I recently reconnected with someone I had worked with when I was with another company. I always liked his style, so we stayed in touch. Our conversation turned to a particular thing we’re dealing with at my current company, and he had a definite opinion about what we should do. I won’t get into the details; I’ll just say this is not a trivial matter.
When I brought his comments to the person responsible for this area, they let me know they had already decided their path and wouldn’t be pursuing what my friend had suggested.
The question became: Should I listen to the insider who’s doing this work for us on a daily basis, or the outsider who has the benefit of his own experience? Both people are quite knowledgeable in different ways about the subject matter at hand.
As business owners we’re often faced with these dilemmas. We constantly get unsolicited advice from all of our friends, especially those associated with our industry. We’re paying somebody to do something, and then we get a piece of advice from the outside that may contradict what they’re doing, and may even be completely out of left field.
Ultimately we have to decide as business folk which is the right approach. And I’ll say for the record, sometimes we’re going to be right and sometimes we’re going to be wrong, but it is our decision.
I don’t have the final piece of advice that you must do it this way or that way, but what I ended up doing was asking the insider to at least consider the suggestion. Any advice that sounds reasonable should be explored, even if your insider says they’ve already chosen to go another way. It’s still overall your responsibility as the business owner, not theirs.
