Creative Hot Flashes

Our society has put a great deal of pressure on all of us to network, engage, talk, connect, revisit, interact, get the message out, etc.!   We all have multiple numbers, interactive devices, numerous ways of communicating and last but not least, phones that do just about everything except pour our morning coffee. But I’m sure that somewhere in the world someone is working on that right now too!

Every morning, like most executives, I sit down and check my emails to make sure that someone hasn’t changed a scheduled meeting or requested a new appointment that will adjust my calendar accordingly. I scope out Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as quickly as possible and then move on to they day. Luckily, I have actually gotten this activity down to a quick routine.

I remember a time when my energies were devoted to sorting through huge piles of mail that I use to receive daily. At the time, my assistant would sift through the initial volume and sort them by category: “Immediate Attention”, “Important” and “Later”. It was a great system. However, on more than one occasion I would wonder where I had put something on my desk after I had read it. My assistant complained that I was too efficient and she could readily help me if I hadn’t already done HER job and filed it! Sure enough, when we looked in my file cabinet it was already there! I had mastered the filing process, but my phone calls were still overwhelming.

Time was my greatest enemy. And little pieces of paper with call back numbers was the biggest culprit. No matter how much time I thought I had to call people back, it was never enough. Once I left my office to attend meetings throughout the building or out of the building . . . finding enough time to call everyone I needed to, presented a serious challenge. I finally determined that it was necessary to set aside designated time, at least a half-hour in the morning and again a half-hour later in the day to make calls. These were not the calls that an assistant could make, they were the type of calls that required my personal expertise and authority or ones that needed me to show the person on the other end of the phone that they were of value and subsequently commanded my attention.  That small shift in my business habits reaped untold rewards.  People used me as their definitive Rolodex source.

It is important to understand that those were the days when only a select few people had cell phones and the workplace did not endorse nor embrace them. Blackberries, i Phones, texting, Facebook; even email was not the major form of communication. You could courier interoffice memo folders, pop into someone’s office or use the phone for interoffice intercom communication or out of building phone calls. It was far more difficult to get your ideas and messages to someone. You had to make a conscious effort.  But somehow we got it done.

So if that is the case . . . I am trying to wrap my head around the reasons why people in business today do not return phone calls! Oh, if someone is a stereotypical salesperson, they may literally hound you with phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. It can be excessive and annoying. What I’m talking about is simply conducting business. You may meet with someone, discuss a project, collaboration or proposal and they never return your calls. They’ve asked for a meeting and then decide for whatever reason that they either no longer want what you have to offer, they have changed their mind, something in their business gets in the way or any number of things.  In fact it could be a zillion of reasons, but you are completely unaware of what it might be because they never bother to get back in touch with you! They just sort of quietly dissolve into the woodwork of life hoping that if enough time transpires,the situation will go away.  It doesn’t and you are left not knowing what circumstances caused the lack of communication. Were they real or not.

What happened to common courtesy? What happened to thanking someone for their time but saying: “no thank you”. What happened to all the advances we have acquired by having all these ways of getting in touch with people, but we don’t have the etiquette, appreciation of other people’s time or the backbone to let them know how we feel or what we want.

I appreciate it when a prospect gets in touch with me to inform me that they have chosen another firm instead of us. Would I rather have had them select us? Absolutely! But at least I know that they are conducting themselves in a way that I believe we can understand and appreciate.  We honor the process and recognize that sometimes you win and sometimes you are given an opportunity to learn.  I know that those opportunities help us see how our business may grow.   What I want most of all  is to not be faced with a void.  I like knowing where people stand, especially in business.  I think that most business people would appreciate that candor.  It allows for realistic planning and genuine self-examination of your business.

It seems that  with all our current technology that allows us to contact people globally and get tasks done in a fraction of the time than it use to take in the past; we somehow seem to have misplaced something very important along the way.  It’s our manners.  Clearly, if we are willing to look at ourselves with a critical eye, we will see that that’s what’s missing in business today!

Tagged as: appointment, business, CIME4, CIME4enterprises, cutting edge technology, desk, file cabinet, initial volume, interactive devices, job, linkedin, little pieces, mail, morning coffee, networking, new businesses, non profit organizations, phone calls, small businesses

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