Lawrence Fine

When you start a new job, or you start a new project or get a new client, do you do your very best work at the start and then get complacent or does your work continue to improve?

You would think most peoples work would continue to improve but if you really observe what people do, I think you will find the opposite is true.

People tend to give their best at the beginning (trying to earn trust) and once that trust is earned, they become complacent and do average work. These people take advantage of the fact most people don’t like change so once a person is established in a position, unless things go really bad, the status quo will be maintained.

The person who truly wants to be invaluable will start a project or job strong and then based on their new experiences will continue to improve each day. They will keep building and getting better and in time, truly make a difference.

Does your work get better or worse over time?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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It’s important for people to understand their actions have consequences. Too often, we think of our actions as being individual events and it’s extremely important to understand others might see these same actions as being just one part of a bigger picture.

How many times have you seen a person act rudely to a person and then on another day, ask this same person for a favor?

People will treat a server at a restaurant like ‘dirt’ and then wonder why they don’t get better service.

A person will be condescending to the hotel clerk when registering and then not understand why their request for a late checkout isn’t given.

A person will be late paying their bill for services rendered but then expect rush service the next time they need this type of service.

People should be nice for the simple reason it’s the right thing to do. However, it’s also good to remember that being nice now might result in a return in favor later.

For every action, there is a reaction (some guy named Newton had a theory about this) so keep in mind, your actions do have consequences.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Many organizations have motto’s or slogans The question isn’t whether they remember your motto but whether they agree with it.

Your motto might be “the lowest prices, guaranteed” but people might perceive your motto to be “cheap products that don’t work”

Your motto might be “great service all the time” but people might perceive your motto to be “they do the absolute minimum required”

Your motto might be “tastes great and is good for you” but people might perceive your motto to be “processed bland food reheated in a microwave”.

It’s important to know what people really think of you. Consider using mystery shoppers, focus groups, and other forms of research to find out what people really think of you. If you think you know based on what you have heard or what your friends are telling you, most likely, you are kidding yourself.

What is YOUR true motto?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
Abraham Lincoln

This is a great saying. It’s a shame Abraham Lincoln didn’t have a twitter account to get his message out to others…..

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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A new retail store opens and a person walks in and says “you will be out of business within 6 months”,

A new web site is launched and a person sends an email explaining why they wont support it because of a nit-picky detail that has no significance at all.

A way to save an organization money is recommended and rather than considering the recommendation, the organization puts it “in committee” to let it die a slow death.

A new profit center is suggested and more time and effort is spent trying to maintain the status quo than trying to make the new profit center a success.

Is it that people are afraid of others succeeding or it their fear that others success will further demonstrate their failures?

Does someone else’s success really reflect poorly on you? Shouldn’t you want to see others around you succeed?

Some people who are struggling with success prefer that others around them struggle as well. The ones who are destined for success are the ones who want to see everyone around them succeed as well.

Are you looking to help others succeed or are you trying to bring others down to your level?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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There is a belief by many that if you give, in return, you will receive.

While this is a much better concept than the belief that we are entitled to things so don’t have to give, the reality is, there is a much better concept to live by.

Give and you shall help.

Don’t give give with the hope you will receive something in the future. Give simply because you want to.

Truthfully, those who live this belief do get something in return….they get a great deal of satisfaction.

Give and you shall help…such a simple concept, why not give it a try?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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One of the risks of hiring talented people is once hired, we want to give them as much freedom as possible. While this is a good thing, we have to remember that providing some form of oversight is very important.

This oversight isn’t necessarily to check up on the person as if you don’t trust them but rather to provide a second set of eyes.

As an example, when I write these posts, I tend to write them quickly, and then give a quick read through looking for errors and then post to the blog and send via email. The problem is, when I am rereading what I wrote, I am not necessarily reading what I actually wrote but rather, I tend to read what I think I wrote (what I wanted to write). Because of this, I might miss some obvious errors. If I had second person go through these posts, I’m sure they could point out all of the mistakes because they would be seeing what I actually wrote and not just what I think I wrote (in my case, I’m willing to allow these mistakes as my primary purpose is for people to get the general idea and hopefully, those come through even with the minor errors).

Help others by providing oversight and allow others to help you. Otherwise, you will continue to see what your mind wants it to see and not what is really out there.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Many organizations want to hire creative people (although once hired, they don’t always want those people to be creative but that is an entirely different issue). If you were in charge of hiring someone and wanted to “test” their creativity, how would you do it?

It will not show on a resume (writing “I’m creative” doesn’t really cut it). Looking at prior work helps a little but you don’t know if it was the work of the individual or if it was a team effort and how much input the individual had in the team.

A simple way to determine a persons creativity is to give them an item (could be anything but let’s use a screw driver as an example) and ask them to come up with 30 different ways the item could be used. There are no wrong or right answers but this will give you a bit of an idea on their ability to be creative in a short period of time.

If you are hiring a chef, give them 10 ingredients and ask them to come up with 10 different recipes.

If you are hiring a graphic designer, give them 10 minutes and a computer and ask them to come up with a new logo.

Some people would argue this puts too much pressure on a person but if the person can’t handle pressure, how are they going to be able to handle the deadlines we deal with everyday in business?

There are ways to test creativity, you just have to be a bit creative to find them

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Person A speaks. Person B partially listens and partially plans to refute Person A’s claims. Person B makes his argument and Person A plans his rebuttal.

What is accomplished? Possibly a lively argument

What isn’t accomplished? True learning as both Person A and Person B are so intent on formulating their response they aren’t making the effort needed to truly listen to what was being said by the other.

The next time someone is talking to you, truly listen to what they have to say. When they are done, take a moment to think about your reply. Your reply might not be as quick as you would like but you will find you will learn a great deal more by fully listening to the other person.

The interesting thing about giving your full attention to a person when they speak and then taking a moment to formulate a response is while you might feel the other person will think less of you for having the delay in response, the truth is, most people, when they encounter this type of a delay, interpret it as someone being a deep thinker. This means, not only will you learn more, you will also be perceived as being more of a thinker. It’s a true win/win!

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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This morning, I went to login to the software program I use for billing clients (a web based program). I entered my login information and it took me to “page not found”. After retrying a few times, I tried going to the companies homepage to find a way to contact them to see what the problem might be. On the very top of the homepage, in bold font, is a message that their services are currently unavailable and they are investigating the problem. A simple, one sentence message.

By putting this message on their homepage, it saves me time from trying to call them (or email or online chat) and it saves their time from having to respond when they should be doing what is more important which is getting their services back up and running.

Most companies would be afraid to put this type of message on their web site, in any location yet this one is willing to be upfront, admit there is a problem and that they are working on it. While I want (and need) their service to be working soon, the fact they are being so transparent in their problems This one line of transparency helped me go from being frustrated and upset to being much more patient.

When something goes wrong with your organization, how upfront are you with your customers? Do you admit when you are having a problem or do you make it difficult for them to contact you, pretend it’s not happening and hope the problem goes away?

We don’t expect people to be perfect but we do expect people to be upfront in their failings and when they are upfront in this way,we can be MUCH more understanding.

How transparent is your organization?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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