Creative Reaction

Matt Heinz at Blogging Innovation condenses what he heard at a conference into 10 Rules for Small Business Success. Great stuff!

Harvard Business Publishing has an excellent 10-lesson post about “organizations whose strong and adaptive ownership cultures give them a powerful competitive edge” distilling years of research and insight. In a sentence, a healthy corporate culture leads to happy employees and happy customers. Short, but very meaty post, much of which applies to Small and Medium Businesses. Chew well.

What You Expect From Your Clients is What You Will Get, though from a programmer’s standpoint, perfectly parallels the creative business world, where many speak ill of their clients, claiming “they don’t get it” and often looking down at them. It’s simply absurd; without clients, business would cease. The problem is most rampant where both parties have several layers of bureaucracy; the creative process is stripped of almost all personal interaction and communication breaks down. 

Perhaps it’s stating the obvious that as long as clients are impersonalized as “them” and “they”, good communication and good service simply will not happen, and creative businesses depend on both.

This Signal vs. Noise post, Finding the natural size for your company, reminds me of one of my favorite business books, Small Giants, (subtitled, Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big).

David of 37Signals speaks of the “perception that companies must always be growing or they’re dying”. He continues, ”I think that’s a harmful dichotomy that leads to the death of perfectly viable companies in their quest for constant growth”. I’m sure the author of Small Giants would heartily agree.

While the main theme of Small Giants is outstanding customer service, what I find refreshing is its relentless focus on relationships. Quoting (possibly paraphrasing) a passage on some of the characteristics of a Small Giant, “the businesses exhibit exceptionally intimate relationships with customers and suppliers, based on personal contact, one-on-one interaction and mutual commitment to delivering on promises. The founders/leaders take the lead in this regard. They are highly accessible and absolutely committed to retaining the human dimension of the relationships.”

Small Giants is nothing short of inspirational, as it reminds business owners, myself included, of the positive impact we can make on both the individuals with which we come into contact and the communities we serve. In fact, I’ve purchased at least three or four copies to give to clients and business associates.

Perhaps 37Signals will find it’s way into a future edition of Small Giants.

A stunning post on the Mavericks at Work blog on the measures that Zappos (online shoe store) takes to ensure it’s employees are the right people for the company. Zappos is well known for its outstanding customer service, and hiring the best employees is integral to this. So much so, that Zappos will offer cash bonuses to buy (and thereby weed) people out. 

What measures do we have in place to attract and keep only the best talent?