Food For Thought

Have you ever heard of a business allowing a competitor to come into their physical plant and run their business out of the same physical plant?  Well that is exactly what Mr. Lawrence Hackney owner of the Wood Pit BBQ restaurant did.  A fellow competitor, James Turner, who owned a restaurant and catering business in Newark, New Jersey, saw his business go up in smoke as a result of a fire which started next door to his restaurant.   Mr. Turner had clients like Prudential that he had contacted to serve and no place to do business.

Mr. Tuner first found refuge in a church kitchen in Newark, but it did not have a smoker and his specialty is smoked BBQ.  In stepped a retired municipal court judge, Ernest R. Booker who frequented both BBQ restaurants.  Mr. Booker informed Mr. Hackney of the fire that Mr. Turner had experienced and wondered if he would consider helping Mr. Turner out.  Mr. Hackney reached out to Mr. Turner and said “Listen, I have a barbecue pit and two smokers. You’re welcome to smoke your meats.”  This began an unlikely pairing of two competitors working together in harmony for the better good.  You can read more  about this story at New Jersey.com

Why share this story?  To illustrate a point that we all know about but rarely see in the business world today, genuine care and concern for one another even if that person is a competitor.  As leaders in the organizations and companies which we have responsibility for leading this would be considered counter intuitive, but I would like to challenge you to look at this from a different prospective.  Not the prospective of destroying your competitor but rather partnering and growing with your competitor.

Partnering with a competitor in today’s economy will not only help save jobs and reduce unemployment but it also says something about you as an individual and the mission of your company.  Having more competition in the market place makes our economy stronger and will ultimately result in a wider variety of products going to market.  I believe that we have to stop thinking about limitations as leaders of companies and organizations but rather look at the possibilities of alternatives never attempted before.

Following the example of The Wood Pit owner, Mr. Lawrence Hackney, we all would benefit if businesses looked for opportunities to partner with businesses which may suffer the loss of closing down permanently.  The fact that this is not usually done, but it feels right to do is the reason that we should.  This is why my mastermind group decided to meet at The Wood Pit BBQ Restaurant.   We learned about the story from one of our members Pat Ferdinandi and thought that this would be an excellent place for us to meet.  You see in our master mind group we are all speakers so you might think that we are in competition.  This could not be further from the truth.  We share information with each other in an effort to make us better in our own speaking businesses.

This may sound counter intuitive, but it really is not.  We believe there are a number of clients who can benefit from our individual services and topics.  We improve individually by providing the best information in our own unique styles to our clients.  So we are not really in competition, because we are all individuals with our own unique way of presenting.    The advantage of sharing information allows us to reduce our learning curve through our own unique experiences that we openly share with each other.  This is the same thing that Mr. Hackney did with Mr. Turner.

I would like to leave you with this food for thought.  What kind of city state or country would we have if every business realized that they would benefit from a collaborative working relationship with potentially faltering competitors?  Just take a moment to think about this question.  If you live anywhere near Montclair, NJ I would urge you to visit The Wood Pit BBQ Restaurant.   It is worth the trip, some of the best BBQ I have ever had, and the sauce is out of this world.  Besides, a leader who willingly would help competitor in the same line of business is running a business that we all should support.