Break Free of the Pack

As I often do on Saturday mornings, I went to exercise around a local lake. I’ve really grown to love this location, since the track is about 1.5 miles long, and there are lots of people there doing the same thing I am… some running, some walking, some doing a little bit of both. It’s a mixed bag of people with varying fitness levels, doing their own thing, so I don’t feel pressured to complete the course in any specific time, or for that matter, worry about who’s checking to see how many laps I’ve done on my daily run/jog/walk.

Anyway, on this particular Saturday morning, I “ran” into one of my sales people just as I was getting on the path. Of course, we started to talk and walk together, but she was walking clockwise around the lake instead of counter clockwise as most of the walkers/runners do. I believe that I may have said something to her about how strange it felt to “go against the grain.”

When we separated after the first lap (I won’t tell you who needed to pick up the pace), I realized that going against the grain gave me a completely different perspective of my morning run… and my fellow runners. Since I was meeting most of them head on, I heard more, “hellos” and “good mornings,” and saw more smiles than I normally did. I realized that seeing people face-to-face made my exercise time more enjoyable, and I actually did more laps than I normally do.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we spend our lives always going against the grain, especially in business, but you might want to think about a different approach when dealing with a particularly difficult project, problem or prospective client. The direct approach has always proven to be the most effective, but it seems we’ve diluted that “in your face” connection with voice-mail, e-mail and the Internet. Maybe a return to face-to-face contact will help us build stronger relationships with our clients and prospective clients, rather than relying on Facebook or some of the other social media, which don’t allow for that kind of personal interaction.

We all get in a rut… doing the same things the same way because it’s become a habit, or because it may have worked in the past. But it’s a tough new economic world out there. Maybe it’s time to break free of the pack and try a new, head-on approach. You may just meet more people (and therefore accomplish more) than if you just follow the crowd.