Profound Choices

Work
I was at a sales pitch today.
This was our time to explain what we do, what makes us different, and why we were the ones to pick.
About 90 minutes into the meeting a head nodded at the back of the room and a fellow said in a profound voice “Oh I see, so you think we should actually try to develop relationships with our customers”. Chuckles followed.
I got the joke, but his sarcasm summed up what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I’m astonished by the fact that large organizations spend lots of time doing what they’ve always done with communications even if their efforts don’t help to establish stronger customer relationships. For many just getting it done is overwhelming enough, making it meaningful and relevant is not even on the radar.
I’ve been using two words an awful lot lately to describe the desired state of communications programs; the first is intentional. You are spending money and using time consuming valuable mailbox space and killing trees to send out information. Take the time to pause—think through the objectives, consider your recipients, make sure your efforts are relevant and meaningful to everyone who receives it. Be intentional about the stuff you are creating. If it’s just too hard to do that, I’d suggest it’s not worth doing.
My second favourite word of the month is optimize. Especially in times of economic uncertainty make sure that every piece of information you send out and every stamp you buy is absolutely necessary. Optimize your communications program, integrate, consolidate and eliminate where possible. You will find that sending less will save you money, make your customers happy, and increase the effectiveness of what you do deliver. We are all overwhelmed by the volume of information we are asked to digest, you can help cut down this information pollution, optimize your program.
Yes it is about relationships. If it’s such a no brainer how come so few are actually doing it.
Changing from status quo is not a matter of feasibility or ‘doability.’ Nope. It’s about choices.

Life
Has anyone ever noticed that life can get busy? Work, social functions, kids programs, evening meetings, household essentials, family events, physical fitness, squeeze in a massage every now and then to force 30 minutes of relaxation. Sometimes I wake up and my feet are moving in a walking motion in bed, it feels like it never quite stops.
Last month I was offsite with my family focusing on writing for the month. I had no meetings, we had no kids’ activities, no scheduled social events, I was writing during the day and evenings and weekends were simply planned as they arrived. Suddenly for the first time in what seemed like years my feet stopped walking and a sense of calm descended over our household. I made me question our crazy regular schedules. It allowed me to stop long enough to realize there is an alternative to the way we choose to live. We ate better food, talked more, exercised more. It felt profound.
For this reason I’m recommending that each year during the month of October nobody does anything outside of their day job. A full month. Every year. You’ll find it disorienting at first and eventually wonderful.
Changing from status quo is not a matter of feasibility or ‘doability.’ Nope. It’s about choices.