“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” —Mother Teresa

Sometimes it can be very frustrating when we have these great ideas and it seems like nobody is paying attention. We want to have this giant impact on our organization; we want to hit that homerun, but it’s important to remember how many games are won with base hits.

Joe was a marketing major in college who couldn’t find a job in his field when he graduated college. After 9 months or so, he decided to go back to school to become a biomed tech. He landed a job at in independent service organization and thus began his career in biomed. He really loved the work and the company.

The company underwent a rebranding process. They put together a presentation for the staff. In small groups, they educated the employees on the new brand and how they could be brand ambassadors. Over the short time Joe had worked there, he had noticed, with his trained marketing eye that the PM stickers the company was using were very hard to read and that the logo they had on them did not really convey the name of the company. He had mentioned this to his supervisors and really anyone who would listen but no one seemed to react to it. He was convinced that if they redesigned the logo, it would really have a substantially positive marketing effect.

At the branding meeting, Joe thought it would be a great time to bring this up again, since he had an audience he did not usually have access to. Joe suggested redesigning the logo to include something that would be more identifiable to the users of the equipment. Similarly, the people running the meeting thought he had some good ideas, but didn’t seem willing to adopt them.

Joe became frustrated and eventually left the company because he thought they were the kind of company that just wouldn’t listen to good ideas. What he didn’t realize was that the changes he was proposed were huge. The company just spent a large sum of money with an outside firm to rebrand themselves. The new logo was just adopted and to change it again would be too costly.

Instead of becoming frustrated and disengaging, if Joe could have used his marketing experience to work with what they already had and proposed a small change instead, it may have been the catalyst to a similar result and the improved visibility he envision for the company. Change is difficult. It takes time, and when you refuse to be flexible and convey the message that your way is the only way, the more people will resist or resent it.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. When the big ideas don’t sell, break it down and start hitting the base hits. They can have a tremendous impact on the game!

Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com

When I have a difference of opinion with someone, I hate when they are so absolute about something. No, you never sent that! No, you didn’t tell me that! You know what I am talking about? It’s why we have all gotten so good at covering our (selves) though email. I know I always like to have a trail of what I discussed with someone so there can be no confusion later. But that’s different than using it as ammunition to say, “I told you so.”

We know the customer is not always right, but they always think they are. And where does it get us to prove them wrong?  As long as you have the documentation to make sure you don’t get held responsible for something you did not do wrong, you need not use it in your discussions with your coworkers, boss or customers. Here are 2 different responses to the same example:

You know you wrote an email to a coworker about following up with a customer on a work order. In the response email the coworker said that she would contact the customer to give them the update. She is now insisting that you were supposed to give the customer the update. You go back and forth about it for quite a while and then…

1. You whip out the email and show her where she said she would contact the customer.
2. You stop the madness and say something like, “We obviously have a difference of opinion here. The most important thing is to get back to the customer. Would you like me to contact them?’

What’s the upside to response #1? You win, but your coworker is embarrassed or mad, and the customer has not been attended to.

What’s the upside to response #2? The customer wins, and no one walks away mad.

Clearly if this is a chronic issue with your coworker, you need to address it, but it’s usually not best to address it in the heat of the moment. Go back later and summarize what has transpired in the past and brainstorm about better ways to communicate in the future. Perhaps email doesn’t work for her. She will be able to accept her mistake easier if you are in private and you approach it from a “how can we do better” standpoint.

If you really need to prove you were right, prove it to yourself, and keep it to yourself. No need to rub someone’s nose in it.

Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com