bring back old jobs by wishing away the global economy. We’re going to help workers who’ve lost a job that won’t come back, find a new one that won’t go away.”
McCain is talking about the need to educate our people in a way that fully understands the concept of delivering value. As the world changes at hyper-dynamic speed, the old beliefs and systems that were undergirded by those beliefs need to change.
Value must be understood. People must take personal responsibility to continually update their education so that they can stay current in this ever changing world.
Income Inequality: Corrected Through Understanding the Concept of Value
Posted by CJ Coolidge | Date Posted: August 1, 2020
My Dad used to say that Business is Business, and Personal is Personal. I think he was advising me not to mix my personal life with my professional life. It sounded like good advice, at the time, but the longer I live, the less realistic, practical and productive it actually is. We could have much better, faster growing, more profitable businesses if we changed the way we approach business and people.
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Business.”
There’s another business saying Dad used, and I hear even today: “Don’t take this personally. It is a business decision.”
The only time Dad ever said this was in situations where someone was getting axed, fired, laid-off, removed or replaced. It could be employee or a vendor.
Dad has no exclusive use of the term. Last December, just two days before Christmas, a friend of mine heard similar words. “This is not about you, Bill. It’s a business decision. We wish you all the best.” Then he was handed his walking papers.
“It’s not about you, Bill.” What a ridiculous statement. Of course it is about Bill. Why else is he at the meeting? Tell that to his family.
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Personal.”
We use an entirely different choice of words when we are courting a client, or new employee. We say things like:
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Business.”
There’s another business saying Dad used, and I hear even today: “Don’t take this personally. It is a business decision.”
The only time Dad ever said this was in situations where someone was getting axed, fired, laid-off, removed or replaced. It could be employee or a vendor.
Dad has no exclusive use of the term. Last December, just two days before Christmas, a friend of mine heard similar words. “This is not about you, Bill. It’s a business decision. We wish you all the best.” Then he was handed his walking papers.
“It’s not about you, Bill.” What a ridiculous statement. Of course it is about Bill. Why else is he at the meeting? Tell that to his family.
Sometimes we want “Business” to be “Personal.”
We use an entirely different choice of words when we are courting a client, or new employee. We say things like:
“We care about you.”
“Your success matters to us.”
“We want to be your partner, not a vendor.”
“You can trust us. You can count on us. We have your back.”
These are unmistakably personal words. Some are even terms of endearment of sorts. So, we see that:
Business is personal when doing something pleasant. Otherwise, it is business.
It is personal when we’re giving; it is business when we’re taking.
It is personal when we’re helping; it is business when we’re hurting.
Flip Wilson’s character, said, “The Devil made me do it.” We say, “The Business made me do it.”
We want to take personal responsibility and get credit for the pleasant things we do. But we want no responsibility or blame for those that are unpleasant. We blame “the business.”
I have a shocking observation based on my 30+ years doing business:
All business is personal. Every business is personal. Everyday, all the time.
Think about it. Every activity, every decision, every system, every process, every procedure, every innovation, every creation, every interaction, every sale, every buy, every complaint, every problem, every solution, every idea, every interaction, every communication, every error, every misunderstanding, every lawsuit, every mishap, every success, every failure, all without exception are the result of personal involvement somewhere.
There’s nothing that happens in any business that doesn’t have a personal involvement. Everything in business is done by, for, at, or with people.
Example from The Bailey Building and Loan Association
It’s a Wonderful Life depicts the story of George Bailey, a man whose life is inextricably connected to his family’s business, The Bailey Building and Loan. The personal/business connection is made obvious in each of the business situations presented in the movie.
- George saves drugstore: Mr. Gower, the druggist, has received a telegram with news that his son had died in combat. (personal) He is so upset that he mis-fills a prescription with poison. (personal) George sees the telegram and realizes Mr. Gower’s mistake. He saves him from certain ruin risking his job (personal) by not delivering the inappropriately filled prescription. (Personal)
- George rescues his business from 1st run on the bank: George witnesses a “run on the bank” and steps in, canceling his honeymoon. The “run” is caused because his customers heard something and reacted by demanding their deposits in cash. (personal) George’s intervention (personal) convinces them to take only what they need, (personal) thus keeping the bank whole for another day.
- Uncle Billy’s mistake, and Mr. Potter’s choice creates a problem: The bank is in its worst situation when Uncle Billy mistakenly leaves a deposit in a newspaper at Potter’s. (personal.) Potter knows what happened, and he keeps the money and calls the bake examiners. (personal)
- Mary Bailey, intervenes to save George and the Building and Loan. George is in dire straights, drunk and looking for a way out when his wife gets word of the situation and takes a course of action. (personal) She calls the bank customers and some of George’s friends and asks for their help. They overwhelmingly come to his aid with their savings and other significant contributions. (personal)
- The Bank Examiner changes his mind. The bank examiner, seeing the generosity of the community and support of friends, and caught up in the spirit of the moment, tears up the subpoena, and sings with the others. (personal)
It is inarguable. Business is personal.
In fact, a business can only work as well as its people work. The success of an enterprise is directly related and proportional to how well that workforce works together and with the marketplace and the community.
People! People! Everywhere!
If business leaders could realize just how personal business really is, they would prioritize an optimized workforce. It would cause companies to run better, to grow faster and to make more money.