The world is certainly changing. Some change is a bit scary as what is was once abnormal is later considered normal. However, we are of the opinion that most change is good. Change in an enterprise (or corporate environment) should be founded on the facts of the current business process and making it better. For example, if you service hundreds of customers per day (like AINEO), then how can you make life easier for both the customer and your team? That is what win-win business is all about. Looking at both sides of the coin, and making sure something makes sense for both your customer and yourself. People respect.

With the advent of technology, the internet is forcing people to be more transparent. In the old days, companies could say things and no one would notice. There days, you can’t be a hypocrite (thank God!) by saying one thing and doing another. You will be found out. A large public relations (PR) firm was caught this year doing a fake web log (blog) for a fake customer of Walmart. They were quickly found out. The executive of that company (Edelman), quickly apologized and talked about how bad that was(link). Not shortly there after, the same president was apologizing for doing the exact same thing.

Thanks to the business AINEO is doing, people can no longer blur the truth. CEOs from large firms are now maintaining blogs that tell you exactly how things are. The president of General Motors (GM), who is going through major difficulty is telling people in his blog that ‘its not been an easy year’. This type of transparency was unheard of 5 or 6 years ago.

I recently purchased a book that my teenager wanted. It was a book on how to study and do well in school. I flipped through it an say one statement that said, ‘Honor is doing what is right when no one is looking’. Of course, there are some dishonest people out there. We do our best to avoid them like the plague. But it is also important to do what is right when no one even knows. The word is going to get out, so why bother compromising or even lying when you can do the right thing and look your customer in the face and say you’ve delivered the best product or solution for their needs.

Working hard and working smart is honorable. Honor pays because we all like to work with people who do the right thing whether or not we are looking.

Let’s do the right thing. The world will be a better place for us all.

© 2006 AINEO Corporation, Patrick Wolfe

One of the things that we say at AINEO is that you can teach a person how to do technical things, but you can’t teach them common sense. What is common sense? In simple terms, common sense is having the sense of understand what is common among most people. The Webster’s dictionary defines common sense as

“sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts”

As information becomes more abundant, and we become more and more overloaded with so much to sift through, it becomes more difficult to sift through the details. Believe it or not, people are becoming more ignorant. That is what I told a doctor at Koshigaya Municipal Hospital as we were discussing the way of the world.

In business, we’ve found a lot of people who would like to work at AINEO. We have a great team, customers, environment, and from top to bottom we are a agile and friendly bunch of people. We work hard, but we make a point of having fun while we are doing it. People want to work at an AINEO-type of environment.

When we first started the Tokyo branch, we looked at everyone for their potential. We saw the great things that they could do if they were just willing to make a few changes. The problem with that way of thinking is that many people do not want to change. They do not want to be flexible, but would prefer to stick with only what they know. Change is some distant frontier somewhere that they don’t want to pass through. They have so much information on how to make the change, but they are unwilling to make the step. They didn’t have sense that was common to the business world and they were unwilling to try to gain it.

After hiring a few people like that, the management team realized that although we should always see the potential in people. In actuality, none of these people have worked out. All we ended up with was a lot of wasted time. It is better to sift through them before you actually put them on your team.

© 2006 AINEO Corporation, Patrick Wolfe

Working in one of the largest cities of the world we find all sorts of companies. And as you would probably guess, companies are made up of many types of people. Growing up in the US and living in Japan, I have found that many people are self-centric. They focus on feeding, taking care of, and satisfying themselves. To live in this challenging world that is very important. However, focusing on ourselves can go to the extreme.

I have seen so many people just trying to make a quick buck (or yen in this case). The idea of buy low, sell high is taken to the extreme. It becomes more like sell high and try to deliver as little as possible without the customer realizing. I wonder what those folks are thinking.

It is clear in life that there is a law a way that things always work out. That law reminds me of farming; the law of planting (seeds) and harvesting. The things (or seeds) that you plant in life grow up into a plant or a harvest. Very simply put, if you plant flower seeds you get flowers. If you plant weeds, you are going to get weeds. As they say, what goes around comes around.

With this in mind, I cannot imagine why someone would try to over-charge and/or under-deliver anything. Moreover, why would you sell something that you would not even purchase yourself. It is like planting thorn bushes in your sidewalk in front of your house that you know you are going to have to walk through when they grow up. All Business should be win-win. When a company promised to deliver a product or service, it should be delivered.

The law of seeds and harvest is something that we should all think about as go about both our business, both professionally and personally. It you trying to buy a house to remodel and sell; don’t grill the seller so much on the price that he doesn’t want to deal with you again. There is a high chance that you will see the person again. It is important to empathize with the person on the other side of the negotiating table. See their position and work to make the deal a win-win for both sides.

This does not mean that you have to pay a premium for everything. Obviously, it is okay to confirm what you are buying is worth the price. Just remember business is not just about buying and selling. There are various levels of products and services. Just remember that whatever comes around goes around. If you have someone working for you (or with you) and they are doing a good job then reward them. Honor others and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how honor comes back to you.

©2006, Patrick Wolfe- AINEO Corporation

There is so much excitement in the world these days it is becoming harder and harder to be a kid. We got wars, famine, abuse, many negative events and forces affecting the world we live in. Whether it is a country or a company, all groups come down to the people that make them up.

If people knew more about others, it would be much easier for dealings between the various groups in the world. Whatever the group is, it is important to set standards. If people know what the standard is, then we can judge whether or not our coworkers or fellow countrymen are keeping those standards.

In November 2005, we were thinking of some way to describe the standard mode of operations for people at AINEO. We were able to come up with three words that summarize who we are and what we do. We are bright, quick, and flexible. In other words, we are BQF.

Bright, in the fact that we are smart, and able to bring great solutions to the table for virtually any issue. But also bright in the way we deal with others as we are happy, hard-working, and ready to jump in as needed. In a couple word radiant and smart. These are the type of people I like working with. How about you?

Quick, in that we are responsive, speedy, and efficient. We are not afraid to get our hands wet and get the job done. It is so easy to keep talking about the job, the details of the job, and what you are thinking to do. Why not just do it? The big difference between a successful sales person and a not so successful sales person is execution. Quickly executing is one key to success.

Flexibility is probably the most needed trait in both the business world and the international community. If we have a task to build a datacenter, you have to build the datacenter. If a government restriction doesn’t allow you use a certain material, then be open-minded enough to find a different material. Part of the reason we started Aineo is because we so many engineering companies that were so inflexible. When the customer would ask them if they could do this or that with a certain system, the engineer’s response was almost always the same. “Oh, that will be expensive to implement”, or “the system can’t do that”. The AINEO response is always, “well, we can’t implement that exactly like that but here are a couple of other ideas… What do you think?”

Being BQF is a must for being a part of AINEO of this special team. When we interview people who want to join AINEO, deal with others, but most importantly deal with our customers we always keep BQF as our standard.

I could have never imagined how three words could mean so much to our team. We have got the best team that we have ever had at AINEO and it is growing. We are coming up on our 10^th year. This 9^th year has been our best year ever all around.

Now I hope that brightness, quickness, and flexibility will not only be a standard for our company and customers but something that will affect people that we deal with. Wouldn’t it be great to see people bright, quick, and flexible in dealing with each other? The world would be a better place.

©2006, Patrick Wolfe- AINEO Corporation