Sunday, June 23, 2013

Why align your vision statement with your customer?

Imagine dealing with a company that your truly believed had your interests first.  Actually, more than having your interests first, their success was dependent on your success.  What would that relationship look like?  Gone would be the short term cost cutting to make numbers, competitive practices that may benefit the company but be to your detriment, and deceptive pricing set up to maximize return on the single transaction.  The effects would not just be overcoming negative practices though, product planning would be focused on what you were truly trying to accomplish, changes in technology would be evaluated to see if they could be put to your use, and a community that benefited every customer would be established.

Friday, June 21, 2013

What inspires people?

As  I wrote about, I think inspiration and passion are the fuel for success.  But what inspires people?  What are people passionate about?  Can we learn from those things to make the people of our organization more inspired and passionate about what they do?

A good place to start, what things are people so passionate about that people are willing to share that passion with total strangers, what stickers are people willing to put on their car?  Politics, religion, sports teams, their kids achievements, hobbies, where they vacation, funny sayings, causes, their college...

What do people argue about?  The list is actually pretty similar.

What are some aspects of these things that would cause people to be passionate?  What stands out is that the either call for some greater meaning in their lives or they make a statement about the person.