I make my living as a business lawyer. I’ve learned that successfully running a business is an art. I like most art; poetry, not so much. Except for baseball poems. I find them useful for business.
How deep is the cut
When Your Guy Gives Up A Home Run
To Their pitcher
IBM did that. Bill Gates was a pimply geek apprenticing for them. He pitches them on his new idea. “Nobody wants to use DOS anymore,” he tells them. “We need GUI”. He was talking about the graphical user interface. The way our computer screen looks today. No more black screens with blinking cursors.
The big blue man does not listen to him and sends our hero packing. Off he goes to create his world of fame and glory and riches. IBM fails in the personal PC business.
To successfully run a business you need to respect your weakest hitter. If given a chance, they can often surprise you. Inside the trenches of your business are employees noticing the myriad of ways that your business is not working as smoothly as it could. They wonder why you, the boss, are not doing things differently. They think you don’t care, or that they would lose their job by sharing their perspective.
When did you last break bread with the young guy in the back office; you know, the one that’s been here a year now and you still don’t know his name? Isn’t there a possibility that he might offer some useful tidbit, one that might end up loosening your load?
Take a good look at that employee at the bottom of your lineup. Give them full immunity, walk them to the coffee shop, sit down, shut up, and listen. They just might hit you a home run.
