Powills: Kick Them When they Say,“We have always done it that way”

Photo Credit: Ivan Garcia / Shutterstock.com

“We have always done it that way,” could possibly be the dumbest seven-word sentence in the language of business. The good news for me is that if I have ever said that in the past, I will do my best to never say it again. As a leader, if you say those seven words, you will be left on an island all by your lonesome. On that island, you will not be thinking about innovation or change, you’ll just be loving complacency. If you want greatness to occur, doing things the exact same way will never work. NEVER. Look around you and absorb the changes that happen every day – seasons, Starbucks cups, menus, your child’s shoe size. If we, as a world, just did things the same way all the time, we would be lost in a sea of same. I try to make it very clear to anyone I employ that I am not interested in doing it the way we have always done it. I am hiring them for their brain, their heart and their gut. I am hiring them to come in, look at the good, the bad, the ugly, and then apply their own experiences and ideas to our operations. No one is hired for our business to remain the same. Game changers are few and far between. It is rare to find that really special person who can come in, listen for a moment, and then offer suggestions for improvement. The majority of people come in, listen and continue listening. There is certainly no probably with this in a business of systems, as there must be a balance of people who are looking at that stop as a job and those who look at it as a career, but if you are going to be at the top of a business food chain, you must not be afraid to stand up and speak out. The business needs you to do it and craves that special person. The same goes for the client side. When a client retains our agency, No Limit Agency*, I feel committed to not promoting them doing things the way they have always done them, because they clearly hired us for a reason. It is our job to look at their always, modify it to sometimes, and then put those sometimes on a new trial path. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they go back to always. But if a brand is going to have a shot at being awesome, always has to dissipate. I really believe that there are no perfect businesses out there. Sure, there can be perfect moments, but those perfect moments rarely stay perfect because people have such a powerful outcome in the math equation of perfect. Think about Apple. We may have called them the perfect business, until Samsung stopped doing Apple’s always and started doing Samsung’s sometimes. Or AOL – a company that seemed unstoppable with that classical computer music followed by “You Got Mail”. And today, it’s Google. Always and never are two terms in business synonymous to unicorns. If you want to have a great business – throw away your always. Start finding the sometimes. Be willing to take a chance. If you have been hired by a business, during your honeymoon stage, the business is looking for you to beat always’ ass. They want you to be a business bully to that word, because if they are anything like me, they are on this journey to perfect, even if for only a short moment. Be proud of your opinions, but be willing to back them up with proof of your pudding and the proof of your data. A great company will never say we always have done it that way. A great company will say that while we have done it this way in the past, if you have a better idea, we are more than happy to listen.