Saturday, November 13, 2010

Transactional or what?

Business relationships are polarising. There are times when we just want the outcome, but we don’t want the engagement. There are other times when in order to get the outcome, we have to do the engagement.

I went into a Lush outlet in Newcastle the other day for the first time. The immediate thing I noticed was an almost overwhelming perfume or scent, but it was not and could not be distinctive, because of the range of products displayed. Secondly, the vast array of colour everywhere made an immediate positive impact on my senses. I like colours.

Thirdly was the extraordinary attentiveness of the staff. They were extremely keen on asking all sorts of ‘open’ questions that did indeed elicit information from me. But as I left the shop empty handed, I did not feel comfortable that these three strangers, in the space of ten minutes, knew how many daughters I had, the name of my wife and the colour of her hair, where I was from and whether I use after shave or not.

In a world where what we do with people can be seen simplistically as transactional or transformational, I think that when buying soap I would prefer the former, rather than the latter.

We need to know, in our relationships, where this is all going. As far as using our time and our energy, it is vital to get the difference.

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