Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
The customer service you provided, does it pay for itself?
How about the quality of products you decided to order?
Or the unsolicited phone call you’re about to make?
Or the hours your office is open?
Of course, the answers are wrapped up in your story – if you believe in doing work that brings a greater return than the cost of doing it.
That being written, it’s likely we’re still doing a lot of things that don’t live up to that story.
Stay Positive & Gut Check The Actions
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What makes any task as difficult as it is is uncertainty.
When expectations are not clear, it’s tough to do a good job because we don’t know how “good” is being defined.
When we’re told to do better without an explanation of what better means in that moment to that person, there’s a small likelihood that we’ll actually do better.
If you want a server to kick ass at your dinner table, tell him the type of people and situation he’s working with. “I’m meeting a couple of buddies” and “We’re trying hard to woo these new clients” can influence how the server serves.
Setting others up for success is just as easy and important at work. When a colleague walks into a room, does she know what her responsibility is in the meeting? Is she a note taker? Ideator? Challenger? Silent listener? What’s her role and does she know it?
The saddest part of all of this is when we get mad at others for not living up to our expectations when we never shared them.
Or, perhaps worse, is when we don’t live up to anothers’ expectations because we never asked what they were of us.
Stay Positive & Ask & Tell
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There’s a near 70-year-old woman who is moving to panama to live her life because it’s affordable as heck to do so.
There’s a volleyball player that serves from the edge opposite of where everyone else serves.
There’s a professional that puts a “fodder” section at the end of her project briefs so people may be inspired by ideas she has that didn’t quite fit other sections in the brief.
When you think of it, the norm is smaller than we think, so getting outside the norm is easier than we think, too.
We don’t have to do something insane to be different or create a competitive advantage for ourselves.
Sometimes taking a few steps to the left, sharing our thoughts and living outside our bubble is all it takes to stand out and make a difference.
Stay Positive & Meet You Outisde
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In most occurrences of an armed intrusion, most people freeze.
When given a decision of a lifetime, most people freeze.
If we’re called on to do something we’ve never done before, most of us freeze.
While there’s a way to prevent analysis paralysis; there is no way to prevent the fear that comes with a decision or the ownership we must take when we choose (or not choose) something.
As it is, the way to prevent analysis paralysis is to role play as much as possible.
To consider all the unexpected possibilities.
Make the unfamiliar familiar.
Only then can we skip the freeze.
Stay Positive & Work That Imagination (For The Good And The Bad)
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There’s a plan for your future already.
That leaves us with a few options.
We can let things unfold.
We can fight the concept and say there’s no plan.
Or
We can choose to influence the future by designing and working with a map we make ourselves.
Stay Positive & Draw It Out
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There’s still a significant return on your investment in traditional advertising.
But when I say traditional advertising, I don’t mean ads in the paper or getting in your neighborhood’s newsletter.
Traditional in the sense of promoting your brand in person.
Going to events to connect with others. Inviting those you want to be customers over for a grill out. Knocking on doors – not to drop off a mailer, but to introduce yourself.
Being out there in person might not appear to have as significant or as quick of a return on your investment, but if you’re in it for the long-run, then it pays dividends.
Are there more you can connect with? More that you can do for others?
Because that’s as traditional as you can get.
Stay Positive & Show Up
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Having your head down saves you from distractions.
It keeps you focused on what’s in front of you, too.
But having your head down also removes the potential for you to interact with others.
It keeps you from connecting.
And if we know anything about “making it” in this world, it’s that we’ll never make it alone with our head down.
Stay Positive & Having Your Head Down Is Just Hiding
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