Wanting in or wanting out.

• Author: Hall, Robert
• Position: Marketing Solutions

When it comes to your organization, who is wanting in and who is wanting out? We could start with shareholders. When more people are wanting in than wanting out, the prospects are very good that the stock price will climb. On the other hand if you have a number of shareholders who are running for the exits or feeling trapped because they will take a beating if they do, that's the tyranny of 'wanting out'.

Certainly it is no different with employees. They are the lifeblood of designing, creating, and delivering whatever products or services you offer. How many and which ones are wanting in? How many and which ones are wanting out, but, because of the job market, health care, salary level, or geographic requirements are staying put? It is like their mind has decided to escape but theft body remains incarcerated.

Finally, we get to customers. Are more wanting out than in? Are we losing more of our more profitable customers, or ones who have been with us a while? Are the ones wanting in likely to make the enterprise more valuable and more attractive to shareholders, employees, and other customers over time?

All of these questions take us to a more basic question. What attracts and what repels shareholders, employees, and customers? What is the anatomy of 'wanting in' and 'wanting out'? Why have so many people wanted in Krispy Kreme donuts and why do less want in now? Will as many want in Starbucks now as they raise their prices and become even more ubiquitous? Is the number of people who want in Wal-Mart without end? What has Commerce Bank of New Jersey done to create so many shareholders, employees and customers who 'want in'?

Achieving and connecting

There are many complicated answers to these questions. At its bare essence I believe the answer boils down to two variables. Edward Hallowell, a researcher, writes that for most people the two most powerful experiences in life are achieving and connecting. Achieving is all about performance, being competitive, delivering more value, being both effective and efficient. Achieving individually and collectively as a society raises our standard of living and gives us confidence. An over emphasis on achievement, especially self-achievement, can also leave us from time to time a little cold, empty and even dispassionate.

Connecting, on the other hand, is all about how we relate to one another and how our humanness and emotion are fed and sustained in the process. The word "passion" is rooted in the...