Here are three strategies, taken from the headlines, that you should avoid at all costs if you want to continue to be successful.
- Treat your customers like the airlines treat theirs’. The latest episode in this saga is that Congress is considering legislation to prohibit the airlines from separating parents from their children (after assigning them seats together). It seems the current trick is to separate families and then charge them a fee to sit together.
- Emulate the Romney campaign. Let’s see, there’s a president with low approval ratings, a struggling economy and unhappiness over the healthcare situation. Romney keeps falling behind in all the polls, isn’t defining his value proposition and has a campaign filled with gaffes and missteps. (And, lost the election.)
- Understand the big picture like the Chicago teachers. They’re the highest paid teachers in the country, the Midwest economy is not as healthy (as Seattle’s) and about 80% of Chicago’s public school students are poor. So they strike for more money and to not be evaluated based on their performance. Everybody reading this is judged on performance whether it’s a job review, getting clients or generating customers. My mother was a teacher and I’ll bet she would have loved to have been evaluated (and paid based) on performance.
“History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided” Konrad Adenauer