Listen to Those NOT Here

Let’s ask our people what they want.  Session's hear and say this all the time.  This is very important.  However, consider this.  What if as a part of McDonalds you went into McDonalds and asked all 20 patrons there if they liked McDonalds?  They’d say yes.  So you’d keep serving Big Macs and all.  But what if you were a part of McDonalds and went into Burger King?  At Burger King ask, “Do you like Big Macs?”  Maybe you’d get the answer, “No and that’s why we’re at Burger King!”  Then you look around and see there are twice as many patrons here as at your McDonalds.

Go back to your McDonalds and say, “Let’s make something like a Whopper.  We’ll charbroil it and make it wide.  We can call it McOpper.”   Five of your patrons say, Ok.  Five say, “Maybe.”  And five say very loudly, “NO and if you do, we’ll leave.”  So you don’t.  You still have 20 patrons. 

What if you had said, not to be mean, but because you have a responsibility to the stock holders to sell as many burgers as possible, to the five loud “no” people, “Bye.”  Then you did your McOpper.  Three weeks later you counted patrons.  There were 35. 

Now think about this – you lost five and got fifteen.  Net gain – 10.  You could have kept the five happy and made the stockholders sad.  You could have kept the five and turned your back on the fifteen.  That would have been easier because you would have avoided conflict or saying goodbye.  But you’d be static and have, whatever it is, grumpies or fearfuls or naysayers or??? 

Leadership may not be about saving everyone you already have but saving the most that there are.