Most often I ponder the nature of a specific issue, or consider how I need to approach a specific person, to overcome this resistance and do what seems self-evident, and in this notebook I have mulled over many topics. And then, in a quiet moment, it occurred to me that I have failed to see the forest for the trees. There is a fundamental cause to this resistance, and single question that represents the conflict, thus: "Is your goal to help others achieve success, or merely use them as a means to achieve your own?"
Ideally, the two align, and our relationships with other people are mutually beneficial - such that each gains something from the time we spend interacting with one another. But this is not always possible, and even when the arrangement is mutually beneficial, there are invariably aspects in which the interests of one party conflict with those of the other.
Feigning VirtueWhen asked that question explicitly, "Is your goal to help others achieve success or use them as a means to achieve your own?" the natural answer, the one most people feel is right and moral, is to claim that they seek to help others. Of course they will say that, because they like to think positively of themselves. No-one wants to admit to being self-serving and indifferent to others. But words are one thing, and behavior is another.
It is a common tactic of deceitful people, intentionally out for themselves, to claim to be acting for the benefit of others. If they openly admitted that they were looking to take advantage of you for their own personal benefit, you would avoid them and they wouldn't get what they want. The deceivers want your trust, so that you will cooperate with them, and it often is not until afterward that you realize you have been used and betrayed. (And then, how often do you blame yourself for not recognizing the deception, rather than the other party for perpetrating it?)
Those who are intentionally deceitful cannot be turned to the right path. They must simply be identified and avoided. But a more pernicious type are those who have deceived themselves. They genuinely believe themselves to be concerned about the welfare of others, even though their actions would suggest otherwise. "I don't have the time and resources to do the best thing," they will say, and they will suggest that they are merely managing conflicting interests and scarce resources to do the best they can - but what is their priority?
So many people feign virtue in this manner. Professing to believe something, or professing to be a specific kind of person, is simple enough. All you have to do is say the words. But our true character is revealed in action - the decisions we make and the things we do (though the latter are merely consequences of the former) demonstrate the quality of their character.
Watch what happens when push comes to shove in a conflict. They will face a decision to be made between sacrificing something they want for the benefit of others and exploiting others to get something that they want. Their declarations about themselves are merely propaganda, while their actions reveal their true character.
I am confident that this holds true, for any person in the context of any interaction. Even in social relationships you can witness the schism between a person's words and actions, and the latter are a better testament to their values and character. So to re-focus this meditation, let me shift back to the context of customer experience in the context of business.
The Virtue of a Business
Business is too often anthropomorphized, spoken and thought of as if it is a thing unto itself. It is not: a business is an organization of people working together to achieve a common goal. As such it is imprecise to say that a "business" has a character, as it is the amalgam of the character of the people in the organization that determine the way in which the organization is perceived. If most of the people in an organization interact with a customer in an honest manner, that customer will regard the organization itself as honest.
The critical "people" in the organization are its management - those involved in making decisions as to the way others will behave in their roles. This is evident in the way in which those who have direct contact with the customer are compelled to behave by policies and procedures set by those in positions of authority. The experience of dealing with a store clerk who is unable to be helpful, or even to do the right thing, and who seems frustrated by being made to behave as he does because he is ordered to do so, is evidence enough that an army of clerks may have good personal character, but who are compelled against their morals and better judgment to behave in ways that they believe to be wrong.
The values with which a business starts are the values of its founder - and the same question may be put to the founder of any business: "Is your goal to help others achieve success or use them as a means to achieve your own?" And as I have suggested, it is a question that is better answered by observing behavior than listening to declarations.
Ideally, a business begins with a founder who is oriented to help other people achieve their goals. They recognize that something is missing in the lives of many people, or that there is a more effective or efficient way to fulfill needs. Ideally, founders achieve success when they are right about this - the product they provide actually does serve the needs of others, and people reward them by purchasing it, enabling them to amass a fortune. The profit an organization makes is a reward for the service it provides, and it is earned.
But in truth, there are many businesses that begin with a desire to make money, and serving the needs of customers is for them a necessary evil. Their decisions begin with a profit motive - it is their goal, rather than the reward for achieving their goal, and it is entirely dismissive of the needs of other people. The customer must be deceived into purchasing their product, given the impression that it serves their needs, and given the impression that the business is at all interested in serving them.
That is not to say the character of a firm is immutable. A business founded for the right reasons may stray onto the wrong path - particularly when the service-oriented founder leaves and is replaced with profit-oriented managers. And to be fair, a profit-oriented founder may sell the business to someone who transforms it by applying a service-oriented mindset. Again, a business is an amalgam and its behavior in different times and circumstances comes down to which particular representatives a customer encounters.
The Character of People in Business
If the character of a business as a whole is assessed by the character of people in the business, it can be witnessed in the decisions they make and the agenda the promote. As I work in a position in which I encounter many people within a business and negotiate for the interests of the customer, I am very much involved in conversations in which their character is exposed by the decisions they make.
I do feel somewhat fortunate to work in an organization that promotes the concept of service, and whose mission statement and core values are aligned to helping other people achieve their goals as a means to achieve its own success. The frustration that I feel almost daily, in an effort to convince people to focus on that priority, is testimony to the difficulty of living up to professed values. I imagine my work would be far more difficult in an organization that is merely feigning virtue - but even in one that attempts to live up to its moral standards, it can be very trying.
And given that I work in a firm that is lauded for customer service, yet I still experience great difficulty in getting people to make decisions that support a service orientation, I am led to the rather pessimistic conclusion that most people are entirely self-centered and indifferent to others, who want the reward and begrudgingly consider the needs of others in the course of achieving it. Those whose mindset is on service, and who see profit as a consequence of getting service right, are rare.
To say that I am proud to be one of the "good ones" would be a conceit. I hope that I am one of them. I hope that I am not merely deceiving myself as to my true motives and my true character. And I hope this is demonstrated by my actions.
And at this point, I've clearly degenerated into narcissistic navel-gazing and should likely wrap up this meditation. Forgive me ... it's a blog, after all, and prone to that sort of thing. The journey I have taken today has been considering a fundamental principle of the service mindset, the way in which it may be validated, the way it is expressed in an organization, and the way it is expressed in people. That seems quite enough for now.
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