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In 1972, a professor at Stanford named Walter Mischel conducted a famous study which would become known as the “Stanford marshmallow experiment”.  Children were left in a room for 15 minutes with a single marshmallow, and offered the choice of either one immediate reward, or two rewards (as long as they didn’t eat the marshmallow by the time the researcher returned). If they were able to resist eating the single marshmallow, they were rewarded with another snack of their choice. The beauty of this study was not quite so much the insight about kids and marshmallows, but that it was a quite extensive study that actually followed up on the child’s progression through life for years. It turned out that… 

It’s a fact which doesn’t sit well with some: the work itself doesn’t matter quite as much as who is doing it. Especially when we’re talking about service businesses. People buy based upon your likability — not whether you’re the absolute best, or whether you’re the cheapest. At first glance, this seems unfair. After having this discussion with a few folks, I’ve realized that many more people disagree with this statement than I first suspected. Because, if all things were equal, shouldn’t someone hire for value — getting the best work for the money? Yes, if all else is equal. But things are not all equal. And there is a hidden, intangible value to relationships that often trumps specifications. Let’s…