Preferences, Choice and the value of No

One of the personality faults I am still trying to work out of my engineering brain is that not all problems need a solution. Making a transition from a purely technical problem-solving personality to a CEO and someone that motivates the organization to get things done and remain agile is challenging, even more so as the number of cooks in the kitchen grows and number of problems to deal with grows exponentially.

Today I was calling in to place an order, a generic good that I can get anywhere. I struggled through the accent with someone that must have washed up on the coast of California yesterday and I wanted to pay with an Amex. They only took Visa and MasterCard.

Now, a few years ago I might have let that bother me, I might have asked if there was an alternate form of payment, if they had a discount if I gave them a less “consumer-friendly” card, etc. Today, I just politely thanked her and went to the next number on the list.

The beauty of choice, commodity and global markets is that you have a lot of choices. You have the right to have a preference, as much as they have a right to say “No, we will not do business with you under those circumstances” and you can either make things easy and capture every possible sale or draw a line in the sand and only do the kind do of business that you want to do.

In the end, I didn’t get upset, I got exactly what I wanted under the terms that I wanted and it didn’t distract me from the mission I set for myself today.

Hakuna Matata.