The Tribe has Spoken
Do you sometimes forget why you do, whatever it is that you do? For a moment, I forgot.
You see I was faced with an interesting reality check the other day.
What I saw, was an interesting project from a technical point of view. A project with a major company. A company that would have lots of other really interesting projects that we could assist with.
Are you doing the RIGHT thing?
But I missed something, and my team reminded me of it, in no uncertain terms….
They asked me,”Is this really a project we want to be involved with”? You see, there were some deeper moral issues associated with the work that I needed to face up to. And with the reminder from my team, I did. And we declined the project. It hurt us to do so. But it was the right thing to do.
So are there things that you won’t do or be associated with in your work? I’m sure there are. But it’s not always easy to say No, or to walk away is it? We all face commercial pressures, targets to meet and people to ‘keep happy’. But hopefully when you need to make that ‘big call’ you can too.
Sometimes we need to reflect on why we do what we do. What gets us out of bed in the morning, and what makes us feel valued and useful.
At Logistics Bureau we did this a while ago. Prompted by an awesome video from Simon Sinek (shown below).
And we discovered why we do what we do. Right across the group, it was unanimous. And it was:
Inspiring People and Businesses to Change their World
In a positive way of course. We always aim to leave people and places in better shape after our Supply Chain Consultants have been there. Sometimes this means we have to decline projects. In fact we decline about 5-7% of projects each year. This can be because of a variety of reasons. Technically we don’t have the skills and experience, or maybe we don’t believe the potential client has realistic expectations. Yes that happens!
And occasionally we decline work, because the potential client’s business makes us uncomfortable. So if you work in Big Tobacco, or Whaling for example, please don’t give us a call. (The project above was not one of these by the way. It wouldn’t have made it past the first call).
Oh, and if you haven’t seen Simon Sinek talk about ‘Start with Why’ you really should. Here’s the video. Why do YOU, do what you do? Maybe comment below?
P.S. Feel free to comment below.
