When I was talking Frederick Mendler from Rackspace yesterday, he mentioned the platinum rule. I admittedly did not pick up on the metaphor right away, but Frederick noticed my confusion and quickly explained it me. The golden rule is treat others how you want to be treated. I had heard that before. Like most children, the golden rule had been mentioned to me by my mother, teachers, and relatives about 1000 times between the time I learned to talk and age 10 (after age 10 or so, one’s knowledge of the rule seems to be assumed). The golden rule shows up in business when executives start to have conversations with themselves (and others) about the plight of their customers (”I wouldn’t want to wait on hold for 3 hours and then get transfered to someone else. That just isn’t right!”) and I was familiar with that thinking as well. But the platinum rule was new to me.
The platinum rule, I learned, takes a different approach. It uses the same basic idea of the golden rule (be a nice person) and takes it a step further. The platinum rule is to treat others how they want to be treated. What an interesting idea. I was intrigued and jotted it down for a future post. A bit of research revealed that the “platinum rule” was a term coined by Dr. Tony Alessandra, a speaker, consultant, and author. More importantly, that research revealed a great description of the platinum rule on Dr. Alessandra’s web site:
“Treat others the way they want to be treated.” Ah hah! What a difference. The Platinum Rule accommodates the feelings of others. The focus of relationships shifts from “this is what I want, so I’ll give everyone the same thing” to “let me first understand what they want and then I’ll give it to them.”
Looking at business (and life) that way makes sense. What’s right for you isn’t always right for the customer. While more than a couple companies are known for designing products or offering that originated from their own needs, the idea doesn’t always work. These companies came to the realization that X was needed to do their business, so they created X. When they were designing or creating whatever X was, these entrepreneurs essentially built a product for themselves. It works in many cases and doesn’t work in others.
The problem with the golden rule is it assumes that everyone wants the same thing. If I am a nine year old who can take a joke about being fat, skinny, or any other childish extreme, that doesn’t mean the kid siting next to me will find the same joke as amusing as I do. If I don’t mind jokes, I’m not breaking the golden rule by saying them to another kid; I’m treating him how I want to be treated. However, if I followed the platinum rule, I would need to consider what the other kid wanted specifically. I would learn (through research of some sort) that he doesn’t like those types of jokes, and as a result, I would try to avoid upsetting him by making such jokes. I could even take it a step further and compliment him. The idea makes sense. Imagine if a company like Intuit built accounting software for itself. Chances are, the $2.6 billion software giant needs different things from accounting software than I do for my personal and small business needs.
I think the platinum rule could be rephrased into something as simple as: work for your customers, not yourself. If your customers needs are similar to your needs, great, that makes life easier. If not, that’s okay as well - just make the effort to understand their needs and keep their needs in mind when doing your job.
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