“Incompetence irritates me, but overconfidence scares me. Incompetent people rarely have the opportunities to make mistakes that greatly affect things. But overconfident leaders and experts have the dangerous ability to create disaster.”
Malcolm Gladwell as quoted by Jon Acuff
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How Not to Sell a Roofing Repair
I admire the persistence of roofing companies, but they annoy me at the same time. Here’s a rundown of what just happened at my house.
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Doorbell.
Random roofing sales dude: “Hi, sir, I’m so-and-so with random roofing company. We’re in the neighborhood today offering free roof inspections. Have you had your roof inspected since the hail storms this Spring?”
Me: “No, but we can’t really do that right now.”
Sales dude: “Well, why not?”
Me: “Because we have a newborn baby sleeping.”
Sales dude: “We could come back tomorrow.”
Me: “No thanks.”
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I mean, seriously. Do you really think I want someone climbing around on my roof right after we had a baby? Maybe I’m just cranky from lack of sleep, but I think it’s important to really pay attention to other people’s needs and desires when you’re trying to sell something. This guy didn’t really get that concept. He just wanted to make a sale.
[image via MJM]
Hottest Summer Ever in DFW?
We’re not yet officially to the most 100° days in a year, but this pretty much makes me think that 2011 will forever be considered the hottest summer ever.
Welcome to the United States of Apple [Image]
It was reported a few weeks ago that Apple had more operating cash that the US Treasury. Maybe the solution our country needs to solve our debt crisis is for Steve Jobs & Friends to simply buy the country. That’s right, we could become the United States of Apple.
Since this is the inevitable future for us all, I went ahead and re-designed the flag in preparation. I think this could work:
What do you think?
Accept the Blame, Give Away the Praise
Photo by hobvias sudoneighm
During President Obama’s press conference yesterday, there seemed to be a recurring theme. It wasn’t the main point he was trying to make, I think, but I picked up on it nonetheless. Whenever he talked about an issue where he perceived there is a problem he said something along the lines of “the minority in the Senate is being stubborn,” which basically meant I heard him say “it’s not my fault, blame the Republicans.”
Whether or not it’s true that the Republicans in the Senate are just being stubborn and trying to drag things down is not what I’m most interested in. I’m not a huge fan of politics in general, but I am a fan of leadership and learning leadership lessons. And since the President is the most visible leader in our country, and possibly the world, I think we can learn significant leadership lessons from him.
What I saw him doing yesterday was blaming others for the country’s problems. I don’t think that’s good leadership. Again, it might be true that it’s someone else’s fault, but when you’re the leader and you blame someone else it comes across as immature to me.
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins discussed this concept in what he calls the window and the mirror. According to his groups study, great leaders look in the mirror when there is a problem. They are the first to say “I was wrong” or “I could do a better job.” The reason for this is that ultimately the whole organization rises and falls on leadership on one level or another.
On the other hand, if there is praise to be given a leader should look out the window to the people in his organization. When people praise great leaders respond by saying things like “I’ve got a great team” or something similar. This shouldn’t be done with false humility, but it’s an honest assessment of the situation. Without a great team a great leader won’t accomplish much.
It was a good reminder to me that it’s easy to slip into the opposite attitude. When things aren’t going well we point the finger to blame someone else. We’ve been doing this as humans for a long time. But when things are going well our egos tend to puff up and we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to.
So, accept the blame but give the praise away. It’s the best way to lead others.