Supporting the DishyMix podcast interview with Dov Seidman is a series of guest bloggers asking Dov additional questions. Here is the fourth question in a series (from Ben to Dov) to whet your appetite. Here is the first, from Ian Schafer, Deep-Focus and the second from Sarah Fay, Isobar US/Carat. Here is the third from Matt Blumberg, Return Path.

Q: Ben T Smith, Chairman, MerchantCircle:  How do you balance your business objectives with the objections raised by a vocal minority? If you have 100 people who just hate what you are doing who all have a mouthpiece with the web….you know their issues but just don’t agree. What do you do? Consider the Facebook feeds issue or their new beacon issue. The rapleaf issue. Or my mistake. At Spoke of listening to these people and chickening out of some stuff.

A: Dov Seidman, Author of “HOW: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life)”  First, it is important for me to say that if you don’t want to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar, don’t put your hand in there in the first place.   You’ll never be able to fight our interconnectness, and you can’t pick up and move to the next town, like you may have done in the past.   The best thing to do, if you want to be successful over the long term, is to do the right thing.

That said, if you have a vocal minority that is covering activity of a more benign nature, the best thing you can do is listen, be transparent, and if you have to act, act quickly.   If you are actively transparent in your affairs, are quick to respond when needed in an open and authentic manner and you do so consistently, you develop a protective shield – called an earned reputation – that can overshadow your critics and certainly enable you to bounce back faster if you are ever in a situation where you simply made a mistake.

You have two choices as people and as businesses – you can hunker down and try hide from the conditions of our new world or you can lean in and embrace the new world and turn its conditions to your advantage.  If you’re world is impacted by social media, you better embrace it.

Episode 29: Dov Seidman of LRN and Author of “How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything… in Business (and in Life)