When seeking a creative alternative during a negotiation recently, I didn’t have the entire fact pattern: I knew my own version, of course, but surely even that was incomplete. But I had an alternate tool: my knowledge of systems. To identify an optimized outcome, I merely had to rely on my knowledge of patterns and systems learned decades earlier when I was a cocktail waitress.

When I graduated from university as a journalist in 1967, before my real job as a magazine editor was to begin in September, I spent the summer in Provincetown, MA. Serving breakfast at a griddle house didn’t provide much money, so when I heard of a job opening for a cocktail waitress at a fancy hotel, I applied.

As a non-drinker I didn’t frequent bars and had no clue what were in cocktails but I figured I could I learn. Patrick gave me the tools.

GETTING THE JOB

When I arrived for my interview, I was asked to wait by the bar. There I chatted with the funny, irreverent, charming and kind bartender Patrick. In our 10 minutes together, we chatted comfortably and teased each other as if we’d known each other for years:

P: I’ve been here for 13 years. Love it. Love the owners. I take care of them, and they take care of me. And the patrons are delightful. It’s a great job. You lookin’ to get that waitress job? What’s your name – you look like a Gazelda. I’m gonna call you that. Gazelda.

SD: Gazelda? THAT’S GREAT! I love it! And yes, I need the money so I’m interviewing for the job but probably wasting everybody’s time. I have no idea what’s in a cocktail. But I’m hard working, loyal, and I can quickly learn what I need to. I’m waiting tables now, and I’m good, but never served cocktails.

P: You’ll be fine. Just be your charming self and they’ll hire you. We like nice people around here. Tell them you’ve been a waitress and you’ll work hard. Don’t worry about the rest. I’ll take care of it when you get here. When you give me your order, I’ll put the drinks on the tray in the same order you wrote them, using a clock-face pattern with the first drink on the left middle, the 9:00 place, and go around clockwise. That way you’ll only need to remember who you took the first order from and don’t need to know the drinks.

I got the job – even got to do a nightly solo dance routine with the band to Night Train (tenor sax included!) – which doubled my tips. Eventually I learned all the drinks, of course. And Patrick continued helping me throughout the summer. He warned me when difficult customers entered, put up my drinks ahead of the other waitresses, made my drinks a bit stronger, all assuring me of higher tips. We were a team.

And I, Gazelda, gave Patrick 20% of all my tips throughout the summer.

SYSTEMS ARE STRUCTURAL

Patrick taught me something important: if I know the foundational structure upon which ideas and activities are based (the norms, values, patterns, and objectives), I could fill in the details later. Of course details were necessary, but they’re easy to identify and populate once the structure is agreed-upon.

Patrick and I had matching values:

• service – we both cared about clients and customers;
• trust – immediately, it seemed, Patrick and I trusted the other to do what we said we’d do;
• collaboration – working together we could run a high functioning lounge;
• honesty – a willingness to communicate and show up authentically.

With these criteria in place (and thankfully they remained in place all summer), the details I needed to learn became obvious.

This knowledge has changed my entire career: by understanding the underlying structure of any situation, I could accept work without a full understanding of the specific details involved. I actually started up a highly successful tech company with no knowledge of technology or running a business.

STARTING UP A COMPANY USING STRUCTURE FIRST

In 1983, before computers were widely used and with no knowledge of technology or how to run a business (or hire or market or manage), I accepted funds to start up a tech company in London with just an idea thrown out to some investors at a party.

Without computers being broadly available, and with no internet invented yet – with just my understanding of the core values and the need to serve both employees and clients – we grew to be a small, 50-person international company grossing $5,000,000 (remember: no websites, no email, no zoom, no LinkedIn) in just under four years!

I began by identifying a non-negotiable structure, enhanced by new team members:

• I would run the company from a win/win, servant leader mind set.
• Everyone had to be willing to collaborate, share ideas, and be authentic, honest, and have integrity.
• Employees, as my customers, were to be treated with kindness and respect and offered any management positions that opened up first.
• There would be no lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating, ignoring. Everyone would be respected and served, and any policies had to conform.
• We’d aim to be the best and have a solid profit margin, but it had to be accomplished within all of the above restraints.
• All ideas were welcome and worth considering; innovation, creativity, and vision were integral to our growth.
• Failure is important, and part of the learning/growth process so long as it’s out in the open and discussed.

