The "At Least I'm Not That Guy" Paradox

Let me preface this with a disclaimer:

This not a Bible lesson. I personally am a Christian, but all of the Biblical reference is for the purpose of illustrating an important business principal. With that disclaimer, here we go.

So, when I was a kid, we went to church a lot... I mean a whole lot... and unlike many of the ideals and trends that were handed down to me as a result of tradition, this one has proven to be endlessly relevant and impactful throughout my life. In any case, I remember being told a story in which Jesus was, believe it or not, telling a story. Apparently, he had a solid understanding of the fact that most people can't grasp how a concept relates to them unless they can point a finger and say "I'm not gonna be like that person," so he did this fairly often. In that same spirit, I'm going to present to you this little business illustration (Stay tuned, because this is a story within a story).

So in this particular story, Jesus was talking about two guys who went to church. One of the guys kneeled down to pray. This particular guy was kind of shady and he knew it. As such, his prayer went something like this: 

"Dear God,

I come before you humbly. I know I've been kind of shady, I'm sorry, help me not to be shady anymore."

The other guy was a real holy roller. He was kind of like my family during my childhood; at the church whenever the doors were open. He prayed, and it went something like this:

"Dear God,

I thank you I'm not as bad as that shady guy over there."

Now, there's no shortage of reasons I can come up with as to why this was just horrible. In this case, let's just look at homeboy's attitude (yes, I said homeboy. I promise I'll include enough intricate articulation and graduate-level vocabulary throughout the remainder of this composition to compensate for it). 

In the Bible, it says that God wants people to come before him humbly. It may seem that he's just doing this because he's full of himself (and there are those who would argue whether or not he's justified in this way of thinking) however, upon closer inspection, I realized that this was not the point at all. When you look at the posturing of the two guys, it shows the consequences of lacking humility. One guy displayed a great amount of self awareness. He was flawed, but he was also very conscious of his flaws. His humility allowed him to take an accurate self inventory, and approach God in a respectful manner.

The second gentleman in the story had an utter lack of humility. Not only did he display an elitist attitude and lack of respect for his fellow man, but the fact that he was so stuck up prevented him from seeing his own flaws and, by extension, prevented him from making atonement for them. 

So who was really better off? The guy who was apologizing for his flaws, or the guy who was pointing out someone else's flaws instead of fixing his own. Beyond that, how flawed was the first guy really? He may have had his own issues, but he was wise enough to know it, and humble enough to ask for help to get it right.

(Admit it, you feel a bit of Fremdschämen looking at this)

So let's apply this concept to business. How many times have we seen a commercial where one company is making comparisons to, and bad mouthing their competition? Anybody remember that dirty feeling you get after seeing it? The Germans refer to this as Fremdschämen. I use the German term, because the closest thing we have to this in English is "second-hand embarrassment". Either way it's a feeling most of us know all-too-well, and not a very good way to convince anyone that you offer a superior product.

Now let's look at the reverse of that. I remember Anthony Anderson once saying in a movie that somebody who's busy walking the walk doesn't have time to talk the talk. This is highly representative of some of the more successful businesses to date, as well as our parishioner in the above example. He was too busy focusing on getting himself right to notice that he was being judged by the people around him, meanwhile, the guy who was judging him was too busy passing condemnation to take a hard look at himself and figure out where he could improve.

If you study many of the most successful companies in existence, you'll notice that it is a seldom occurrence for them to bad-mouth their competition. Many don't even publicly acknowledge the fact that they have competition. Steve Jobs didn't make Apple the company that he did by looking at other companies. He looked at those who determined whether his products would succeed, and made a dogged effort to give them what they were asking for. Some business professionals refer to this as "customer facing policies," or even "customer-centric operation." 

When you're busy making your business the best it can be and ensuring that the entity that holds the fate of your company in their hands (in this case the client/customer) is satisfied, you don't have to

worry about your competition. In this current microwave generation, it is a widely held misconception that customers are more concerned with saving money than being treated with respect and dignity. If you don't believe this to be a misconception, just go down to your nearest airport and ask a few people how much they'd be willing to pay to avoid dealing with TSA; I think you'd be surprised by some of the answers. If you asked those same people why, most would give you some derivative of the fact that they don't like being publicly humiliated by crass government employees. If there was another option that treated customers with a reasonable amount of respect, it would be the premiere choice.

And this brings us to the point of this whole post. When a business is even slightly better than the other guy they will usually be much more successful. The guy kneeling at the temple in the second paragraph wasn't perfect, but the main thing he did right was coming with the right attitude. In contrast, the guy who supposedly had it all together couldn't even get his approach right. There's a lot to be gained from thinking about this situation critically and looking at how it applies to the business landscape. The points I would emphasize are these:

1. Attitude is everything. Even though you may say all the right things to your client/customer, if you have an attitude that says that the client/customer is simply a means to an end, it will eventually manifest itself in your service, policies, customer interactions and, by extension, your reviews, reputation and profits.

2. Focus on making your business the best it can be; in doing so, you set the bar exceptionally high for anyone who would seek to poach your clients/customers.

3. Always be better than the next guy. This should not, however, be your minimal goal. If you're focusing on point #2, you should already be excelling past this goal.

4. Never arrive. Never reach the point where you think your business is so well established that you can start slacking in the area of customer service.

5. Don't bad-mouth the competition. Not only does it make your business seem petty and immature, but it could have the reverse of the intended effect. There's a Hollywood saying that goes like this: "there's no such thing as bad publicity. All publicity is good publicity." By bad-mouthing your competition, you may actually pique your clients'/customers' interest in the competing product or service.

So there you have it, The "At Least I'm Not That Guy" Paradox. As always, the concept goes deeper than what appears on the surface. I'm sure that as time goes on business will evolve and some of the more intricate aspects of this post may begin to lose their relevance, but the one thing never goes out of style is good customer service.