Thomas Thiu makes an amazing wine. He is the owner and winemaker at Chateau La Couronne in Bordeaux and it was my pleasure to spend some time with him at his chateau this summer. Some friends had joined us for a few days in wine country so I called Thomas and asked if we could have a tour of his property, which he graciously agreed to. For over three hours we walked the vineyards, explored the chai (barrel room) of Reclos de la Couronne, and tasted from several vintages, including the 2009 still in the barrels. Thomas took his time and explained (in English with an Irish accent – he spent two years there) the intricate process of winemaking. Thomas makes great wine. I’ve selected his wine in three different blind tastings and I have great respect for his winemaking ability. He knows every square foot of his vineyard and as we walked through the vines he pointed out the differences between the various plots. “This plot has excellent Cabernet and will go to my first wine, and that small plot over there is for my second wine,” he said, noting the differences in even the smallest parcels. Back in the chai, among the barrels and tanks he told us, “good winemaking is a process and every step of the process is important. If you screw up one part of the process you screw up the whole wine.” In other words, “The process is everything.”
In addition to wine tasting, I’ve just finished reading “Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It is an excellent book that gives full weight to Lincoln’s memorial in Washington, D.C. and provides amazing insight into his leadership. Lincoln knew perhaps better than anyone the necessity of process. He won the Republican nomination on the third ballot – everyone’s second choice. He did not campaign on an anti-slavery platform. His platform focused on keeping the union together and he was, at the time, willing to allow for the compromise provided in the Constitution that allowed slavery in the states where it already existed. At the time of his election the nation wasn’t ready for Emancipation and Lincoln’s highest priority was holding the nation together.
But Lincoln also knew when the nation – that is, the North - was ready to be led. He was not the kind of politician who was a slave to the latest polling data, nor was he an ideologue who forced his view on a population he knew was not ready for it. Lincoln spent time among the American people and he knew when they could be led and where he could lead them. He knew the Emancipation Proclamation would be irrevocable – that once enacted there would be no going back - and he knew that in 1862 the process had advanced to a place where the majority of people in the North were ready to embrace the elimination of slavery.
He knew that people needed process and that after two years of an awful war, people in the North were ready to break the chains of an immoral system they were invariably fighting against. It had been a long and difficult process. Had he tried to enact Emancipation immediately after being elected the resistance would have been overwhelming and he would have lost support for the war and the cause of freedom. Had he run away from it in he would have lost the moral justification for the war, and the country would be split in two. The process and timing were everything.
On New Years Day, 1863 Abraham Lincoln had been shaking hands all morning at the annual New Year’s Day White House Open House. In the afternoon The Emancipation Proclamation was brought to the White House for him to sign, and as he sat at his desk he picked up the pen and put it down again. His hand was shaking from being squeezed by so many well wishers at the Open House and he said that he didn’t want his signature to be shaky lest in years to come people would say he was unsure about his decision to sign the legislation. It is the clearest and boldest signature of Lincoln on record and when he signed it the greatness of his legacy was firmly entrenched in the history of America.
Most of us don’t like change and we do it badly. We avoid it as long as we can, and when we finally are forced to confront a problem situation or move in a different direction we use a hatchet when a scalpel is required. Change of leadership, conflict resolution and problem solving all require the right process and timing. An employee who isn’t performing is shocked when he is fired with no warning. A spouse is served with divorce papers and had no idea it was coming. A friendship is cut off after years of engagement and hurt parties wonder what went wrong. The process – if it existed at all – was badly led, and the end result is hurt, anger, resentment and in the worst cases, legal fees.
We all need process. We need to participate in the process of decision making when we are involved – directly or indirectly - in the consequences of that decision. We need time to think and consider our options and the options of the other people involved. We need the space and distance for reasonable thoughts to prevail. We need the opportunity to stand in the other man’s shoes, and we need time to mitigate our emotions. The process includes conversation and the exchange of ideas, and room to correct mistakes. It allows others to be heard, and it explores options.
To make a great wine you must give extraordinary care in every step of the process. The vines are cared for while the grapes ripen. The harvest is careful, and the selection of grapes is intense. The first fermentation is measured and the temperature is meticulously monitored. The oak barrels are selected and the percentage of new oak and old oak is calculated. The wine is allowed to sit and ferment and age before it is placed in bottles and sold. Great wine needs process, and the process is everything. “If you screw up one part of the process you screw up the whole wine.”
Good decisions and enduring relationships also take time. They must be cared for in the "vineyard," and monitored as they "ferment." They must be given the right circumstances – “oak barrels” – in which to rest, and they must be given time to mature. Every business is the people business, and people need process. An organization’s various teams need process and an organization’s customers need process.
Process – great process – is important inside an organization as well as outside the organization. An organization's teams need process as they work together, and an organization’s customers need process as they decide to purchase what the organization is offering.
