⢠How good are your active listening skills?
⢠Do you find you prefer to talk about yourself more than the other person when you're in a conversation?
⢠What's the one concept about you that you would want a prospect (internal or external) to take away with them?
⢠Do you have a strategy for managing up? What is it?
⢠What kind of manager do you work for?
⢠How accepting of managing up do you think your manager will be?
⢠How comfortable are you with delegating tasks to others?
⢠Do you have access to mentors who could help teach you the art of delegation?
⢠Are you willing to invest the time to learn how to delegate using the four-step process in which the “student” takes a little more responsibility for his new skill with each step, but in which you must budget sufficient time to oversee each step?
⢠Have you have any experience with delegation? Many people dislike delegation because of a bad experience in which they “dumped” a task on someone who was truly unprepared.
⢠Are you willing to invest the time to learn how to delegate using the four-step process?
⢠How do you deal with anger?
⢠The old adage rings true: count to 10 and take deep breaths. This infuses the brain with additional oxygen that allows the anger reflex to subside. It gives you time to ask the question: “What will this issue (that is making me angry) mean to me a year from now?” This usually helps keep anger-inducing situations in perspective.
⢠Who do you consider a great orator? Why?
⢠How do you rate your own skills at speaking? What are your perceived weaknesses? Fears? What do others say about your speaking skills? Have you asked them?
⢠Where is your local Toastmasters chapter? Have you ever visited? Toastmasters is a valuable resource for learning to speak and present clearly. I strongly recommend that people visit a local chapter at least once. Information about Toastmasters can be found at
www.toastmasters.org
.
1
Guffey, Mary Ellen,
Business Communication: Process and Product
. South-Western College Pub; 4th edition (March 11, 2002).
2
Gerber, Michael,
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It.
Collins; Updated edition (April 12, 1995).
Â
FEAR GRIPS THE BODY.
IT PARALYZES THE SOUL
AND PULLS BLINDNESS IN
.
CHAPTER 8
FEAR
Â
One of the most significant human talents to have been drowned out by the noise of high-speed culture is that of being able to confront fear. Fear, as we all know, is an emotional reaction, based on a sense of imminent danger to the self. Because of its emotional nature, our primary reactions to fear are reflexive and not necessarily logical.
For those interested in adopting
cool
methods, fear stands as a major obstacle, since implementation means initiating change. Change represents an unknown element, and unknown elements spark fear. None of this is particularly welcome to the human body and mind, of course, and the result is resistance. When all of this occurs within the swirling ocean of external stimuli it becomes a lot easier, on the whole, to bypass the whole issue and stick with the status quo and stay close to the grindstone, secure in the harness.
I have worked with thousands of people who have looked with awe at the new possibilities that
cooling down
offers, even down to something as simple as daring to run a meeting more effectively. For a brief moment, their eyes sparkle with promise until, quickly, the spark of innovation is extinguished by fear, and their eyes and expression regain their grim air of conviction.
FEAR OF LOSING YOUR JOB
The number one reservation, of course, is the fear that rocking the boat will result in you falling overboard: that any suggestions of improvement, especially that include the word
slow
will end up a career-limiting move. How could anyone expect to question the way work is done around here? How can you question the boss about anything? How can you dare to introduce the word
slow
into any work-related discussion without risking repercussions? In virtually all organizations the spoken or unspoken expectation is for quick turnaround, high productivity, and the willingness to work in a multitasking environment. The mantra is “just get it done.” That being the case, why would anyone want to stick her neck out to introduce the four-letter word
slow
? After all, there's always someone else who could take the work, someone else ready to do your job.
Fear is something to be faced and conquered. It must never be allowed to rule, although it tries very hard to do just that. In spreading its contagious message, fear relies on speed as its co-conspirator. Speed can make people react too quickly and can make them do the wrong things. Speed makes people procrastinate by offering all sorts of distractions and thought-occupiers that both magnify the fear and encourage avoidance of the problem.
Write It Out
The problem with fear is that it exists primarily in the mind. It sloshes around in the short-term “working” memory, amorphous yet painfully present. To handle fear, it is necessary to remove it from its lair and expose it to the open airâto get it on paper.
Nothing quells fear and spurs creative thought better than getting thoughtsâeven negative onesâdown on paper. Some people like to write free-formâjust paragraph after paragraph of flow-of-consciousness text. Others use bullet points to separate problems from solutions. Others set their fears out in a columnar format like the one below:
The Issue
| The Worry
| The Resolution
|
|---|
Slowing down
| My boss might
| What is my boss's
|
will get my boss
| fire me or reduce
| perspective?
|
mad at me.
| my bonus.
| Set up a time to
|
chat?
|
As I mention in a couple of places in this book, addressing fear in this manner works because revisiting your own ideas by rereading them or even hearing them is an exercise in cognitive reprogramming; it helps put them into clearer perspective by using the logical side of the brain rather than leaving them in the constant ethereal swirl typical of the emotional side.
This, then, is another benefit of
slow
. People who take the time to write out their thoughts recognize a number of benefits:
⢠In times of heightened stress, the time you take to write out what's bothering you and to look over your notes helps remove you from the urgency of the moment, thus reducing your blood pressure and cooling your mind.
⢠The ideas, as we have seen, get reassessed and consciously reprioritized.
