Interpersonal Business

In business there is an assumed mutual commitment: If I deliver, you will pay. This applies both to customers who do not pay their bills and manufacturers who do not pay commissions due their sales agencies. Be specific in your collection conversations, take notes, remain sincere, but hold the other party accountable. Basically, anyone who fails to pay for goods or services delivered in good faith has “your money in their pocket!”

Can management expect continued personal growth from their staff? Other professions i.e., doctors, attorneys expect it, why shouldn’t we? Begin by explaining to your staff that you/we deserve more! Consider an educational investment in your staff. What are your and their one to five year objectives? All members must define their road map.

Using a friend’s loss-of-job experience – he was a casualty of management’s jealousy over his success while the corporation as a whole was failing – the feelings, anxieties, and path to a successful and fulfilling resolution are discussed in three phases. Phase One’s most devastating emotion is “finding blame,” because it wastes creative potential in finding a solution to the problem. Phase Two involves getting past thinking of our employment as how we are defined by society, then having confidence in “our own advice.” Phase Three comes in accepting reality, then rebuilding by charting the future and sticking to the game plan.

This fundamental separates “the haves” from the “have-nots.” Have we lost the value of the handshake and face value relationships in American Business? Excuses of any kind are a manipulative approach to poor performance. As managers, we must state very clear expectations. And yes, we must hold others fully accountable!