I again had the opportunity to hear US Senator Jeff Sessions discuss current affairs and take questions at an event held at Samford University this past week. As before, his insight and clarity of thought have made me seek out additional information as to the drivers behind our economy and what it can mean for small business. As Senator Sessions opined, “We need and welcome healthy, lively debate. What we do not need now is apathy.” He is so right, and as this writer has offered the challenge here on more than one occasion to please take ownership of where you collect your information. Please seek your information out in multiple sources, and preferably in person.
Gathering information in person is invaluable to understanding what someone truly means as you observe their body language with your own eyes, and listen with your own ears. Seeking out your own information to draw your own conclusions can be just the apple to keep the spin doctor away. For example, when it was suggested to Senator Sessions that we are in the middle of a healthcare debate with extreme opinions getting all the attention, and that perhaps the answer to our fiscal crisis and concerns on health care costs will be found in the middle, this is what happened. Senator Sessions stated, “Well we are at a 900 Billion deficit, now. Would you be pleased if we were at 450 Billion?” The clear point made that even the middle was not something that we can afford. More importantly, the statement was made with a small, but confident smile, sharpened with a small lean forward and to the left. No crossed legs. No pause. No looking up into the air. His message was clear. When is comes to United States debt, there is no middle ground at that level.
This message resonates as very important as the impact of the health care legislation sinks into the collective consciousness of small business owners. A level of dissatisfaction is bubbling to the surface as business owners recheck their balance sheet to see what line item needs to be juggled to pay for any potential financial obligations that the health care legislation will impart. The several companies that are now being called on the carpet to justify their dissatisfaction with a personal meeting in Washington will be watched with great expectation by this writer.
Dissatisfaction is a motivator for change, and this is true for not only changing someone’s behavior, but also changing the targets of change. People are more responsive to learning when they are moderately dissatisfied; too little, and they don’t want to bother; too much is paralyzing. Therefore, if you want to increase a group’s readiness to change, you need to manage their dissatisfaction. In Managing People: the R Factor, Allan Cohen writes that often this requires finding ways to increase dissatisfaction and can be accomplished in several ways which are often very intentional. The R factor examines roles, relationships, rewards, and rites and is the strategic and tactical method of cultivating dissatisfaction as a motivator to organizations. The status quo is a killer, and the art of managing dissatisfaction is key to driving our markets today on both the political and domestic front. Open the papers, read your online news, or listen to the TV or radio, and you can see examples of dissatisfaction everywhere. I see it as the primary driver behind the Tea Party movement and the rising expectation of transparency in business and in government. Organizational stress bubbles up when people no longer feel that they have control over their life at work. Pushing through this and leading through the change needed is critical for not just management and but all leadership. This ongoing challenge for management in business and government should be driven by educating to the growth and change needed, not testing the amount of power held or proving the level of correctness.
The answer may be found quite simply in asking yourself, “What are you measuring?” In Total Quality Management (TQM) lingo, don’t just look at your internal yardstick; look at your external yardstick too. For example, if your sales team only measures itself by improving over its own best performance, you may get passed up really quickly. Take a look at how others in your industry are performing too. This goes for government as well. How do we measure up to other states and even countries? This type of self reflection and line of thoughtful questioning may just help keep you ahead of the pack, and out in front of the herd too.
So remember, take care of your customers, or someone else will.
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