An Actual Big Deal: Escaping the Quicksand Mindset

Trailblazing to “Everyone Matters!

Before I get too far into this article, I want to be clear on one subject… I am a fan of success for all people. That being said, there are some mentalities that are easily common in business; especially in younger businesses. Here are a few mentalities; not quotes mind you… Mentalities:

• Sales will say anything to close a deal, even lie.
• Executives only care about the bottom line.
• Marketing is all flash and no content.
• Support doesn’t care about customers.
• Customers Lie…
• Those who can’t do; teach.

How many of you have heard even one of these lines? I know I have, and I have also said some of these. With some time and perspective, I also happen to disagree with these stark negative generalizations. They dismiss some harsh priorities that each individual person must handle in regards to their situations (professional or otherwise).

Growing Up, I always thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be. – John Mulaney, Comedian

Rather than understanding the other perspective it’s just easier to get caught up in the societal quicksand, of applying the label “worst”, rather than “different”, to another person. But unlike real quicksand, I believe that this group-think is truly, really, very dangerous; both to the individual, and to any organization. They teach us that it is appropriate to have the mentality that survival requires dismissing another person’s realities. I think to some extent, you’re probably stuck in the same quicksand I find myself in.

I’m not going to go back to each of those line items, and explain why I think they are problematic. I think they are shallow and twisted, lacking radical candor. But they speak volumes on how we teach people to think of others they must interact with.

Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments made a comment in a recent post that really shook me:

“I’ve said many times that it makes no sense to pay the extra money to stay at a nicer hotel just to get better service because the service really doesn’t matter. That extra money serves me better if it’s in my pocket. I told myself that if someone is nice to me or isn’t, it doesn’t make that much of a difference. But, then, why do I get so upset when I receive bad service and such a strong positive emotion when I receive good service? I realize of course, it’s the implied message and one that touches the deeper human part of every single one of us.” ………

“If someone who works for you is going to be on the front line of having your clients’ attention, they should be going into it, coming into work every day knowing that they, as your employee matter to you as much as you’d like them to convey a similar sentiment to your customers. What is that worth to your company? What’s the economic benefit your company will derive by telling, or showing your clients that they matter?”

-Dan Price – LinkedIn

Now I’m not a CEO, nor do I have 30+ years across varied industries. But I’m a number of things (and I would wager that you are a number of these too):

• Employee
• Manager
• Customer
• Human

Maybe the problem with those statements I started out with, is that they remove these core, shared, realities which affect our relationships with others around us. From employer to employee, employee to customer, department to department, parent to teacher, teacher to student, so on and so forth.

How do we get back to seeing each other as humans deserving of the same respect and kindness that we need?

I believe this change is possible but society won’t change without us changing it.

If it were society that needed changing we’d be out of luck. But it isn’t society that needs changing, its just… us.

Daniel Quinn

For my part, I will try to keep this as an opportunity and a moment of clarity. Maybe together we can pull each other out of the quicksand toward a more equitable and successful foundation. Maybe I’ll try to take my own advice. I’ll share you some of my truths if you return the favor and share some of your truths like the ones below.

• Try to remember that the people we interact with are not perfect.
• Customers do the best to tell you the truth as they understand it.
• Help a Teacher out; their students are our future.
• You can’t help everyone, BUT Everyone matters!
• Support people do care; in many instances, more than you may ever know.

This article was originally published on Linkedin on June 2017.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/escaping-quicksand-mindset-trailblazing-company-kevin-steele/