When does stinginess become a cost?

The downturn is affecting our behaviour. Businesses and people are becoming more frugal, but when does frugal turn into down right stingy and what does it cost?

Our second value at RedBalloon is generosity, and that means being generous with our time by listening and providing information, not just with customers and suppliers but also with each other. During my corporate life, I remember asking many bosses to support me or assist with a particular project, only to find myself in a waiting game, wondering if and when they were going to do what they had promised. I thought about the level of trust I could create as a leader if everyone knew that if they made a request of me, they could count on me to deliver (or at least keep them informed if things don’t go according to plan). What level of trust would there be in an organisation where you know that you could count on?

You can never take values for granted, I thought it would be difficult for me to write about stinginess until I opened my eyes and ears and absorbed a few instances around me and the damage that it’s doing.

Monday morning, ordering my smoothie from the café across the road and two people were catching up on the weekend. One was complaining to the other about a friend that had turned up empty handed to a dinner party on the Saturday night. “I know she’s not working at the moment, but she could have brought something or at least helped to clear up,” said the first girl. “No way, it’s not that hard you don’t have to spend a lot,” said the other. My guess is that the dinner guest will have done herself out of an invitation in the future from at least one person.

At dinner last night I listened to my fellow guests talk about their businesses, two big banks, an airline and a consultancy, about how appalling they are at acknowledging each other, helping each other out and generally just giving a little. Our party had been talking about how tough corporate life is at the moment. There was a general consensus that the downturn had produced a head down mentally with people being increasingly unwilling to help each other out, simply and looking after themselves. I guess it comes from the fallacy that just focussing on yourself will see you through, coupled with the fear of redundancy.

Theirs sounded like awful places to work, and I realised how lucky I am to work in an environment where giving is part of what we do, everyday. On my way home I made a point of texting my host a special thank you for their efforts.

Being stingy is being mean or miserly. There is no excuse for it and as we know it certainly does not pay as a strategy long-term. Stingy people, and organisations don’t say ‘thanks’, they are pretty self-centred and incredibly tight-fisted. Stinginess is not a success strategy.

Being stingy is not always the plan, we are all so focussed on our own roles and KPIs, on our own lives, that it’s easy to forget that we prosper more when we include and involve others, when we thank them for their input and share in each other’s successes.

A simply ‘thank you’ goes a long way to gaining respect and discretionary effort being applied in the future. A simple ‘thank you’ with friends and loved ones reminds them they are appreciated.

When was the last time that you said ‘thanks’ to the boyfriend for do the washing or bought your wife some flowers for cooking dinner?

Naomi is the 2008 National Telstra Women’s Business Award winner for Innovation. Naomi was also a finalist for the Australian HR Awards and a finalist for the BRW Most Admired Business Owner Award in 2008. Also in 2008 RedBalloon achieved a 97% Hewitt employee engagement score. One of Australia’s outstanding female entrepreneurs, Naomi regularly entertains as a professional speaker inspiring middle to high-level leaders on employer branding, engagement and reward and recognition. Naomi writes a blog and has written a book sharing the lessons from her first five years.

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