⢠There is also the tangible pleasure of the act of writing itself. This should never be overlooked. I have consciously used the word “writing” in this section because it offers significant sensory advantages to keyboarding in this context. Although it is certainly possible to list fears and issues on the screen of a computer, there is a distinct benefit in writing with ink, slowly and carefully, on good paper, that contributes significantly to the therapeutic benefits of this exercise. This highlights another human element lost to the age of speed that needs to be won back: Time to write things out.
⢠People who do this soon realize that the fear inherent in a particular situation truly is, as the acronym goes, a False Expectation Appearing Real. Human beings are remarkably adept at handling trying situations, once the demon of fear has been exorcised.
If the fear of losing your job is holding you back, I would ask you to think about the principles embodied in a well-known book, the
Art of War
by Sun Tzu. The friction between you and any other person in your life is akin to battle, even if on a small scale or even if no acrimony is remotely evident. Friction is a part of life and as such the principles taught by a master of “applied friction,” such as Sun Tzu, are worth considering. The
Art of War
is not a book about rushing into conflict headlong and without due preparation. It's about victory through the principles of
slow
. For example, the battle in this case is between you and your manager. The prize being fought over is your job. The energy involved is fear. Sun Tzu would state that as with all battles, victory goes to the person who can recognize his enemy's strengths and weaknesses as well as his own, and who can strategize a means of attack or counterattack. In terms of the manager-employee relationship, the weapons of this battle are communication and influence rather than spears or muskets. Specifically:
⢠How well are you communicating your value statement? How proactive are you being in terms of communicating with your manager to let her know the types of tasks you are working on? Are you managing up sufficiently to ensure a level of up-to-date understanding?
⢠How active is your internal networking strategy? Are you meeting and talking regularly with team members, mentors, and suppliers?
⢠How are you demonstrating your personal value and vibrancy in a way that will help set you apart from your internal or external competitors?
Have you allowed the time for these proactive maneuvers, or are you too busy working too fast on today's immediacies?
FEAR OF OFFENDING THE CLIENT
The second major fear to be faced when thinking about working more coolly has to do with the customer or client. How on earth can anyone dare to go slow when the client is waiting?
Isn't prompt service, after all, the
lingua franca
of successful business? Isn't that what defines customer service?
Many will agree that speed is good, but speed can only be good when it's paired with quality. Even for those who serve fast food at a drive-through window, customer satisfaction will be attained only if the order being speedily delivered is the right one.
As we have seen, customers base their buying relationships on trust, not just price or speed. Yet many professionals in many industries, caught up in their own vortex of self-imposed hastiness, sometimes forget what it's like to stand in a customer's shoes.
⢠Financial people such as mortgage specialists, real estate agents, and insurance agents, might believe they are doing their clients a favor by helping them rush through the paperwork. In the process they may forget how overwhelming it is for the average consumer to sign so many unfamiliar documents that mean so much. They might forget that their ticket to repeat business and referral from a customer might be found through a distinctive combination of accuracy, empathy, and time.
⢠On-the-road salespeople might feel they can get more done if they fill their agenda with an overly optimistic number of calls and then drive like crazy to meet them all. But if they arrive unprepared, or at a time that is inconvenient to the customer, where does the value statement go?
⢠Similarly, people who visit their clients or whose clients visit them feel a great temptation to squeeze in one extra appointment out of fear of losing a new potential customer. But not all customers react positively to being squeezed in. Some would prefer to wait. Often, the best restaurants are those that only take reservations and even turn away last-minute arrivals. What is the reaction of someone who is turned away? A little humiliated, perhaps, but will it diminish her desire to dine there? Unlikely. It will probably increase it. The clients of high-prestige professionals such as doctors and lawyers expect to have to wait and would most likely be unnerved if their lawyer or doctor answered her own phone before the second ring. Exclusivity, the epitome of
cool
, methodical access, has panache, and from the standpoint of the human observer who judges by emotion first,
panache
speaks loudly and positively.
⢠What about voice mail? Many people express the legitimate fear that letting callers go to voice mail will result in trouble. “My customers will just go to our competitors,” they say, or “They'll go to the switchboard and get someone to find me,” or “They'll just escalate to my boss, and then I'll get in trouble.” This concept was first addressed in Chapter 2, in the case study of
Mary's Interruptions and the Escalation Factor
, in which it was suggested that Mary refine her strategy regarding managing up in order to allow more time to discuss with her manager the value of her work and the reason for using voice mail. Now let's take that concept further.
In all four of the situations above, I believe it necessary for any working person to take the time to see the relationship through the customer's eyes. As we have already seen, the needs of most customers can be dealt with by giving them an alternate time at which calls will be returned, either within the hour, within the half-day, or by the end of business today. It is possible to satisfy callers, first by way of a substantive outbound greeting that informs them as to when they can expect a response and next by following up on that promise at the appointed time.
Not convinced? Do you still think that being
cool
in this fashionâthat is to say, waiting until you're finished one important task before taking calls from your clientsâmight result in losing customers? Then write it out. Take a moment to answer the following questions:
⢠In what way do I fear my actions will offend my customer?
⢠What is my customer expecting of me?
⢠Why does the customer do business with me in the first place?
⢠What do I believe will drive the customer away?
⢠What can I do to counteract this?
⢠Have I recently taken the time to ask my customers these questions?