Learning To Lead

It is 5:44 AM on a Sunday morning. I write this from a hotel in Quanzhou, a good-sized city about 1.5 hours drive north from my home in Xiamen. My wife and I spent the night up here partly to 'get away' and partly for me to strengthen my relationship with a factory owner in this area named Mr. Huang.

Some time ago I realized that although I was getting better at leading employees, there was something bothering me about my managing method. After some serious introspect, I concluded that I needed to spend some time improving my relationships with the factory owners and managers who supplied our products to our customers.

I realized that although I would take the ocassional trip to a factory by plane, train, or automobile, it usually only ocurred when there was a problem that required me to get involved and try to negotiate or motivate the supplier. Therefore, when they heard I was coming, they became tense or defensive. This made my objectives harder to achieve.

So I decided that although I don't always enjoy flying to a far-away city and spending a night or two in a hotel on the 27th floor, it would benefit my customers if I did so once in a while. By paying a vendor a social call I would be creating a relationship of friendship and trust that linked with the business relationship to pave the way for better communication between our companies. The vendor would be more likely to trust me and work together with me in a spirit of cooperation. This, in turn, means that his/her employees would be more willing to work together with my employees. This benefits the customer as it can only help increase overall quality of product and service as well as reduce late shipments. I concluded that it is my goal to pay a social visit to at least one vendor every month, and here I am.

As Peter Drucker explained so well in his book 'The Effective Executive', one of the key characteristics of an effective leader is to find out what the needs of the company are and then schedule his or her time and activities attending to them. In other words, we are paid to do what we need to do as opposed to what we want to do. Frankly, I'd rather be at home with my son and daughters snoring soundly on the second floor of our wonderful home, but I'm here for my customers (and therefore my company). In taking care of them, I'm taking care of my family as well as helping thousands of other families whom depend upon me to sell products they use and trust as well as those families whose income depends upon those products being sold.

On a not-so-side-note, at about 5:20 this morning I woke up from a dream that I was attending a seminar/dinner where Mark Horstman and Michael Auzenne (the boys from Manager-Tools) were speaking and I was lucky enough to get to meet them. I know, I know...what a cheesy dream. Over the years my dreams have migrated from those of partying with Joan Jett to having dinner with a management consultant, but that's my life for you!

MJH