Million Dollar Consulting, Sixth Edition: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice, 6th Edition by Alan Weiss

Author:Alan Weiss [Alan Weiss]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781264264926
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Published: 2021-11-22T23:00:00+00:00

I think you get the idea.

Now let me deal with the ridiculous notion that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. It’s actually easier to take permission to begin with.

PERMIT ME

When you fly on almost any plane, and particularly in first class, there is usually a flight attendant jump seat adjacent to the lavatory. Let me pose a scenario that many of you have experienced with this configuration.

Let’s say that you’re waiting for your flight to depart at the gate or in an air club, and you realize you should stop in the restroom. However, your attention is diverted or you have to take a phone call, and you find yourself in the line to board, not having made the pit stop. You figure, “I’ll use the lavatory on the plane.”

Yet the plane takes off, and this is one of those pilots who doesn’t extinguish the seat belt sign until next month. You wait and wait, watching that gestapo-like flight attendant and worry that this person will announce over the PA system, “We have a passenger standing in the aisle with the ‘seat belt’ sign still illuminated endangering our collective safety. Please restrain him while I request police at our destination!”

So you sit there quietly contemplating when kidney damage might begin when someone behinds you gets up and goes to the restroom receiving just a smile from the flight attendant. As soon as that person returns to a seat, you bolt for the lavatory, bumping into two other passengers with similar intent.

What has happened on my permission meter is that someone who seizes more permission than you has now given you permission, which has empowered you (Figure I3.2). Empowerment of this sort can occur with innovative ideas, prudent risk, new approaches, provocative writing, and so forth. The question is: Do you give yourself permission or wait for it? And if you wait for it, do you need just one prompt, or must the entire “herd” set the example? (Maybe the second person to use the restroom will draw the ire of the flight attendant? Maybe a woman was fine, but not a man? Or an older person, but not a younger person?)

There are those who never feel they have permission. Even when given something in writing (for example, a handicapped parking placard), they feel someone might object to their “taking advantage.” These people will always be at the back of the line or sacrificing something they’ve actually earned.

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