I was tempted to title this post, Selfishness. But I realized I’m not really describing selfishness.
Being self centered, we are focused on our own needs, desires, goals and aspirations. Selfishness, by contrast, is that same focus, but at the expense of others. The selfish focus on win/lose. It’s toxic and cannot be tolerated in any environment.
Self centeredness is different, it can prioritize, “my success, my win….,” but not at the expense of others. But self centeredness, while not toxic like selfishness, can be very limiting.
The concept of WIIFM, What’s In It For Me, can be both selfish and self centered.
It’s human nature to be self centered, to be concerned about what’s happening to us, before anything else. We constantly focus on ourselves. What we do on a day to day basis, how we spend our time, what we want to achieve and our goals. These may be getting certain jobs or roles, our comp plans, our careers, our personal success, our dreams and aspirations. We do everything we can to achieve these.
But something we lose in our obsession about our own success, is that we can never achieve our goals/dreams without the support and help of others. We can’t achieve our WIIFM, unless we consider at “What’s in it for others?”
Anything we achieve is dependent on others. Making a sale, leading an organization, growing our careers, growing our earnings, growing our status. Without the support and help of others, we will fail to achieve what we want. In fact we fail.
We are not alone, we do not exist in isolation. We achieve our goals with and through others achieving their goals. And, perhaps, this is where the true joy of accomplishment is.
When we forget this, we move from being self-centered to selfish. And, while we might get success in the short term, it’s difficult to continue this on an ongoing basis. The people we depend on for success are no longer interested in supporting us because that support comes at the expense of their success.
But I wonder if our obsession with being self centered limits us?
What if we proactively help others succeed? What if we helped them grow and achieve? What if our mindsets looked at shared success?
Might we accomplish much more? Might we create deeper relationships with our customers, colleagues? Might we build stronger organizations and communities? Imagine a world where we genuinely recognize that success is shared.
Getting really ‘sales tactical’ about this, but the division of new customer acquisition and customer growth / retention is a classic example of how work systems can create a fertile breeding ground for selfishness. Acquire new customers at any cost to hit your goals, fire it over to ‘customer success’, and move on to the next is all about selfish short term gain. Absolutely, shared success will deliver much greater sustained value. Value for the sales person, as the customer achieves the promised benefits and they get to sell more. Value for the enterprise, as the customer expands and renews, and critically, value for the customer as they achieve goals that they thought weren’t possible.
But how many companies actually measure customer accrued value? Net Promoter Score really isn’t it, it’s the enterprise version of ‘Enough about me, what do YOU think about me?’…
Great thoughts David, thanks for contributing. As you suggest, we underestimate the power of retention/growth. If we serve the customer well, they are likely to retain/renew. If we help the customer innovate, they will grow, looking for new opportunities with us. If we do that well, they will refer others to us….. And the cycle continues…..