During the interview process, potential hires had to agree to the norms, offer creative ideas and exhibit a willingness to fail. To hire tech folks I used a test with an overlay of answers that my then-husband designed for me, making it possible for me to hire tech-savvy folks without bothering the team.

One of the things I noticed right away was how difficult it was for us all to hear each other accurately, so I ended up writing a book on how brains ‘listen’ (not very well).

Sample

Additionally, because, as per our team decisions, any tools we used had to meet our criteria and values, the standard sales model didn’t fit: I actually developed one that did. (Buying Facilitation®)

All of my actions met our foundational criteria:

• To make sure my employees were always ‘juicy’, I took everyone to the pub monthly while they laughed as I lost at darts, and gave them $2,000 annually to take an all-expense-paid week for a training in a different discipline (photography, archery…) to enhance their creativity. And I called the field reps monthly to keep them in the loop.
• To make sure the clients were always cared for, I called each of them monthly and had an annual dinner for them. I also hired a ‘make nice’ guy as the liaison between the coding, our team placements, and the clients. This ensured I would have no fires and could catch problems before they got big.

And except for one manager who moved to a different country, not one of my employees left, quit, or were fired. [I later learned that several of them were offered huge pay increases to leave for the competition, but not one did.] At a conference one of my competitor’s said “What are you doing over there? I offered Joe a blank check and he STILL wouldn’t leave!”]

I charged double what the rest of the field charged (It’s rarely about the money.). But our reputation as ‘the best’ served us well. We had 11% of the market, while my 25 competitors shared the rest. And we had a 40% net profit margin!

Together we learned how to run a business. We shared our successes and failures and laughed and cried together.

Values, principles, servant-leader first. Content second. Today, 44 years later, the company remains successful.

THE RISKS

Starting projects or serving clients by making choices from our core values, principles and norms, and by making decisions with the voices of all involved, has never failed me in the 60 intervening years, enabling me to take on any work, in any field.

Structure and systems before content. As a simple metaphor, think of moving in to a new house. You can’t choose a couch unless you know the size of the room you’re putting it in. Structure – then content. Too often leaders only think in content, and the structure gets lost until there’s resistance or failure.

It’s risky, I suppose. But I think it’s riskier to start with what might seem like a ‘complete’ data set (very difficult to achieve). Indeed, it’s not possible to properly identify the right data needed until the structure has been agreed on; when choosing details first you’re working from potentially flawed assumptions.

Imagine inventing a gadget without first knowing your target audience, the specifics of the market or how competitors will position themselves against it, or how the would-be buyers would choose you over competitors. I often ask new authors who they’re writing for. They stare in confusion. Yet unless the audience is specified, writing becomes a personal activity with no idea how to choose the best words, the best voice, the best story that will enthuse readers.

CONTENT VS STRUCTURE

To begin thinking about the differences between content vs structure, here are a few questions:

• What would you be willing to consider differently when approaching a project, a dissertation etc. to start by generating the foundational values or rules that will guide discovery and content creation?
• When you choose a goal without knowing the underlying structure, how do you set the best outputs without restricting them to what you assume is possible?
• What criteria do you use to recognize problems before they cause real damage? Include the right elements to measure? Understand your risk? How do you even know the full data set that you might need for success?

I’m currently mentoring a startup that made their gadget the driving motivation. They hired very competent techies and sellers familiar with the product. But soon the problems appeared: sellers were stealing clients and prospecting lists from each other; managers were pushing their own agendas onto their teams without buy-in; a large project failed when leaders used their own assumptions to reorganize rather than involve the voices of the stakeholders to set the goals and understand risks, causing huge disruption and resistance.

I recognize that the standard thinking is to have full knowledge of the necessary content before taking on a job and discuss goals with other leaders rather than setting the structure with the voices of all stakeholders. But consider first generating a structure within which content will fit. Then there will be less resistance, and an easier path to success.

________________________    

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.