Crippled CEO Blog #107:
There’s an aspect of success that I don’t think gets talked about enough.
We hear a lot about intelligence, hard work, creativity, and determination.
You’ve heard me talk a lot about integrity and character. Doing the right thing is always the right thing.
But you know what is tremendously important that you practically never hear about?
Manners.
Being polite.
It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Anachronistic. Outdated.
“Manners.”
OK, boomer.
But seriously. Manners.
I’ve had vendors who provide quality products and objectively solid customer service whom I actively try to replace with other companies because they’re rude.
I just don’t like them. They’re not nice.
I left the bank I’d been with for over 20 years for the same reason, and the bank I switched to was the flip side — my contact at BankUnited, Javier, is the most polite, most courteous, nicest to work with banker on the planet. His employer earned millions of dollars in new accounts exclusively because of how nice he is.
The same goes for customers. I’ve fired otherwise good customers because they are jerks. I’ve kept around poor performers because they are really nice.
Employees, too. If you do great work, but you’re rude to the people around you, I don’t want you. I would much rather have the person who isn’t quite as productive, but makes the environment a lovelier place for everybody around her.
So, yeah. Politeness. Go figure.
(Do you know who I always let be rude to me? Your mom. She gets a text from me every Sunday, as well, with a link to the latest blog. If you text the number 484848 with the word CRIP as the message, you can, too.)
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