Shut Up and Listen

This may be a rather crass way to start a new year. However, it tells a critically important story. I have several children; I have learned a lot from them. One particular lesson continues to play an important role in my life.

Late one night one of the teens came home from a school activity. He was upset. I do not remember the situation. However, as a caring father, I tried to solve his problem. In a moment of extreme frustration he said to me, “Dad, shut up and listen!” I was stunned. My children never talked to me that way, and here I was trying to help.  My first reaction was one of indignation with a twinge of hurt. Fortunately, I was so caught off guard that I stopped talking. He then poured out his problems and his feelings. After getting it all out, he asked for my input and my help.

Through all of my experiences, training, and education, this advice from a child tops the stack. Through my observations of many organizations, this one change – leadership talking less and listening more – would mean the difference between marginal success and optimal success, or even between success and failure.

As I look around at businesses and organization, I want to shout that advice to them: “shut up and listen!” No, I am not talking about listening to me. I am talking to leadership about being willing to stop amid all of the “stuff” that goes on unceasingly around them. I am saying, as my son did to me, to just close the mouth long enough to hear what is really going on. With all of the really poor decisions  many American businesses have made in the past, they need to get out of the telling mode and into the learning mode; perhaps starting with their employees.

As a New Year’s resolution, perhaps we could all be more willing to listen and more willing to learn.

Maximize Success - Deception or A Better Way

To maximize success, every organization, business, and individual ought to evaluate what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. My objective in these articles is to suggest philosophies and practices to be examined. Some of these should be encouraged, maintained and proliferated. Others ought to be changed or eliminated.

Disagreeing with my opinion is totally appropriate; not being willing to examine your situation, is not. Drop your shield and any defensiveness, and take a look. Are there areas in which you might improve? You probably have some ideas and suggestions that might be of benefit to others. Feel free to contribute them; I will be happy to pass them on.

Deception or A Better Way

The operations of organizations and businesses run a spectrum from the most reliable and honest to the dishonest and illegal. Obviously, there are a lot of practices in between. It is not necessary to push ethics aside. It is not necessary to use deceptive practices; doing things right is not contrary to success. In fact, it has been my experience that the more ethical and honest operations can also be the most successful.

Let me share a couple of examples of deceptions that could be changed and not jeopardize success, in fact might increase it.

Free software
You need some special software. Perusing the web, you find some free software that will do the job. The downloaded program seems to work. But to complete the work, you discover that you must purchase the program.
   
Why did they not provided that information in the first place? Some do. Would it hurt sales? Are customers really more likely to buy a product when they have been “tricked” into loading it? My response is that nothing has been achieved and they have wasted my time. I will not purchase from them.

Financial institution – small print
You received an offer from a reputable financial institution allowing you to pay off other debts for a period at 0% interest. What a deal! Well, maybe.

On the back of those little checks and somewhere on the letter, in much smaller print, is the information that you will be charged a 4% transfer fee. That means the $20,000 you are going to transfer will cost $800 right up front. It still may be worth your while, but why the small print?

A less deceptive way
Like the salesman who before he makes you an offer, looks both ways as if he is concerned someone might hear, both of the examples seem a bit sneaky. I am much more inclined to deal with organizations and individuals that are straightforward. There is a lot of software sold with the listed price. Some explain that you are downloading a limited version.

The financial institution might actually use the transfer fee to their advantage particularly if they can capitalize on it. For example, they could advertise their 0% interest with a “lower than other institutions 3.99% transfer fee,” and make that proclamation in a normal sized print.

No one likes to feel they have been deceived or misled. I use the word “feel”because like the software price and the transfer fee, it is not the number but the way it is presented.