These three words might be the best advice I can ever give you to address difficult and uncomfortable situations.
Wow! Here we go. Rolling right into the last month of the year already. Not only is this the hurry-up-and-nail-your-goals time of year, it’s also a giving time of year. Ironically, giving often becomes stressful. How sad is that?! Giving should be joyful! Have we gotten caught up in the process and lost track of the meaning? (Kind of like we do with our business and health goals?) Want some new gift ideas that provide real value instead of more cards, calories, and ‘stuff’? Here’s one!
My friend and colleague, Debs Jenkins, got me thinking with one of her recent newsletters. She proposed the idea of keeping a Little Book of Big Decisions. The idea is to record your decisions and periodically review them to see if you are making the same decisions over and over or letting important decisions languish. Intrigued to learn more about my own decisions, I took out a 5×7, placed it on the edge of my desk, and started my list…
I often help clients make complex and important decisions. Strategic planning, significant changes, and sensitive issues are the main situations where I am brought in. Inevitably, this includes working with a group of leaders who are the decision-makers and whose buy-in is critical to success. My clients are often amazed at how quickly I can extract significant insights and guide a group to critical decisions that they all support with great enthusiasm and commitment. Want to know my secrets?
After witnessing relatively few actions, we put labels on people. When impressed by comments or accomplishments, we reach for positive labels such as brilliant, ambitious, talented, or a natural leader. The more impressive the feat, the quicker we are to draw our conclusions and apply the label.
A business owner who read my newsletter regularly for more than a decade and often told me how much he always learned from me unsubscribed recently. All because of two words. Two words! Wow! It’s no loss to me, but why would someone walk away from an abundant and free source of insights they value because of two words? There are only two reasons I can think of. First, my two words were utterly horrific. Second, the person was wired for blind rage. What were the two words that leaped out at this guy from all the other words I’ve written in 4 books and over 600 articles? What terrible words sent him running with seething indignation?
When a client finally accepted that the root cause of their many struggles was that they keep hiring the wrong people, it was a major breakthrough. What will likely take even longer is for them to realize that they aren’t even qualified to hire the kind of people they really need! “How can we be hiring the wrong people when we hire such great people?” they demanded to know. Every one a top notch subject matter expert just like themselves. People with great experience and knowledge in the field. People who care as much as they do. And people who fit in really well. How could this be a problem? The problem they finally recognized is that by hiring people like themselves, they don’t really have people managers or project managers or product managers or branding experts or…
Even my best clients have been known to forget some of the most critical distinctions, so I thought some reminders were in order.
I used to hate giving feedback. I hated that uncomfortable feeling of delivering bad news or confronting employees who screwed up or came up short. I didn’t know anyone who felt differently. I still don’t. I am hoping this article changes that.