The Power of the Truth

After spending many years in the floor covering business, which is not that much different than most other business, I have come to respect people who confront difficult situations head on. There is very little more frustrating than trying to deal with people that skirt the issues or are unavailable or always impossible to track down. In today’s business
environment more than ever it is important to be transparent with your
suppliers and customers especially when things are not going as designed.

As a business person there is nothing that upsets me more than people who don’t step up to the plate and take responsibility for their actions. Excuses and blaming others only adds more discourse to what is already an uncomfortable situation. While no one wants to hear bad news or that something that they expected to happen will not, I believe that a straight
forward explanation of the issue at hand can go a long way toward accepting the reality of the issue and working to move past it.

Bad news and mistakes are part of doing business. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t experienced the disappointment of a supplier, customer or employee not doing what was expected. Sometimes it is the result of bad or no communication. Often it is that someone was depending on someone else who didn’t perform as expected. Bottom line is that once the issue are identified if people step up and take responsibility the issues will not fester
and energy can be shifted to other areas that can be beneficial to the business.

All too often what happens is that fingers are pointed in various directions. Junior level employees hide behind their supervisors and the relationships that are so important to successful business are damaged. The idea is to learn from the mistakes and not make them again. Take responsibility for them and fix them as soon as possible and move on.

If I have learned one thing in all my years of business, it is that while it might hurt to tell the truth is always hurts more to not do so. People might not like what you have to tell them, but the truth is the truth. I personally am not smart enough to lie to people and then
remember what I said. In fact my memory is suspect enough that unless I tell the truth with everything I am trying to deal with during the day I wouldn’t have any chance of remembering to whom I said what. Therefore, I have found that taking responsibility for my actions and telling the truth is one way I have found to help separate myself from my competition. In this regard I expect everyone I deal with, whether customer, supplier or employee to do the same. After all is said and done it all comes back to having integrity which in my mind is my most valuable asset!