Follow the Fox
Posted in March 7th, 2008 by Cecilia Gomes“What does that mean — ‘tame’?”
“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”
“To establish ties?”
“Just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”
(…)
“We only know well the things we tamed,” said the fox. (…) “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
This small piece was extracted from The Little Prince, by Saint-Exupéry.
The book was written in 1940, when the world was experiencing the horrors of World War II. Yet then they had no idea of what would be like to compete in a globalized world in the following century.
We often speak of ‘captivating a client.’ Would that be much different from what the Fox said? I wouldn’t say so.
We are all clients and vendors at some moment of our lives as we are constantly buying and selling things. Therefore, we all have potential to tame and to be tamed, or likely to be tamed.
Taming a client is much more than delivering the requested product or service in the set date and previously established way.
You can only tame when you insert a human relationship clause in this contract. Clients and vendors think of one another as individuals and the treatment between them is based on this. Only then a tie can be created.
As the Fox would say (in a lecture for which a little fortune was charged), only then the client would need the other party and the vendor would become unique to the client.
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