How - Dov Seidman [67]
Any possible collaboration between us could have ended right there, but there were a few powerful forces at work in this small, but common, interaction. The first was the reputation and trust I had built with David over the years. He knew that I placed the highest premium on getting my HOWs right. That reputation bought us a second chance. “It was not the ordinary benefit of the doubt you extend to companies,” David told me. “In the ordinary course of things, you make a call or two and you move on. Too many people want our business to waste time with those who don’t seem to.” The second force lay in David’s HOWs with Adam. He was transparent about our prior relationship when he first recommended us to Adam as a company he should definitely meet with, and equally forceful about that fact in his immediate response after learning of our failings. Adam could sense that David truly believed we were a company for Cablevision to know more about. The third force, of course, was Adam’s perseverance and thoroughness in his search for the right company to assist Cablevision.
When Adam met Chris at that conference, he was impressed with the way Chris immediately owned the situation, discovered the miscommunication, and made it clear that it was out of character with what we believed in as a company. Chris was able to restore the reputation that had been damaged. In the ensuing months, Cablevision conducted a selection process during which they gave us full and honest consideration on the merits of what we had to offer. In the end, they selected one of our competitors that they felt better met their current needs. But I believe that we built a strong and trusting relationship, and as their needs evolve, I believe our dialogue will continue.
A small moment. A technical glitch. In a hyperconnected world, where the Expectation of Response factor is almost instant, such small moments can mean the difference between sustained, ongoing success and looking for your next job. Me to David, David to Adam, Adam back to David, Adam to Chris: To thrive in business today, these are the sorts of interpersonal synapses that we must seek to strengthen and extend. This is the sort of Wave that we need to make every day. Ours continues because, despite the “wardrobe malfunction” that almost killed it, our synapses were filled with some powerful forces.
Frameworks of understanding begin in the mind, in the actual chemical processes that fill the synapses between the active neurons in our brains, in the way we choose to see events and interactions, and in the language we choose to craft our thoughts. As we begin to see the connections and connectedness of the world around us in the light of HOW, we begin to look for ways to act on those connections, to affect them in powerful and productive ways. This part looks at the HOWs of behavior, the ways of conducting ourselves in an internetworked world: transparency, trust, and reputation.
CHAPTER 7
Doing Transparency
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
—Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
For years, the bicycling community considered the locks made by Kryptonite, now a division of Ingersoll Rand, the gold standard in bicycle security. In 2001, Bicycling magazine made its New York 3000 lock an editor’s choice, saying, “The company that invented the U-lock just never quits raising the bar on theft prevention. . . . if you want peace of mind when securing your pride and joy this is about as good as it gets.”1 Kryptonite confidently marketed the U-shaped devices as “tough locks for a tough world.”2 Then, in 2004, Chris Brennen came along.
Brennen, a 25-year-old cycling enthusiast, regularly posted to a small online bulletin board for fellow bike nuts, and on September 12 he posted a small notice claiming that Kryptonite’s famously impenetrable locks could be opened by anyone with a 10-cent BIC pen and a few seconds to spare.3 Fourteen hours