When Lincoln went to Gettysburg and famously said, “Four score and seven years ago...,” he was telling us that we had all been part of a grand process. The American experiment of self-government and freedom was a process that began with the Declaration of Independence but did not end there. The blood spilled and the lives lost on the battlefields of the Civil War were an awful and necessary part of that process but without those sacrifices the words of the Declaration, that “All Men Were Endowed By Their Creator With Certain Inalienable Rights,” could not have become a reality.
The next step for your company, your career, your family and your life is probably not a gigantic decision or a monumental change. You may have your “Gettysburg” moments, but it is more likely you’ll begin by “electing a Lincoln” and engaging a process. The importance of that process and the necessity of the first step cannot be overstated. The process is everything.
It’s a familiar scene, people standing around the boarding area of a flight complaining about the airline and how much they hate to fly. Eventually someone says what everyone knows, “There are no good airlines today.” Well…almost.
I’m flying a lot these days and I dread every time I have to do it. I hate going through security. I hate having to be there an hour ahead of time. I hate the baggage policies. I hate the nickel and dime attitude, and I hate being crammed into a small plane with no room to do anything but breathe. My sense is that people generally hate the airlines – except for those of you who fly one particular airline, and are saying, “Not me, I love Southwest.” Yes, in an industry where the majority of companies are struggling to make money, and where most of their customers hate them, one company has managed to not only be profitable, but also to be loved by their customers and employees.
The topic for this newsletter is “Every business is in the people business,” and there may be no better example of this principle than Southwest Airlines. Several years ago I read an article about Southwest that quoted Colleen Barrett, its President at the time as saying, “We’re in the people business, and we just happen to fly airplanes.” I love that quote and think there is a direct correlation between her attitude and why the company is profitable. When you are in the people business your perspective changes. You recognize that if your customers love you then they will be loyal to you, they will keep flying with you, and they will tell their friends to fly with you.
Twenty years ago I heard the leadership guru John Maxwell speak to a group of pastors. He told the assembled ministers that they were not in the “God business,” but rather in the people business. He said, “You’re not in the God business because God doesn’t need you in His business. You’re in the people business because people need you.”
Your entire perspective changes when you realize that whatever your business, you are in the people business. A restaurant isn’t in the food business – it’s in the people business, because people are the ones who eat at a restaurant. A financial services business isn’t in the money business, it’s in the people business because people own and generate the money being managed. You can insert your own business here and ask yourself the questions: “What business do I think I’m in, “What (people) business am I actually in?
There are two corollaries to this principle. 1) Every problem is a people problem and 2) Every solution is a people solution.
When Southwest has an overbooked flight they don’t have a “seats” problem or a “capacity” problem, they have a people problem. Some people are not going to board that flight. The solution to the problem isn’t to add more seats to the airplane – they can’t. The solution is to have gate agents who know that they are in the people business and that they need to find volunteers willing to be “bumped.” Why would someone be willing to be bumped? Easy, they know Southwest will reward their willingness. Every airline has to “bump” passengers at some time, but it’s the way you treat the passenger when you have to bump them that makes the difference.
This point was driven home to me recently when dealing with my wine club. The wrong wine was shipped to St. Louis, leaving me with ten extra cases of wine that needed to be sold and a retailer who freaked out over the mistake. I didn’t have a “wine problem” (it was the wrong wine) or a “warehouse problem” (they shipped the wrong wine). I had a people problem. Someone somewhere screwed up and someone was freaking out about it. The solution was a people solution. I called my wine club members and some friends and asked if they’d like some additional wine. The wine was sold quickly and half the problem was solved. Then I confronted the retailer and we talked out our problem. In the end I changed retailers – different people. I needed someone who wasn’t going to freak out anytime something didn’t run smoothly, because as we all know, mistakes happen. Flights are overbooked, markets crash, food is overcooked and the wrong wine is shipped. The challenge is how the people will solve the problem for other people.
This all may seem obvious and basic to anyone who runs a business, but how often have you been treated like a commodity instead of a person, and wondered, “What’s going on with this company that they don’t think their customers are important?”
I flew to Paris last month on Delta and it was a quintessential example of being treated like a commodity. Delta has just taken over the Philadelphia to Paris route from Air France so I thought I would try it out. They are flying a basic 757 with six seats across and an aisle down the middle. For eight and a half hours, everyone was crammed into this small space and everyone was miserable. A full flight at high international rates makes good bottom line sense, but everyone grumbled about how tight the space was and no one was happy to be on that flight. At one point I got up to stretch my legs and the flight attendant told me I had to return to my seat because I couldn’t block the aisle.
So, while I’m sure this flight was profitable in the short run, will it have the staying power to be profitable in the long run? When I fly to Paris in June I’m flying Air France – and I’m willing to drive to Dulles (three and a half hours away) to do it because I’ll never subject myself to that Delta flight again. Why would an airline lose an international passenger? The answer is simple – they forgot they were in the people business.
Do you know what business you’re in?
