This Sunday I went online and ordered two pairs of Crocs for myself.
[Yeah yeah, I know there's a whole anti-Croc movement out there. But I don't really care. I like them and I'm going to wear them and I'm OK if you don't want to wear them.]
Anyway, moments after I placed my order, I got an email from them (in addition to the order confirmation) that said “Welcome to Crocs. Enjoy 20% Off On Us.” Nice email. But then, two days later I get another email from them that said “Come back to Crocs and Get 20% Off Your Next Purchase!”
Are they kidding? They know I just bought two pairs of Crocs. They know that they already sent me a 20% off coupon and that I haven’t used it yet. So what on earth are they thinking? “Come back”??? I’ve only been gone for two days! In their wildest fantasy, how many pairs of Crocs do they think I will own??
This could be stupidity. But I doubt it. There’s an agency behind this that knows what they’re doing. The other explanation is that they feel if they keep bombarding me, eventually I’ll buy another pair. Bad move! [See, I can use exclamation points too!]
Mr. Croc: Winning by annoying people is a bad strategy. Eventually we will just block you. Today, I like your product. I’ve owned a pair for years and I just bought two more. I’m willing to get emails from you every now and then because it’s not impossible that I might want to buy again if there’s a good reason to do so. But I’m not growing any more feet. And I don’t need 30 of the same thing. If you have something interesting and useful to say (like a totally new product with new benefits) then send me an email. If there’s a massive sale where I can almost get another pair for free then I might buy another color of the same thing. But otherwise, stop sending the emails. It’s silly. It makes you look greedy or incompetent and I will just opt out.
I was facilitating a client meeting not long ago. As always, we had a lot of content to review and discuss. Some folks wanted to move ahead quickly and I tried to move the discussion from point A to point B to stay on track. One fellow got pretty upset and felt like we should spend more time discussing. And to be honest, he got a bit hostile in his zeal to communicate those feelings. It was uncomfortable. Not just for me. There was a sense of discomfort in the room.
We found a way through it and this fellow apologized to me.
But as I thought about it more, I was happy that we all had some moments of discomfort. This company – like so many others – has expressed an intention to create a culture of greater candor. It occurred to me that the benefits of candor can only accrue to those who are willing to endure the inevitable moments of discomfort that candor can engender. People will not always agree. They will not always be in good spirits. And people are people. Sometimes conversations will get heated. Sometimes they may venture into mild hostility – even in professional environments. This is OK. In fact, it is vital. Because the only way you can avoid this is to dehumanize the work environment. Make it clear that conflict and discomfort are to be avoided. People will start liberally slathering caveats over everything they say. They will sand down the rough edges of their ideas to make them more comfortable for everyone. They will avoid words that can possibly interpreted as negative in some way. And over time, you will find that the environment is anything but candid. People will all blandly agree with each other because they aren’t really ever saying anything with meaning.
I think the desire to avoid personal discomfort is the greatest impediment to greatness (and innovation which is one form of greatness). You must be willing to endure discomfort if you wish to be great. You must be willing to be questioned – even ridiculed. You must be willing to fail. Yes, I said fail. Often people forget that risk has two outcomes – success and failure. You must be prepared to accept failures.
But there’s a bigger point here. The bad is not really bad. And failure is not really failure. My personal discomfort when facilitating that client meeting was definitely uncomfortable. But I learned from it. It opened me up to new insights. Sure, we can learn from good experiences as well. But I think that it is often the negative experiences that have the most to teach us. We must not only accept these, we must embrace them with the knowledge that over the course of our lives we will live lives so much richer for having opened ourselves up to experiences that might be uncomfortable.
I was with my eldest son a few weeks ago at Rutgers University for an orientation. They had a separate session for parents in their very large gym. Along one side of the gym they had refreshments set up. It was hot and sticky in the gym and so I got up to get myself something to drink. A new speaker got up on stage and he started his talk by inviting the parents to get up and stretch. They all did. He then asked them to sit back down. They all did.
I was amazed. These were adults at a session of their own volition. They either had been sitting there uncomfortable (and it was pretty uncomfortable) and were waiting for permission to get up or they were totally comfortable and got up only because they were asked to. Either way, amazing!
Think of all of the ways – subtle and overt – in which we are influenced to do or not to do something. Society tells us what to wear and we don’t even question the orders. It tells us how to speak and about what. And it tells us when we’re allowed to get up and pee. We start the mind control in childhood and it never relents.
This can’t be good. Just because you don’t drop dead immediately upon consumption of the kool aid doesn’t mean the kool aid isn’t killing you. In fact, I would argue that the kool aid we all drink every day without ever knowing it is far more dangerous than the swill that we know will kill us.
We don’t all need to be contrarian rebels. But we help nobody by conforming absolutely. When should we conform and when should we strike out on our own? I don’t know. But maybe we can all start by standing up without permission to take a pee or grab a glass of water when we need to.
Baby steps folks…
