Companies strive–and sometimes succeed–in “getting it right”. Think Apple’s Ipod, Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings,” and Converse Chuck Taylors.

Campbell’s Soup is the maker of Prego spaghetti sauce, and it seems the company recently had a short violin piece commissioned to go with one of the Prego TV commercials. Hearing what was described as a “haunting” melody, I had to hear it myself.

The 30-second-spot score was written with the goal of evoking feelings of nostalgia for listeners. The positive response was so overwhelming that Campbell’s rescored it for a 3 minute download. It really is beautiful in its simple elegance.

But the amazing thing to me was how well Campbell’s nailed their goal. When I played the piece for Stacy and asked her what she thought, she said, “The music reminds me of an elegant ball in the post war years of the 1940’s and 50’s,” then added, “in Italy.” Now, that is getting it right!

January, my 3 year anniversay with TDS.  We currently have 2 positions available to join our Austin team — a graphic artist and an applications programmer.  As a team, we have been doing a lot of brainstorming on our “ideal” candidates (too much during work time which I have been attempting to keep to a minimum, but our excitement for new talent gets the best of us).  Collectively, we have come to the conclusion that we are no longer interested in applicants with little experience (and a lot of heart), but which require training and time to get up to speed.  We desire talented, accomplished, and intelligent people to join our tight knit group — People that are able to start working with little to no training in their trade softwares or languages – mostly training in our business, our vision, and our core values. 

Individually, I have come to the conclusion that our newest team member must be confident.  I want to know that when our graphic artist or software programmer answers the phone, or contacts clients, that their knowledge is not only displayed through their outstanding portfolio, but in their communication skills and conversations that exude confidence. 

We have been going through the interview process for several days now and it is a relief to know that we actually have choices reagarding which qualified applicant we will decide to hire.  Not only for their breadth of knowledge in their field, their desire to learn, their interaction with us as a team, but also for the way that they carry themselves.   I don’t know yet who’s picture we will place next on the Team page, but I do know they will fit in with our mentality, style of professionalism, and willingness to share a few beers (or cokes) at the local pubs and breweries.  :)

In business, we rely on a host of employees, affiliates, partners, consultants, and occasional freelancers to serve our clients and meet our goals.  Yesterday, I learned in jaw-dropping fashion that a trusted part of that network has long been engaging in such deceptive practices that I am left reeling from the blow.

There are two parts to this story that have struck me with such forcefulness.  The first is the sheer cost of the deception.  I have been paying for services that simply weren’t performed.  To shore up the shortfall, I have thrown additional money into the mill.  We have suffered losses in both work performed and in dollars paid.  Secondly, I am immensely pained by the fact that the charade was conducted by a trusted source with whom I’d shared my hopes, concerns, and tears.  

If it were not for the magnitude of the dishonesty, if it were not for the person orchestrating the fraud…

So, now what?  I have to ask myself some hard questions, explore legal avenues, and make difficult decisions.  My mind just nags at the second half of the quote, “Burn me twice, shame on me.”

Earlier this week, I tossed, turned, worked, and worried before finally succumbing to sleep at 5:00 a.m. I had just received a phone call from a client who was terribly unhappy about our work. While I had heard rumblings about this client’s dissatisfaction, I hadn’t realized the scope of the problems. We had built a flawed, bugged system, which they’d abandoned out of sheer frustration.

The funny thing is, I had unknowingly asked our caller how the application was working, and was shocked to hear her simple yet surprising, calm acceptance, “We stopped using the software long ago; everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.” I hung up as embarrassed as I’ve ever been.

We’ve had great satisfaction with our reputation for attentiveness to client needs, so how on earth could we fail so miserably this client? Generally a hands-on manager, why had I not been involved in rooting out answers to their problems? How do we prevent a recurrence of this scenario, and more importantly, how do we go about winning back the confidence of this customer? 

Over the next day or so I was so taken aback by our collective failure. Sales for not indicating to me the depth of the problem. The programming team for simply giving up on fixing the bugs. Me for not having our staff understand that a client problem was our problem. 

Problems like this are small failures that will ripple into potential failure for us as a company. Over the past year we’ve been fortunate to land several large projects, but our busyness creates its own challenges. There are things that must be done in the housecleaning department that we simply don’t have time for. Ditto for new in-house products and projects. And obviously, we may be falling short in the attentiveness department. 

So, the morning after my sleepless night, I arrived early and invigorated for an impromptu meeting. I made an unpopular decision: forty hour work weeks were not an option until we had a laundry list of “to dos” completed. The first item on the agenda is addressing our client’s software. 

All companies make mistakes, and hopefully, most of them will learn from their errors. We are no different. I am no more afraid to openly admit those missteps than I am to share our successes. Because remember, those successes may have found their start in the fixing of an error.