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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Low Expectations the curse of Businesses & Organizations

The other day I was speaking with a client of mine who belongs to a business networking group with me. He has mentioned at the last several meeting that he was desperately looking for work. Since we have a new leadership team taking over I asked him what he thought of the past administration. He admitted that they had done a “great job.”

When I questioned him on his meaning of a “great job” the answered I got was very vague. I pointed out that the past leadership team did not meet a single goal of theirs and that the membership fell from 50 to 41 during their tenure. The number of guests fell. The only guest in August was mine and of the two in September, one was mine.

The only Special event that was planned was a Visitor’s Day and that never happened. This was to introduce our group to a large number of potential members. Oh, did I mention that every meeting the President actually attended she was late. So after pointing out these facts I asked my client again if he thought they, to use his words, did a “great job?” He responded well if you’re going to bring that up they did an “OK job.” Shaking my head I ended the telephone call pleasantly and went for a stroll with my wife, Karen, along the beach.

On this stroll I recounted this conversation to her. She summed it all up by stating “Don’t you get it! Of course they did a great job; they did not rock the boat!!!”

Lightning struck, bell starting ringing… well not actually, but it dawned on me that was the answer. For most people, my fellow networking members included, that was the most important goal of the group. “Don’t rock the Boat! Even if we are losing members and not making any money (business) that’s OK as long as no one expects anything of me.”

How low have our expectations come? Long around, we see it everywhere; Politics, friends, family, business partners and even ourselves. Low expectations are driving this economy. We need to raise the bar a little, just a little to start. Have our members and ourselves do just what was promised to when they/we joined the organization. Goals are a large part of this.

I will be speaking on goals at my next FREE Guerrilla Marketing “Tea” October 23, 1 – 4 PM. It will be hosted at the Sixth Avenue House B&B in Asbury Park. Call 732-988-4044 to reserve a seat.

3 comments:

  1. In my humble opinion, the strategy of "not rocking the boat" is basically business suicide. In today's fiercely competitive marketplace, only the creative--the "boat rockers"--will survive and get ahead. As CEO of Barbaric Bean Coffee Roasters in Ocean Grove, I can tell you that my wife and I are always searching for ways to "push the envelope", whether it's with our fresh-roasted coffee or fresh-baked pastries or homemade soups and sandwiches. And here's another benefit to rockin' that boat--you get out all the dead driftwood that's stopping up the income stream! Shalom! Joe

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  2. Joe is right, "Boat Rockers" do survive because they set their own rules and standards also in Rich's terms, goals. Unfortunaately BR's also create difficulties for themselve from those around who want to be more "politically correct" and find that Rocking, unpleasent! That is exactly why Karen had the answer, because from her prespective she's heard it many times over, "Oh, WE don't do things that way" from some or other "AUTHORITY"! I hear it too, "You send me too much email", " you always have an opinion", " Do you have to question everything?"and so on and so forth. If we just sit around and take whatever the "experts" say as gospel, there will never be any advancement. You have to get into the game to be "in the game"!! Thanks for the forum Rich, but not many participate in the discussion!

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  3. Hank, Thanks for the comments. Let others know about this blog. You can do this by clicking the button at the top of the page marked "Share". There you can send an email or even share it on your FaceBook. Thanks for helping get the word out....

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