Results Rule!

The media played up the appearance of Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith in Super Bowl XLI as a first – two African-American head coaches achieve the pinnacle of success on the same day and the same stage. The media missed the point. 

Yes, Dungy and Smith broke the color barrier. But in my mind, the real story is substance not skin color.  

Neither man leads by yelling, cursing, or intimidation. Both speak softly, and both command the respect of every player and coach in their respective organizations. The only fear is that you might let them down. 

Dungy’s Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl as the experts predicted. The game will be memorialized as the time Peyton Manning won the big one and the first African-American coach succeeded on the big stage.  

Let’s hope the obvious and easy headlines do not over shadow the significance of the event. On Sunday, February 04, 2007 two men proved that there is more than one way to lead. It was a triumph of class regardless of who won the game. 

Results Rule! 

Randy Pennington
www.resultsrule.com   

Gerald Ford’s death marks the physical end to something that left political life in the United States years before - bi-partisan respect for an individual’s integrity despite agreement on the issues.

Ford was America’s Eagle Scout President chosen by his peers to lead the country out of the Watergate embarrassment and the Viet Nam War’s trauma. His decision to pardon Richard Nixon cost him the election in 1976, but it sealed his reputation as a principled leader who put what’s right above who’s right.

Froma Harrop writing in The Providence Journal said, “Mr. Ford was wrong to pardon Richard Nixon, but he bravely suffered the political consequences in the belief he was helping the country. He never played politics with America’s future.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Sanders noted upon Ford’s death that many wanted more “national wallowing in the mud” of Watergate. She then goes on to say, “But the accidental president was right. The time had come for America to move forward.”

I sense that it is time, yet again, for America to move forward. Americans must add personal character, civility, and the ability to disagree without being disagreeable as factors to consider when electing its leaders.

America and Americans are ready.

Where is our next Gerald Ford?

Results Rule!
Randy Pennington
www.resultsrule.com

RadioShack used the ever-so-personal email to notify about 400 employees in its Ft. Worth, Texas headquarters that they were fired.

First, RadioShack is hardly the first company to mismanage a lay off. There have always been bosses who use poor judgment when laying people off. A few years back, a friend was notified that his services would no longer be needed on a cell phone call while driving down the freeway. Fortunately, he was able to pull over while confirming that this was not a joke. In another lack of caring and tact, a well-known investment banking firm reportedly gave half its employees a blue slip of paper and half a yellow slip of paper. The blue slip recipients were told that their unfortunate colleagues were being told of their termination and escorted out of the building at that very moment. A utility company let employees know that lay-offs were coming and then spent an entire day notifying people in alphabetical order about their fate.

There are two questions we must answer: Was it a good idea, and is this the start of a new management fad?

Wendy Dominguez, a RadioShack spokesperson, was quoted  in HR News saying, “A person coming to their cubicle, or a letter or memo delivered to their cubicle would be much more openly visible, and we felt, invasive.”

So it appears that their corporate heart was in the right place even if their judgment took a vacation.The best way to tell someone they are losing their job is in a face-to-face conversation that takes place in a private area. Keep in mind, that even the best way is not a pleasant conversation. It is extremely rare that anyone will be excited about getting the boot. But, recognizing an individual’s humanity and respecting their privacy increases the chances that they and others – especially those who are staying after the lay-off – will remember the good things the company did to ease the transition rather than the lousy way people were treated at the decision’s announcement. Randy Pennington
www.resultsrule.com

I threatened the contractor who is completing the remodel on the master bath in my house with legal action today. Well actually, I called the State Comptroller’s office and asked them to explain to him why he couldn’t violate state law and charge sales tax for labor.

 So what does this have to do with trust? Plenty.

From my perspective, this guy had the potential of being my own private Eldon from the Murphy Brown show - always here and never finishing. The difference is he doesn’t have Eldon’s sense of humor and the reason he never left was because of the quality of his sub-contractors.

My mistrust was based on the belief that he didn’t communicate particularly well, presumably allowed incompetence from his workers, and the sense that he suffered from selective listening. The last straw was when he announced that he was charging me sales tax that was not authorized and had no intention of backing off when presented with the facts.

You get the feeling that you are dealing with questionable character - or at least competence - when you are told, “I am not willing to alter my accounting system for one customer just because they talked to someone in the Comptroller’s office.”

Did I say arrogant, too?

Now for the other side of the story.

The contractor said from the outset that he knew my wife and I were going to be picky. And, he is correct if you assume that means actually delivering the product you promised.

He also told me that he knew we were going to try to take advantage of him. So any questioning on our part was automatically viewed through jaundiced eyes.

But, the final straw for him came when I miscommunicated something with my wife, and he took the brunt of it. In his mind, I had set him up to fail and confirmed every fear.

I apologized, but we never really got past it. He dug in on his beliefs, and I dug in on mine.

And that’s the way it usually goes with mistrust. There is the occassional big thing, but more often than not, mistrust arises from a series of little things that are used to justify our position.

My mistrust was built on perceptions of communication, competence, character, and consistency. His was based on perceptions about my character driven by a communication problem.

In the end, we both genuinely believe we are right. And we are … in our own minds and the minds of those who share our point of view.

So what does this have to do with you and your ability to deliver results.

My contractor’s stated goal coming into this project was to earn our business and make us incredibly glad we chose him to do the work. The quality of the work was overall acceptable, and we might have used him on the next (bigger) project in a few months.

He will never get the chance to bid on it because we can’t trust the quality of the experience. In fact, we will tell others not to use him.

My goal was to have a relatively stress free project where everyone walked away happy (I know it is a fantasy, but I have heard rumors of that actually happening for some people).

I didn’t get what I want either. I spent hours on a few hundred dollars that could have been used more productively if my contractor trusted me more and I hadn’t become emotionally entangled in a seventy-nine cent problem.

Success in business - with customers, colleagues, and vendors - is influenced by the quality of the relationship. Relationships built on trust have the strength to get through the disagreements that arise in business.

Here are my take aways:

1. Ronald Reagan was right - Trust but verify.
2. Don’t ever forget that we judge ourselves by our intentions. Others, not knowing those intentions, judge us by the perceptions of our behavior. 

Randy Pennington
Info@resultsrule.com
www.resultsrule.com

“Nothing ever happens until someone buys something from someone else.”