My dog loves to lick out my cappuccino cup when I’m done. She sits around waiting for me to finish. It makes her day. Seriously. We buy her toys to play with, which she instantly buries or tears the stuffing out of, then runs around for weeks playing with an old 2×4 or a pine cone she finds lying around.
Yesterday I showed up at a client company for an executive strategy meeting, only to find the CEO and his top staff feverishly editing slides for today’s board of directors meeting. I dove in and helped them out, including some sticky Powerpoint formatting. It was no big deal, but at the end of the day, the CEO - a former boss and long-time client - was so thankful and relieved that he hugged me.
Now I’m way behind with that client, and I’ve got all kinds of unresolved strategy issues running around in my head, where they definitely shouldn’t be. And a company I have way too much stock in took a nose dive this morning. But as I’m compulsively worrying about all that, a family of quail - about a dozen little ones with one parent out front and the other bringing up the rear - walk by single file in search of breakfast. And everything seems right with the world. Just like that.
I can go out and buy my wife something nice, work my tail off so we have the things we need and some of the things we want, and of course she appreciates it. But if I do the dishes or even just empty out the dishwasher when it’s her turn, which doesn’t cost anything and only takes a few minutes, it really makes her day.
Look, I’m not really a touchy feely guy. And after two decades of marriage I’m probably only 5 or 10 years away from becoming a marginally acceptable husband. Not to mention that I’m about as Ayn Rand-ian and Gordon Gekko-ian about business as you can get without turning to the dark side.
But the fact is that everyone - your boss, coworkers, employees, customers, family, dog - everyone appreciates the little things you do for them in a manner that’s way out of proportion with the effort. I don’t know why, and maybe somebody can explain it to me, but it’s true. And I have a strong feeling that the more complicated the world gets, the more competitive the marketplace, the more important it is to keep that in mind.
You might also want to check out Waiting for the Phone to Ring: Recession Survival Tips for another uncharacteristically inspirational post.
