You are the Company

Do you sometimes feel disillusioned about your company, insecure about your career advancement, or distraught by economic challenges? Do you wonder if your contributions are perceived as valuable, or question your own sense of purpose? Do you think that the company is responsible and should be doing something about the situation? You are the company.

When the Going Gets Tough. . .

Downsizing, rightsizing, and reorganization are pleasant terms for lay-offs. Salary adjustments, benefits reductions, eliminating overtime, hiring freeze, and mandatory vacations are symptoms of cost containment measures. Sometimes tough decisions in the company can make global economic conditions a little too close to home. You may have lost friends and colleagues during reorganization, or your pay may have been adjusted, or you may wonder about the security of your career. A natural reaction is to blame the company, to feel fear in the stability of the company, or to feel that the company has let you down. The problem with blaming the company or holding the company responsible is that it belies the very nature of employment, because you are the company.

If you are part of an organization and you have felt the impact of losing friends and colleagues, then you have first-hand experience to appreciate the magnitude of the contributions that other people make to an organization. It hurts to see good friends lose their jobs, even the ones that complained about those jobs in the past. There is shared burden of the responsibilities that must be achieved, even when there are fewer people in the organization to do them. Tough times can make the environment challenging and sometimes threatening. You may be looking to other individuals for reassurance, solace, or inspiration. Most likely, there are many other people who are looking for the same things from you. You have the opportunity and the responsibility to have as much impact as those around you, and more than those who have gone before you. You are the company.

Regardless of the size of the company, or your tenure, or your position, you are an important part of the organization. If you are a sole proprietor or a consultant, then you may very well be the entire company. If you are part of a larger organization, no matter what you do, there are others counting on you. It does not matter if you have been in your position for six weeks, six months, or six years, your contributions are important to the success of the organization and thereby affect everyone in it. Your contributions are valuable, and your demeanor has a significant impact on everyone around you. People are counting on you, because you are the company.

You are the Handshake to Vendors and Partners. . .

Do you interact with current or potential vendors, partners, service providers? To the outside world, your commitments and your actions are inseparable from the company. Vendors and partners will form an opinion of everyone in the company based on the experiences of interacting with you personally. It is presumed that your attitude and your reliability are formed by the culture of the organization and are representative of the value instilled by company policy. Your attitude is synonymous with the demeanor of the organization. If you are trustworthy, compassionate, consistent, and fair, then vendors and partners will expect the same to be true of nearly everyone in the company. Moreover, your actions and attitude can even overcome inadequacies in other areas of the organization and renew confidence with vendors and partners, because you are the company.

No amount of advertising dollars, marketing, or branding will overcome personal interaction and experience. You can put perfume on a pig, but it is still a pig. No logo, slogan, or rhetoric can compensate for poor performance, dishonesty, or a negative personal experience. On the other hand, earning a reputation as a reputable individual, a knowledgeable resource, and a dedicated partner are individual qualities that are powerful endorsements for the organization. Quality individuals are necessary assets to an organization, and much more valuable than a good logo or slogan. Good partners build lasting and mutually beneficial relationships. Good personnel are able to identify mutually rewarding relationships with partners, and great personnel know how to identify and deal with unfair or unreasonable partnerships. Creating, managing, and nourishing mutually rewarding relationships requires skill, experience, talent, and determination. To those vendors and partners you are more than the handshake, you are the company.

You are the Face and the Voice to Customers. . .

With customers and clients there are two primary activities during which you are the face of the voice of the company. You are the face and the voice of the company when you are asking the prospective customer to buy from you, or you are the face and voice of the company when you are asking the customer to buy from you again. Sales and marketing activities are intended to convince a prospect that purchasing goods or services from the company is not only a good idea, but the best idea. Sometimes the sales representative is the only face or voice that a customer will ever associate with a company on a personal level. This is a very big responsibility. Sometimes sales occur through a channel, which means that the company sales representative must effectively communicate, motivate, and enable a channel partner to sell goods or services on his or he behalf. This is a special talent, because the person and company acting on behalf of the sales representative must have complete confidence in the person that they are dealing with, so the channel partner can pass on this confidence through the channel and to the ultimate customer. Such confidence comes from relationships that established between people, not between buildings, logos, or contracts. To customers and channel partners, the face and the voice of the sales representative are the face and voice of the company.

Customer service and operations activities are intended to convince existing customers that the original investment commitment was the best idea, and that it would be a good idea to do it again. Customer Service and operations are responsible for protecting the company reputation, delivering on commitments, and enabling repeat sales. The sales, operations, and service departments must be synchronized and aligned in an organization to voice accurate expectations and commitment, and then to deliver them. In many cases, the only personal interaction that occurs with a company may be the result of a problem or a service event. The responsiveness, compassion, and resolution are representative of the entire organization. Empowering customer service demonstrates commitment to live up to expectations. Compassion demonstrates care, and cements a lasting relationship when reliable results are produced. To the customer, the customer service experience is the face and the voice of the company.

With Great Power comes Great Responsibility. . .

Your decisions, actions, and reactions have tremendous impact on your colleagues, partners, and customers. Your decisions may directly impact a partner today, or the performance of your responsibilities may influence the response of a colleague or customer tomorrow. It is important to recognize the value of your contributions. Your comments, optimism, and enthusiasm may be the motivation that someone else needs right at this very moment. Acting with determination and commitment demonstrates leadership and responsibility that both internal and external customers are actively searching for right now. You have the ability to influence relationships and reputation with and within your company. It does not matter how important or insignificant you may have thought your job duties to be. What matters is how much you personally can contribute to the success of your colleagues, your partners, and yourself, because you are the company.

Footnote to Job Hunters . . .

If you are in career transition and looking for your next company, remember that you are your own company. Treat your career transition with the same diligence and commitment that you would treat job responsibilities. Develop an active campaign to promote your capabilities, nurture communications with former colleagues, and maintain a rigorous and disciplined schedule to invest your time in locating an opportunity to advance your career. As with any job, there will be some setbacks and disappointments. Some tasks are not as enjoyable as others in the doing of them, but may be equally satisfying on the completion of them. When hunting for your next job, treat the transition as part of your career development. Learn to market yourself, sell your capabilities, and take care of prospective employers as your customers. The commitment and discipline that you put into the career transition is often reflected in the attributes of the organization that recognizes these qualities in you. If you want the next company to see the quality in you, then let them see that you are your company.

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Words of Wisdom

"Sometimes we think that we are holding bronze and only realize that it was Gold when we do not have it anymore. Treat everyone like Gold, and most often they will show you the Gold within them."- Samson Eshetu

"Customers don't distinguish between you and the organization you work for. Nor should they. To your customer's way of thinking, you are the company. Customers don't know how things get done behind doors marked 'employees only'. They don't know your areas of responsibility, your job description, or what you can and cannot personally do for them. And they don't care. To customers, those things are your business, not theirs."- Ron Zemke, author of 'Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service'

"You don't have to spend a jillion dollars on advertising to get your word out. What matters is that customers have a good experience with your product at every single point of contact. We completely obsess about execution. Doing good is good business.”- David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airlines

"Others can stop you temporarily - you are the only one who can do it permanently.”- Zig Ziglar, author of 'See You at the Top'

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