I was listening to the radio the other day and an advertisement came on for a local bank. They talked about how they were "big enough and small enough" to meet your business needs. It was a good ad, and I liked the creativity. They talked about how the bank was big enough to be able to supply you with check and credit card reading machines, but also small enough for someone to come help you get them set up.
To me that's a great balance, and one that many companies can't maintain as they grow. Too often people forget the small enough part as they strive to grow sales. It's easy to stop doing the little things in customer service, or even for employees that helped you grow.
I thought that JD Edwards did a pretty good job of taking care of their employees, and remembering that each individual was a person, and not a resource. They weren't perfect, but for a 5,000+ person company, they came close. Very few other large companies that I have worked for or seen have done that well.
On the other hand, I worked for a small financial services company at one point and they seemed to never understand they were small and it paid to remember to pay attention to both clients and employees. With grand plans, they always seemed to forget to do the little things. Birthdays weren't noticed, clients often had someone new to talk to, or small promises weren't followed through on, and rarely was an apology given when something went wrong. Clients, and employees, seemed to get nickel-and-dimed constantly while upper management wasn't. They were too small and definitely not big enough.
I work for a great company and I think they're big enough and small enough, but I'm so far away and see them rarely that I don't really get to experience the culture. However if I ever have to look for another company to work for, or I get to the point of hiring people in my own company, I want to be big enough and small enough. Big enough to sustain the business and earn enough profit, small enough that people enjoy being customers.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.mevio.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.
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Today's podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.
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