It’s About “Them”
By Alex Gertsburg, Esq., Managing Partner
There are a few “truisms” that Lou and I have relied on over the years to guide us when we’ve doubted the right move. These are the arrows always pointing to TRUE NORTH on the compass. There are not many of them.
Here’s one: It’s always about them. Your customers, your suppliers, your business partners, and most importantly, your employees. Whatever the issue, “when in doubt arrows out” (as Lee Brower might say).
Like your health, your bank account, your car, and so many other aspects of your life, if you take care of your employees, they’ll take care of you.
Let’s get really specific:
- We must trust them. We let them make decisions and we let them make mistakes. If we trust them they will trust us.
- We must honor them and celebrate them and appreciate them. They can work anywhere but they chose to work with us. When they win, they win for us.
- We must coach them. We must let them coach us, and we must listen.
- We must empathize with them, see them as the amazing people they are, not just as our employees, but as the parents and siblings and loved ones that they are to the other people in their lives.
- We must pay them well and give them great benefits, because it’s one way that we show them their value to us.
- We must love them like we love our own family. Full stop. They are as worthy and deserving of our love as we are.
- We must make them safe and make them feel safe. Safe to try new things. Safe to speak up, and to sometimes not speak at all.
- We must challenge them, know where they want to go, and show them the way there.
Bottom line – if we want them to take great care of our customers and our companies, we have to take great care of them, and their families.
It all seems so obvious, and yet we’re surprised when they leave us. We shouldn’t be. It’s usually because we broke one of these responsibilities.
And if we’ve done everything we’re supposed to do and they’re still not the right fit, and still can’t perform despite our best and most empathetic efforts, then we owe it to them, to our other employees and – lastly – to ourselves, to escort them off the bus. To liberate them to pursue their goals and their happiness elsewhere.
Running and growing a company isn’t easy. It’s a road filled with uncertainty and hard choices. When in doubt though, Lou and I keep it really simple – We work for them. We ask: How can we put them first and take care of them to the best of our ability?
Clarity. Focus. Much easier . . .
What’s the Difference Between a Last Will and Testament and Powers of Attorney?
By Connie Powall, Parter & Director of Legal Operations
Planning for the unexpected is a complicated and involved process, so it’s important to know the difference between legal documents like wills and powers of attorney. Wills and powers of attorney serve different purposes, but they often complement each other. Connie Powall, Esq, explains how you can benefit from using both.
Learn more in this week’s featured article.
Looking For A Project Engineer
By Tiffany Sacasas, Senior Recruiter
Our client is an innovative, growing, and trusted engineering and architectural consulting firm that is looking for a licensed Project Engineer to ensure the completion of design efforts with minimal direction and is responsible for the preparation and completion of disciplined engineering designs that are responsive to project needs.
Project Engineer – Gertsburg Licata Talent – Career Page (applytojob.com)
The Meta Lesson: How Not to Expand
By Colin O’Donnell, M&A Director
When Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of Facebook’s parent company to Meta, he promised a transformation of the online experience. That hasn’t quite worked out. M&A Director Colin O’Donnell explains the “The Meta Lesson” and what we’ve learned about how not to expand your company.
Learn more in this week’s featured article.
Common Misconceptions
By Alex Gertsburg, Esq., Managing Partner
I’m a chronic skeptic of mindlessly repeated aphorisms and a constant hunter for potential false narratives that keep making their way into people’s assumptions. This Wikipedia page of Common Misperceptions is a goldmine.
You’ll want to use this sparingly when calling B.S. on your friends at parties, but call B.S. you must sometimes. Great way to check your own assumptions here too.
A few of my favorites:
- Adidas is not an acronym for either “All day I dream about sports”, “All day I dream about soccer”, or “All day I dream about sex“. The company was named after its founder Adolf “Adi” Dassler in 1949. The backronyms were jokes published in 1978 and 1981.
- Twinkies have a shelf life of around 45 days, despite the common claim (usually facetious) that they remain edible for decades
- There are no known cases of children having been killed or seriously injured by poisoned candy or fruit given to them by strangers at Halloween or any other time, though there are cases where people have poisoned their own children.
- Turkey meat is not particularly high in tryptophan, and does not cause more drowsiness than other foods.[23][24] Reactive hypoglycemia from the high carbohydrate content of most Thanksgiving dinners is the major contributor to post-meal drowsiness.
- The Pyramids of Egypt were not constructed with slave labor.
