If you sit down with pigs, you will be served slop. Of course, this is easy to see if you’re a barnyard animal, harder to perceive as a businessperson. In a world where Brad Pitt shows up looking pretty scruffy at the Beverly Hills Hotel and even big time wheeler-dealers don’t carry enough cash to buy you coffee at Starbucks, not knowing exactly whom you’re with is common and problematic.
What’s served up?
It’s not hygiene that’s at issue or even the menu. At issue are the intention, direction, and action you may be caught up in, given your environment and the people in it. We used to talk more about corporate culture, before simply having a job was the more pressing issue. But, as the economy improves and you have a chance to be choosier, it may be time to look at what’s served up.
For me, the largest culture divide is between people who are relationship builders versus those who are transaction minded. If you are not in the right place with like-minded people, you are either going to be uncomfortably swept away by the relationship people – or whiplashed by the stop and start transaction people. If you are in the wrong culture, you are feeling confused, frustrated and slightly motion sick.
The wrong role
In one of the many business ventures I’m consulting with, I am currently miscast in a transaction company. That means as I continually add value, additional revenue, new opportunities for visibility – the CEO continually takes those and then negotiates money and terms with me as if he is doing a hostile takeover. His goal is to get as much as possible now from me. For him, it’s a win-lose. My goal was to build a long term, high trust relationship, which for me is turning out to be a lose-win.
When it comes to the two mindsets: transaction versus relationship, the transaction approach will always prevail. The desire to make money right now and kill the potential for future earnings is by far the more powerful force in the short term.
And, if you are truly a transaction minded person, it will not disturb you that you lose referrals, goodwill, and the highest quality work product. That doesn’t matter. You are checking our pockets and finding enough change to order a vente latte.
If you are transaction minded, you don’t depend on your personal reputation and your ability to grow an organization to provide ongoing fuel for your business objectives. It is simply your ability to attack and command in short bursts that forms the basis of your approach to business. The thrill of each win is more compelling than the downside effects to your revenue model. Your income depends on each new deal living and then dying. You scavenge to find more deals to do and expire.
All kinds of commodities are sold this way, but surprisingly so are many one-off projects. If you see clients, vendors, and employees as a commodity, you’ll treat them exactly that way. It’s why photocopying at a FedEx office store isn’t any more meaningful than doing the same at Staples. I’m feeling that way about my dry cleaners now that the owners aren’t working the counter and a surly, lazy clerk makes each transaction a “maybe I should take a photo of my clothes” moment because as she said: “Look, read the sign: we’re not responsible.” It’s a new kind of Kodak moment – for security, not memories.
To relationship builders, transaction environments and leaders feel yucky. They seem greedy, small-minded, penny-wise and pound-foolish. But, that’s not at all how they see themselves. For them, their approach is practical, tactical, beneficial and right-minded.
If you’re feeling that you’ve sat down with the wrong people and are consuming the wrong stuff, it’s a culture thing. You may have landed in a place where you a misfit.
Keep your day job while you sniff out what might be more appealing. And, take a look at your social media profiles, specifically what you’ve been saying about yourself.
When we see your updates about friends, family, and fun, what do we glean about who you are and where you belong?
