Gratitude Brings Profit in Business

As someone who grew up and went to Uni in Texas,  there was a culture of politeness everywhere – from family life, communities, social life and business.     Politeness in business is more akin to some wild animals angling for the next kill.   A genuine attitude is read by others and a habit of good behaviour helps breed the culture needed for an organisation.

One of the easiest forms of politeness is the drilled into many at a young age.     Believe it or not, saying “thank you” to those around you is a form of currency.   Not only does gratitude go the distance, it also helps pay the bills.   A decade long study by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton of 200,000 managers and employees actually tied the “thank you’s” to bigger profits.

A culture a gratitude toward staff and colleagues was the focus of the study and they show in their research that organisations that show genuine thankfulness towards staff  tend to be more profitable.      Whether it is a quite “pat on the back”, token award for best service during the week or recognition in front of peers, it is important that the thank you be heart-felt.

How do you instil a culture of gratitude?

I believe it starts with being grateful to everyone – your family, your neighbours, your cleaner, your barista, your support staff, your customers, etc.  Show appreciation to the gatekeepers (personal assistants) who answer your phone, take messages, organise your life and tidy things up.   Give gifts to your clients, especially if you stuffed up.   Tip your barista and tell the person that brings you lunch to buy things for themselves (on your tab).   Give gifts to your staff that outperform others or for thinking outside the box.   Give sweets, chocolate or a display of fruit to your best clients.   Thank your wife/husband for being patient.

If you are finding it hard to do this naturally or if you are looking for ways to propagate the culture like a healthy infection, start with building routines and habits. Make them mandatory.    My brother worked as a barista in Nashville and was given training.  He must say “hello” and “smile” to a person within first 15 seconds of walking in the door.  If he knew their regular order, he would make it before they ask.    My mom used to give all of her salespeople gifts for anything including making the first sale, handling a difficult situation, or making progress on a target.   It starts with routines to make something into a habit.  Making it genuine is the hard part for some, but if you can do that, you are on your way to reaping profits!

Although it is often said that the Board of Directors sets the culture of the organisation, it is managers that implement and cultivate a culture of gratitude.

References and Pointers

1. Fast Company Magazine, November 2010, “Two Little Words” by Nancy Lublin

2. “The Orange Revolution, How one Great Team can transform an entire organization“ by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, September 2010, published by Free Press.

3. “The Carrots Principle, how the best managers use recognition to engage their people, retain talent and accelerate performance”  by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, 2007 & 2009, published by Free Press

The Culture of Honesty and Communication Lowers Risk

CULTURE – Honesty bank helps mitigate risk

A company culture of honesty is important in everyday activity, but also builds a “bank of trust” based on repeated good deeds that helps you get through crisis with clients and families.   Having a culture of honesty and integrity needs to be  nourished and continuously expanded.    Sometimes you have to make hard decisions based around your culture, e.g. you should never lie to win a job or overcharge someone for work.

Some tips for getting it right:

1. Be Honest and Forthright.    Tackle issues head-on and accept responsibility for mistakes.
2. Show Integrity.  Always do what you say you will do.
3. Be Generous.   Be generous with your time.   Give gifts.
4. Have Gratitude.  Always show appreciation to clients, suppliers, cleaners, neighbors, barrista and families.   Give gifts.
5. Communicate regularly
   1. Put your best foot forward with clients  to grow by word-of-mouth
   2. Always give heads up to trends affecting your clients
   3. Have regular mailings and/or meetings and contact points with clients, especially new projects or transitional periods
   4. Always follow-up to ensure issues are solved and proactively look/ask for issues before clients report them
6. Service Nature in sales and support.  Helpful and Customer Service -
   1. Your team should  love solving client problems.
   2. Be Innovative in products, services and support
   3. Smile when you talk to others, especially on the phone

Examples of Crisis Management - Using culture to get through tough  times

From time-to-time, you will face issues that seem bigger than a mountain.    Ideally you should have processes in place which mitigate the risks of problems occurring!     At a minimum, your follow-up methods should ensure problems are not repeated as this could mean long term loss of business.  As can be seen from crisis reported in news, often, it is the culture of the organisation that gets it through tough times.

Examples of good cultures and good crisis management.

1. Think of Qantas with Rolls Royce engine crisis.  They have a culture of safety, honesty and integrity.
2. Chilean government in their recent crisis of miners stuck underground.

In both of the above examples, realistic expectations were set.   With Chile government, they got the miners out early! by setting expectations to Christmas.   Above all, both examples are ones of honesty, openness/transparency, constant communication, compassion, and setting expectations properly.

Compare this with some poor cultures and poor crisis management.

1. BP in handling of the oil spill.   Everything from blaming contractors, lack of compassion, setting false expectations and acting like the problem is smaller than it was.   The bigger issue is that BP did not have a culture bank with American public to fall back on.  They re-branded BP as “Beyond Petroleum” but was often seen a “all talk, no action”.
2. US government in Hurricane Katrina.  Compare this with Chilean government.   One wonders how a major wealthy nation cannot perform as well as a country of less than 17 million people with limited resources.    Culture of the people/government has allot to do with the outcome.

Your company may not have large resources or money, however, you can have a culture that allows you to get through tough and rocky times!   Remember, “Actions speak louder than words!”

Unethical but Legal is Standard Business Practice

Ethical but Legal – Standard Business Practice

By Dexter Duncan

Many years ago, when I was still fresh in doing business in Asia, I saw a presentation that connected many of the unfamiliar and distasteful business practices that seemed common.   The presenter (Sorry, I cannot remember who it was) mentioned business could be categorized across two dimensional spectrum:

The first spectrum spanned between illegal and legal business activity.    And the second spectrum included unethical and ethical activity.    Taken together it forms four quadrants.

Ethical

¦

¦

¦

>>>>Illegal      ————————————————————————–Legal

¦

¦

¦

Unethical

Most organized crime falls into the left (illegal) side of the spectrum and MOST legitimate business falls in the lower right (unethical, but legal) part of the spectrum.    Lying to the customer is not illegal, for example, just do not get caught.  Manipulating statistics to support your view is another example.   In Asia, using an agent (third party or channels) to handle the dirty work of bribes seemed normal, but I suddenly understood it was considered legal since companies were not directly involved.

Because people generally have different standards and views, you might say, who cares?

Peter Drucker, often called the Grandfather of modern day Corporate Management recommends doing a “mirror test” and gives this example*:

“The most highly respected diplomatist of all the Great Powers (in early 20th century) was the German Ambassador in London.   He was clearly destined for higher things, at least to become his country’s Foreign Minister, if not German Federal Chancellor.   Yet, in 1906, he abruptly resigned.  King Edward VII had then been on the British throne for five years, and the diplomatic corps were going to give him a big dinner.  The German ambassador, being the dean of the diplomatic corps-he had been in London for close to fifteen years-was to be the chairman of that dinner.   King Edward VII was a notorious womanizer and made it clear what kind of dinner he wanted-at the end, after the desert had been served, a huge cake was going to appear, and out of it would jump a dozen or more naked prostitutes as the lights were dimmed.  And the German ambassador resigned rather than preside over the dinner.

“I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning, when I shave.”"

(*from Management Challenges for the 21st Century, Peter Drucker, Page 175, Harper Business)

So before you do business, try to do the mirror test.