“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” An old saying and one you’ve probably heard many times before, but have you ever thought about it in a business context?

Over the years, my team has had a lot of success implementing new processes and taking advantage of technology to improve our company’s procedures. Unfortunately, we’ve also had situations where we’ve created solutions that have missed the mark. These misses can be very close (such as when an end-user just wanted us to move the location of a button), or so far away that it seems we’ve missed the target entirely (giving the user a “what were they thinking?” feeling).

Ultimately, when a task is handed to us, it becomes our responsibility to ensure that it is completed successfully for all involved. It doesn’t matter how creative we get or how elegant our solution is if at the end of the day, that horse won’t drink.

The real question we should be asking is, “What do they want to drink?” If you can answer that, you’ve gone a long way to ensuring that your solutions will be implemented. By keeping their preferences in mind, we can usually accomplish the project successfully.

Sounds easy, right? Just have a quick meeting and ask the other party what they want. Problem solved.

The reality is that it’s never that easy. We’re in IT (or any other service industry, really) because we like to fix things. And we know our way is the best way. So the minute the other person starts talking, we immediately start thinking of how we’re going to fix it. We’re going to do it THIS way. It’s going to be AWESOME.

And the whole time we’re constructing our grand plan in our mind, the other person is talking. About their needs. Their wants. Their wishes. And we’re not listening.

Now, I’m not saying that all of your “customers” are great at articulating their needs. They might be quite bad at that, in fact. They might even tell you they don’t care what it looks like. Don’t believe that for one minute. Take the extra time required to make sure you’re on the same page so that they’ll be pleased.

If the end result of all your work is something the recipient won’t use (or will dread having to use), have you really accomplished anything?