In last week’s Thought for the Weekend, we shared a story about how we handled a recent service failure. We don’t just practice transparency and open communication with our customers, we live by it internally. Our entire team knows our annual, monthly and daily revenue numbers so they can hit our target goals; they are also included in conversations about marketing decisions, sales strategy, and our business successes and failures. To further keep the lines of communications open between our offices in North Carolina, Alabama, and Virginia, we’ve started what our employees fondly refer to as “The Weekly Family Meeting”.
My parents, who founded Matchmaker Logistics, taught me that total transparency and open communication are not only the hallmarks of successful businesses, but also the keys to a successful marriage. That said, not everything should be shared!
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I’m reminded of a story about a loving couple who had been very happily married for more then 60 years. Best friends, they shared everything; surely, there were no secrets between these two lifelong lovebirds.
One day, the old woman fell ill and was told by the doctors that she would not recover. She thought it was best to share the one thing she had kept from her husband all these years. She told him to look for a shoe box in the top of her closet. Her husband fetched the box and opened it at his wife’s bedside. Inside, he found two crocheted doilies and a stack of bills totaling $25,000.
The old man was completely distraught; how could he have not known about this? He asked his wife to explain.
“When we were to be married,” she began, “My grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doily.”
The little old man was so moved, he had to fight back tears. Only two precious doilies were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.
“Yes, honey,” he said, “That makes sense. But what about all of this money? Where did it come from?”
“Oh,” she replied, “that’s the money I made from selling the doilies.”
Share a little “transparency” this weekend,
~Bob
