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What is the essence of business?

If you automatically answered ‘profit’ then think again, because that’s an output of good business.

The essence is….ta dah…excellence!

Not perfection, because that is an illusion. Excellence implies consistency to a high standard.

Anything less means we are playing at being in business and probably letting our ego get in the way of great products, delivered with great service.

I’ve been watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA. I know they are made for TV and have drama and jeopardy in them, but look beyond the arguments and ridiculous menus and you will see that each episode is a mini case study in how not to be in business. It’s a bonfire of egos and success only happens when the hapless and burned out restaurant owner finally reconciles themselves to their often monstrous ego and makes a profound change. Worth a watch.

They are all sad stories, wrapped up in happy TV endings (mostly).

A colleague of mine shared a sad story that runs thus…

Her bookkeeper had been merrily working away, adding expenses and invoices to their electronic system. One day her accountant happened to notice that the expenses were in fact missing. So naturally she raised this with the bookkeeper, expecting to get an honest answer, a sincere apology and a swift resolution.

To her surprise, the bookkeeper became angry and defensive that he had been ‘audited’ and sent sharp messages to my colleague complaining about the sudden lack of trust.

No sincere apology. No request for an urgent meeting to sort things out. No sense of customer service at a time of crisis.

It doesn’t matter too much if we make a mistake, they are going to happen. What counts is how we handle it.

A thorough apology, quick restitution and a healthy discount (or free repair work) go a long way to restoring confidence.

My colleague received none of this and instead had to deal with her bookkeeper’s angry ego.

It is a truism that a happy customer will tell 1 person and an unhappy customer will tell 20. Quickly, the word spreads that bad things are happening.

It’s the same with the rubbish restaurants that Chef Ramsay visits. The word goes out and business dives.

Sadly, in the case of my colleague, there was no Accountant Ramsay to breathe sense into her bookkeeper and she has now parted ways with him.

He clearly didn’t value her business, or seem worried that his actions (or lack of) would have any consequences. His ego won and his business lost. A bad attitude lead to a bad output.

Business, any business, is hard work. It takes a lifetime to build our reputation and a couple of angry emails (or tweets) to ruin it.

We always have to ask ourselves:

1. Are we delivering excellence?

2. Or are we letting our ego run the business for us?

It’s not hard. Great business doesn’t need Chef Ramsay. Just consistency, honesty and integrity.

This week we can all reflect on my colleague’s sad service story and decide how we would have handled the situation. Then we can find out if our business is really delivering excellence, or if we need to make a few changes?

Have fun being excellent!

Next week: The Memorial Story

I love books. I don’t mind admitting it. I have more books than I have time to read them, but owning them seems the right thing to do, a fun thing.

Having the books on the shelf increases the possibility of me reading them and I like the fact that each book owned carries potential. We never know when we will need to learn something, check a fact, or seek inspiration.

Owning them means that when it’s late in the evening and I’m stuck writing an academic essay for my therapy training I know that salvation is just an arm stretch away.

And I believe that all books have value and all can teach us something, even if it’s how now to write a book.

Too many business books fall into that category in my opinion. They can be egotistical, full of waffle and take 100 pages to state what could have been thoughtfully shared in three.

However, there are some stars, and they more than make up for the waste of a good tree, that some of the others constitute.

So, in the spirit of applied usefulness here are three of my favourites …books that I’ve read cover to cover and would buy twice, if I lost them. They are:

1. The 4 Hour Working Week, by Tim Ferriss. A classic story of how a self-made person hit a wall and had to transform his life. Ferriss writes with candour and it’s so refreshing to read about someone who got it wrong, rather than someone who was on an elevator to success all their life. The book challenges our ideas about what it is to be a boss and how the less of a boss we are, the more our business can thrive. If you’re stressed and over-working then this book is both interesting and practical.

2. Brief Coaching for Lasting Solutions, by Berg & Szabo. I love being a business coach and promoting confidence in others. There are more than a skip load of coaching books on the market and for me, a skip is where most of them belong. It’s not that they’re bad, rather that they’re full of complicated models. Now I love a good model, but when coaching the key to success is human contact and interaction. Brief Coaching is a powerful style of coaching, that cuts to the heart of an issue and really invites people to think. With it, you can do in 10 minutes what other coaches could achieve in an hour. So it’s a useful book for leaders too, who don’t want to be a coach, but who would benefit from using simple and powerful coaching approaches. The book is model-free and what I love about it is that it’s full of coaching conversations, so you can really get a sense of how to apply the learning. If you’re a coach, or a leader, then this is a great book to have (and even better if you read it).

3. Working it out at Work, Julie Hay. Understanding ourselves is what all decent minded adults need to do. This can feel threatening, as it raises the possibility of having to dive into the world of psychology. We often want to keep our secrets secret and to duck those questions that invite us to look into the mirror. Hay writes with ease and shares her considerable skills in Transactional Analysis in a way that is friendly and approachable. TA (for short) is in essence the study of communications; what we say to ourselves and how we interact with the world around us. I use TA in organisational settings, for example by sharing the tools and skills with teams and leaders. At the back of the book are useful exercises and the chapters flow and are easy to read and understand. It’s my go-to book for TA related client work. Worth a look, if you’d like to improve how you respond when stressed, or find time management a constant bug-bear.

That’s three of the coolest books on my shelf. You are welcome to investigate them, perhaps even buy a copy for someone you know who needs a lift.

In the spirit of sharing, I’m curious. What would be one business, or self development, book that you would like me to be aware of? One that has made a difference to you in some way.

This week we can all enjoy a good book. Books are always a gateway to something …we just have to explore them and find out what happens when we go through the gate!

Happy reading!

Next week: The Sad Service Story