Walk through any supermarket and you are bound to see health-conscious consumers leaning on the handle of their shopping cart, carefully studying the label of the food item they are about to toss in with their weekly groceries.
Studying the label can tell you a lot about what’s in the product, but it tells you little about the taste or quality and whether it’s worth having or not. To find out if it’s something you’re going to enjoy or something that will become a family favourite, you have to rely on more than just the list of ingredients.
There is a similar trend happening in general today. A recent job posting asked potential candidates to dispense with writing a cover letter and submit only the relevant details – the list of ingredients, that is. What is your current job (if you’re still lucky enough to have one)? Where did you go to school? What are your certifications etc?
If you have had the good fortune to recently call a products help-line or file an online help-ticket on a website, you will find a similar trend – click the check boxes, answer inane questions that do more to frustrate you than to resolve the issue – all this in an effort to seemingly expedite the process.
The reality is that rhyming off a list of requirements and ticking the checkboxes will do nothing to elevate the quality of the outcome. For that, you do need the cover letter, the recipe; in essence – the back story. I’m pretty sure that the ingredients in a can of Campbell soup are similar to those used by an executive chef in a 5-star restaurant, but the outcome – the taste – is very different.
As much as we read the labels, we are not getting healthier and obesity is on the rise. We walk into a store to dispense our hard-earned cash and are offered mediocre service (on a good day). We receive many pleasantries like “thank you for calling XYZ Company” and “have a great day,” but we come away often feeling more frustrated than fulfilled.
The best expert on my team is a guy who didn’t finish college and did not go to an ivy-league school, but reading his story and taking the time to meet him and find out more about him put him head and shoulders above the more “qualified” candidates. If I had merely looked at my check list I would have missed him.
Lists are important – they help clarify your requirements, but they are no substitute for taking the time to get the full story.
