Sometimes the business-leadership gurus go too far. 

Love Your Clients

When you stop to think about it, isn't the word "love" just a bit too strong for supplier-client relationships? There are plenty of poignant history and romance stories about dying for loved ones – people making the ultimate sacrifice for lovers, family and loved friends. However, I've never seen one movie or read one book where a supplier loves a client to death. And, what about sending Valentines love notes, roses, and chocolates to clients - does that make sense? 

Let's set aside the hyperbolic ideas promoting love for clients and let's commit more brainpower to figuring out how to deliver value to them, on time, at a fair price. 

Fail Fast & Fail Often

Fail fast and fail often...there's another troubling concept. Frenetic action aimed toward frenzied failure - what good can come of that! Sure, no argument – taking baby steps toward small goals is a great strategy. But, let's not forget the goal of each baby step is success not failure. Sure, we need to be able to differentiate between successes and failures and learn from our errors. But, let’s not forget haste makes waste or the wonderful story of the tortoise beating the hare.

Let’s set aside the trendy but fuzzy logic that encourages fast-paced dominoes of failure and let’s think a bit more before taking action, i.e., so we can enjoy the benefits of planning our work and working our plan.  

Other Fuzzy Fads for Success

I’m not suggesting we should ignore the advice of business and success gurus. Quite the opposite. We should consume the advice of the gurus. We should observe it ‘in real time’, using our wonderful brains, picking out the good pieces and formulating our own business and success philosophies.  And we should spit out the pieces that we simply cannot digest.