It's Just Business!

I think it is a great quality to be able to separate business decisions from personal ones and ultimately do what is best for your company. It is often very hard to let the boundaries collide and let hurt feelings get in the way of putting the company's best interests first. One of the business people whom I greatly admire for this is Simon Cowell.

Simon's recent season of the US X Factor did not meet viewer expectations at all although the show was widely anticipated. He created a ton of hype over something that ultimately did not produce the results he had hoped for. His solution? Evaluate what was done well and what was done wrong and make adjustments for next season. Simple as that. Like it was nothing, he fired the host of the show, and two of the other judges. Here is an article that discusses the sudden announcement. Simon Cowell obviously had a friendship with Paula Abdul and had worked with both Nicole Scherzinger and Steve Jones before. For whatever reason, he decided the show would be better off without them. It had to be difficult taking these colleagues feelings into consideration! The bottom line is that you and your business will be more successful if you are thinking about the brand first and foremost, whether or not it affects those personal relationships. Rumor has it, that Steve Jobs was a major jerk who didn't care about hurting anyone's feelings. He created several enemies on his way to the top! Having the ability to separate the two is a unique quality, but the thing I admire about Simon Cowell is that he somehow makes these decisions the right way without creating a backlash from his coworkers. If you read the article, you can see that the people fired did not have one bad thing to say about Simon or the way that they were let go from the show. Paula actually looks forward to working with him again! I want to know what his secret is! It is one thing to be successful by knocking down others along the way, but anyone that has an opportunity to work with him still jumps at the chance (even if they have been burned before). I would love to see how the makes his decisions and how these decisions are handled once made by Simon. He's definitely taught me that it is okay to put your brand first, but proves that a little tact goes a long way!