Principles

I was at a meeting last week and the speaker asked everyone to write down our top four principles. The room fell silent. As everyone was writing I started to think about the past 30+ years of my career and how my principles took shape and direction based on my experiences. I also thought, do I live and show my principles in my actions or are they all locked up in my head and heart? 

David's Principle One: There Is More To The Story

Not everything we see is the full story, the complete picture is more complicated. Over the years I have met some truly one of a kind players in business. From the outlandish to the quite thinker. Early on in my business career I started to learn that if someone is acting in a specific way there is usually a driver to the behavior. At 22 years old I would see a "successful" business person and think, I wonder what is driving them to this level of success and in some ways behavior (Aggressive? Mean? Show-Boat?) In time what I would hear, as I met and talked with the individual away from the limelight, was "the 12 year old kid they were is what they are working against or for today." That in many ways people are the kids they were.  

The louder someone is today, most likely as a kid they needed to act a certain way to stand out, get attention. Or if someone was aggressive they may have been in a family environment where you had to fight for your share of the meatloaf or you went hungry.  Like the senior executive I know that was so tight fisted, cheap and just difficult on the team to get the resources we needed. In time as I worked with him I came to find that he was number 11 out of ten kids.  Everything he wore, played with and ate was a pass me down. He would tell the story of how his winter coat was so damaged and worn thin that he would have to wear two sweaters under it to stay warm. Now I knew what was driving his focus and behavior. Going forward I would make sure that we spent time up front explaining and showing how whatever it was we needed to invest in (New Database Manager? Marketing materials? Servers?) was a better cost management path than staying with the older XYZ. 

I try and see the kid my peers, work mates, partners, competitors were and realize they too have history and a story to share.  

David's Principle Two: People Want To Be Heard 

Listen More, Talk Less, Be Engaged In The Moment. Over the years I have learned that it is better to ask more questions of whomever you are meeting than talk about yourself. Don't make it all about you, even if it is all about you. Listen without thinking about your response. Ask questions that make the person want to share more, open up more, feel comfortable with talking to you. Many times people are so busy thinking of what they want their response to be in a conversation that they are not listening. This is all even more important to follow doing when someone is sharing a pain, a trouble, are mad. 

One way to show that you hear them and understand is to share back with them "this is what I am hearing" and also "this is what I am seeing" as it relates to their body gestures and or facial status. 

David's Principle Three: Follow The Golden Rule 

Love one another. Do onto others as you want them to do onto you. This is a tough one. Many times we just want to move on, get things do, respond without thinking about what we are asking, doing, saying. This is even more so in the world of email, text, tweet speak. Words have power. Words can hurt or help. Beyond all this, if we do not love ourselves and feel good about who and what we are doing it is hard to love one another and do onto as you want do to you. Start with yourself, think about how you would feel/hear something.  

Years ago I worked with someone who wanted to hold everyone to a high standard, even themselves. This was good most of the time. While not love on the surface, they showed respect and trust through meeting their commitments as promised. The issue became when they started to use this as a weapon, a pain point. They would become almost insulting when others feel down on their commitments – pushing, penalizing others that did not. In one of these directed interactions I ended up having a senior level person call me and yell at me about the tone and respectfulness of this hard shelled approach this key team member was doing and showing to him. I was able to calm the senior person down, and in the end he felt hurt and attacked – no one wants that. So when I called the team mate that I respect, think the world of and trusted 110% I started out the call with "so can I ask you something, do you respect me, want to help me?" He said "yes" then I shared the one hour call I just got off and asked "do you want to hurt me? And in the end hurt yourself? Are you thinking of the out come of this behavior? Do you want to get fired?" 

I loved/love this person and wanted to help by having a hard conversation.The end result was awareness of his actions and what they meant.  

David's Principle Four: Give People The Benefit Of The Doubt 

In the world of business it is easy and more common place to respond quickly and with little trust or respect. Even people I do not understand, agree 100% with or are odds with I try and stop from going too far. In my youth and when I was coming up a ladder in a company I was asked to be on a senior, senior task force to look at our order processing system. In one of the key sessions with all the big muckity-mucks we were listening to one of the guys on the team share his recommendations. Boy was he way off base, or at least I thought his thinking and I was frustrated at the hour long waste of time.

Well when it was time for questions and interaction I waited until a few people had asked questions, etc. I then raised my hand and asked the obvious but not said question. It really doesn't matter what the questions was these 30 years later but it threw the guy off balance. The senior guys all shook their heads and said "good point…"  

Later as it was covered in a letter from the guy in the room with his name on the building "I was impressed with what you asked and in a matter of a few seconds of the question coming out we knew this recommended path was the wrong road." Boy I was feeling good! The letter went on, "Then you didn't stop. You came with another question and it was like you impaled the poor guy, and again you withdrew your sword and thrusted another question at him. It was painful to watch. Your intellect is powerful, be award that you can inflict damage. I think the world of you David but be careful how you use it…"

This letter was a great wake up call. Made me realize what I had done. Without thinking I was trying to show I was the smartest guy in the room. I had hurt someone at my own gain. Not what I wanted to do but had. 

So I reached out to this senior guy I had done damage on. The hardest thing to do was set up time and sit face to face with him and say "I'm sorry" plus to spend time learning why he had recommended what he had? In time he opened up and shared that he didn't want to recommend what he had, but his boss had pushed him to do so. In addition to that his wife was sick and he was not sleeping well. At that point I learned that what he wanted to recommend was on target and the right choice. I helped him with his new recommendations and let him bring them forward, and I openly apologized for what I had done at the next meeting and shared that I support his new set of recommendations 100% and will do whatever I can to help him succeed. Which I did and in time we worked together on many things, and I learned a lot from him.  

From then on, I worked hard to give anyone and everyone the benefit of the doubt and follow the thinking of "Praise in public, criticize in private" and look beyond the moment.  

These are a few of my core principles – I have more (like Trust Requires Demonstration, or Have A Leap Of Faith), but these are my long term 30+ year tested ones. 

What are your principles? Are they part of your life and behaviors? It is important that you have principles and that you work at living up to them, not that we are always 100% attaining them but always working at improving them all the time.

***

David Carrithers brings over 25 years practical experience to business strategy, growth and brands. He is currently looking for a team to join full time and be apart of the risk/reward coefficient of the success of the business and team. As well David can be a "rent-a CEO/CMO" for those businesses in transition or in need of fast change.

Contact David at 707-484-3620 or [email protected] today!