I have a friend who looks at a glass that is 50% full and refuses to consider it as half full OR half empty. "It is half enjoyed," he insists.
My friend can be annoyingly optimistic.
I have another friend who would look at the same glass and not even notice how full it was. "I wonder how they washed it," she would ponder aloud, causing everyone in our group to think, at least for a moment, about food borne illnesses.
I have another friend who would look at the same glass and not even notice how full it was. "I wonder how they washed it," she would ponder aloud, causing everyone in our group to think, at least for a moment, about food borne illnesses.
My friend's germ paranoia can be contagious.
I have a third friend who rarely talks about the glass or its contents. He does, however, fill his glass with different contents. He quietly orders whatever he wants, rudely ignoring the whims of popular convention at the moment. I am not sure if this friend is aware of how much attention the rest of us pay to what he does and doesn't order.
I am sure he doesn't care.
My friends aren't trying to be opinion or thought leaders. They aren't overtly trying to sway others' perspectives to their own. They aren't trying to manipulate, persuade, cajole or entice anyone into thinking like them. Yet they all do.
The same thing happens with your organization. What you do, how you respond to something, the attitude you present to your customers and constituents, has an impact. It impacts not only what they think about your organization, but how they feel about the entire industry and, in some cases, all organizations. How often have you read a news story about a corporate executive who was caught with his hand in the till and thought to yourself, "They're all a bunch of crooks" or heard that a particular company was in trouble and found yourself assuming the industry was in a slump?
Organizations, like friends, lead by example. A company that voluntarily engages in environmentally sound practices makes it easier for the next company to believe that environmentally sound practices are possible and feasible. The first company doesn't need to give speeches or shout their green ethos from the rooftop. They don't have to create a brochure. They just have to do it!
An organization that steps up to solve a community problem or address a market need often finds, if the need is great enough or the way they address it effective enough, that they are not alone in addressing that need for long. Sometimes this is good for the first company. Often it means competition.
This is, however, a door that swings both ways. An organization that devotes the lion's share of its time and resources on negative issues, such as worrying about competition, or regulation, or uncontrollable market forces, will likely find plenty of competition, regulation and uncontrollable market forces to worry about.
If, instead, that same company paid more attention to its customers, employees, or products, it would find that those market forces that it can't control would matter less and less. It would also find that customers and prospects would like the organization more and more.
At some point they might even like the organization well enough to go have half a drink with it!
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