Business
at it’s core is a relationship
A relationship is simply a way in which people or things are connected. The dictionary describes it as a state of being connected. Once you give it a little bit of thought it’s amazing the different ways we can be connected. People can be connected over the things they like, the things they don’t like, places they have been, where they grew up, what product or service they need, what they don’t need now but may need in the future. You get the idea. For all the ways we are disconnected in society, it seems like there are just as many if not more ways that we are connected. Connection is a pretty powerful thing.
Last year I was with my son, celebrating his undergraduate graduation, with a tour through Germany and some surrounding countries. One of our stops was in a small village just outside of Nuremberg. I was in the lobby of the small hotel we were staying in waiting for the sudden downpour of rain to stop, when I noticed a gentleman next to me wearing a polo shirt with the Houston Texan’s logo on it. Being from Texas myself, I felt connected to this person and immediately started a conversation. Turns out, the gentleman was from Germany and had visited Texas the year before. He had no idea the logo was for a sports team, he thought it was a souvenir shirt for Texas. We had a great conversation and realized more ways that we were connected. Even though it was for a short period of time, I felt like I had a friend in a place that was very far from home. We had coffee together, my son and I met his wife, we even took him up on some of the suggestions he gave us on places to see and food to try. All because of a logo on a polo shirt that connected me to a total stranger.
Businesses get started because the owners want to have a relationship, a connecting point with the consumer. They see something that is needed or wanted in the world and they go on a journey to create a connection with people who need or what what they have. Like most healthy relationships it starts out with the notion that the business has something to offer. You know you have a great product or service and you are looking for the right connection to offer that to someone else. But relationships are not easy or static, they are complex and change constantly. The easy relationship with the person you decide to marry suddenly get’s really complicated when you start planning a wedding. What about the friendship that was so great that is now complicated by an illness, or a move? On the business side of things a relationship that was pretty straight forward becomes more complicated when the market shifts, law’s change, supplies are more scarce, employees become more expensive and so on.
Oftentimes when organizations go through these shifts they go into survival mode. They become very inward focused and they stop relating to their customers. Once they stop relating they loose their ability to connect because the only thing the organization has to offer is the elephant of a problem in the room. They don’t really see the customer anymore, the only thing that matters is the shift they are going through.
I’ve had relationships that have run their course over time because one or the other of us stopped relating. We had nothing to connect over and things just fizzled out. My relationship with my local Blockbuster Video store just went away when I stopped connecting with the brick and mortar store. My relationship with my favorite music store ended when we had nothing left in common. Relationships even business ones fade when we stop connecting. Both parties have to show up and contribute something in order for it to work.
