Do the Right Thing
Seth Godin is one of my favorite reads. He gets to his points quickly. His messages trigger insights and inspire.
He writes life lessons. Not everyday but often enough.
In this post, Seth writes about the dilemma of doing The Right Thing in business. He defines The Right Thing as the thing that is best for community. An interesting concept and probably one more people should think about.
But for me, the dilemma does not ring entirely true.
I hold strong, maybe unconventional opinions about doing The Right Thing in business and my approach does not directly apply to doing The Right Thing for community. I do not think about doing The Right Thing for business in terms of social good but in terms of relative success and ROI. You might think that makes me one of the people Seth wrote his post for… or against.
Do not judge too quickly.
I care about society but I spent my impressionable years with a company obsessed with customers; not a superficial “The customer is always right – put more people in the call center.” obsession but a company-wide mania to exceed customer expectations. Learning and applying, we made things customers could not imagine; not because customers lack imagination but because customers have more important things to do. Learning and applying was our job and customers were key.
Profits were made and reinvested to make more good things for customers. Making more good things for customers generated more profits. An exhilarating cycle.
When customers are key, when a company dedicates every effort to creating maximum customer benefit, thinking about community benefit becomes redundant. Communities are customers. Customers make up society.
We were good. Some competitors invested for decades trying to copy the magic, but only managed to mimic the technology. They failed to understand the drive behind delivering products that benefit customers in ways customers do not expect. They missed the Whole Package: accessible to everyone, appropriate to social patterns, explained and positioned to make customers proud to participate, great technology..
Good for customers is good for society. Creating benefit for customers requires more than doing what customers appear to want; decision-makers need to understand and address benefits and impact; take into account the combination of social and technological changes; visualize the organizational impact beyond use scenarios.
In business as in life, The Right Thing outreaches visions and anticipations.
Doing The Right Thing for customers does The Right Thing for society.
Sounds good? Beware.
Setting The Right Thing as a goal drives people into an impassible swamp. When managers say, “We need to do The Right Thing here or we’ll miss the opportunity.”, projects derail. Predicting The Right Thing, for business or society, usually misses the opportunity to do The Right Thing.
The Right Thing needs successful results. Results are measured after the fact and cannot be used to make the right decision.
When told to do The Right Thing, people feel secure in boiler-plates. They look for examples of what management praised in the past. Executed well, doing the same ol’ might succeed. When executed poorly mimicking the past fails.
When teams get to crossroads and look for a signpost pointing the way to The Right Thing, there is no signpost; no The Right Thing waiting down the road. At the junction, teams make decisions or not. Once a successful team decides, they commit. Once committed, they execute. Once committed, they execute. Without the right execution, the thing the team decided to do lacks the effort required to transform a Thing to The Right Thing but when a team is committed, has the flexibility to juggle the unexpected, can visualize a goal, then they make the effort that makes The Right Thing.
A Thing done right becomes The Right Thing, in contrast to The Right Thing becoming a Thing done right.
We succeed by doing things, not by doing The Right Thing. Execution makes or breaks. The journey is the reward. The journey creates the quality of the thing, not the other way around.
In business, in community and in life.
© 2011 Karl E May
