One of my favorite clients uses “Authentic, Brilliant, Sexy”. Those words are the litmus test for everything they develop, and it’s useful to have identified and summarized those internal corporate values. In that company, if we can look at a possible decision and it doesn’t match that frame, it’s not for us.

I also see great value in that interview question: “Teach me something about X.” I’ll use that, and I’d be thrilled with being asked it in an interview. I like working with smart people!

Updating clients on status is a great way to handle accountability. Ideally one should update clients before they ask for an update. That way they don’t have to keep visiting a sense of not knowing what’s going and will never be surprised.

I see this even in smaller scale situations all the time. I was at the hardware store the other day standing next to an employee waiting for him to ask how he could help. He was busy with another customer measuring tubing. I waited. He looked up and saw me. I waited…. He could easily have at that point set my expectations and said something like “Hi, I’ll be with you in 1 minutes, just gotta cut a couple more lengths of tubing.” At some point i walked away because I had no sense of how long he was going to take and he didn’t give me a good opportunity to ask. Left me feeling resentful.

Or at coffee shops… It makes a big difference when they tell you that they’ll be with you as soon as they finish making this drink. If they ignore you, you’ll feel unimportant and ignored.

Your business mantra is really powerful, and definitely something I strive for as well. But more importantly…

I feel a bit ashamed to admit this, but the accountability part really made me think. The lesson you learned about the importance of accountability and moving from silently working hard to actually setting and updating expectations is something I’m still working on. I acknowledge it, but still way too often fall back to just working and trying to make the deadlines without telling the client what’s going on.

Inspired by this post, I just sent a status update to my current client right after I finished reading

@Nick – I appreciate that! I’m glad this post could shed some light on that part of our culture.

@Sara – It’s true, i usually retreat to NextSpace to work more so than Socialize. It’s sort of backwards but it’s the only place downtown that i can rely on having an internet connection, power and a reasonable volume level for phone calls. Thanks for the positive feedback!