Cheese & Crackers or Pancakes & Syrup?
Posted by Geoff in CEOs & Leaders
After a recent & rare snow day here in South Carolina (after snowball fights & snow wrestling with the kids!), I spent the evening inside, having a pancake party with my kids. As we made pancakes (and a mess!) together, I figured I’d snack on some cheese & crackers.
Interesting thought dawned on me…Nothing wrong with cheese & crackers. they go well together. Great combination, they mix ‘n match, they come in various flavors, shapes and sizes, and they make a great pair. But…whenever I decided I didn’t want the combination, it was easy to peel 1 off the other, with little evidence they were ever connected to begin with. Hold that thought a minute.
Then we had the pancakes, as and my kids drenched them with syrup and 5-6 different toppings, my youngest daughter shouted in terror, “NOOOOOO Daddy! I didn’t want syrup on them!” My son chimed in, as only an 8-year old boy loaded with empathy can…”Oh well, too late!” He was right…once the pancake was immersed in the syrup, it was all in.
With clients, it tends to be the same way, if you ask most business owners. They usually have a long roster of clients they serve well, love to work with, and have a great relationship with year after year. Cheese & crackers. But then there’s that small handful…the ones where they move beyond working in the client’s business…to the client’s business working in them. So immersed in the pancake is the syrup, that it’s impossible to disconnect the 2. I suppose the best relationships, ideally, are the same way.
Leaders: Check your team’s perspective on your clients. It’s unrealistic that everyone on your team will feel fully immersed in the vision of every client, that’s impossible to sustain and maintain every day, year after year, as you grow. But being transparent and discerning who feels how about which clients can be a powerful opportunity to match the right employees up with the projects they can’t help but get passionately immersed in…and that’s where the magic of “surprise & delight”, under-committing & over-delivering…really happens.
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