what matters — What's Stopping You?

I've spent a couple of posts now on getting to yes. I'd like to introduce you to William Ury, the author of the book. Bill is a master negotiator. In this TED speech he describes how he feels his ideas can help achieve the lofty goal of creating more peace in the world. Bill talks about the third side. When there is conflict there is always a third side that can play a constructive role in resolving disputes. If you don't have 20 minutes to spare please listen to the first seven, especially how Bill responds to criticism with what I would call a positive no in minute six.

http://www.ted.com William Ury, author of "Getting to Yes," offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations -- from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

Each day I receive one of Hugh MacLeod's gapingvoid cartoons. This was Hugh's cartoon from Friday. Last week was exhausting, and I was moving slowly when I saw this cartoon. I often reflect on the work that we do, and wind up asking myself whether or not we're doing something that matters. I want to make sure that when I go to the office on Monday that what we do has purpose, and that we can make a difference. We connect our members with our customers. We provide a platform to bring them together and hopefully everyone benefits. Of course, some benefit more than others and we have a client relations team that makes sure our customers are designing their pages on our platform to attract many members to their company. Shortly after seeing Hugh's cartoon I got an email from Cathy one of our relationship managers. We've been gathering testimonials from our customers and she forwarded one to me. Well, after reading it, Cathy sure made me feel that we're doing something that matters. One of her customers wasn't getting the returns they expected. Their platform page performance was trending nearly 50% below average. Cathy worked with them to change some images and other items on their page. In just one month the customer's performance is now trending 33% above average! Cathy is helping the small businesses that partner with us succeed. Cathy matters to her customers.

Cathy is one person who is part of one team that is part of the many teams that make a difference at my company. Over the years I have found that I am working with a group of people who are successful because what they do matters to them. They go out and do their job to make a difference, and when that happens our customers, our members and our company benefits. Everyone wins. Are you making a difference? Are you doing something that matters?