It’s a common story in several industries now. After several years of pain, business is picking up again in a big way. But the workforce was cut to the bone to survive the tough times, and now the reduced staff is busy scrambling just to keep the ship afloat. There’s no time or energy to capitalize on the HUGE opportunities coming down the pike.
So you’re an employee who is paying attention. You know it’s time to snap out of survival mode and get your company booming again. But management is still trembling in the corner, hyperventilating and counting coppers. What do you do? (more…)
There’s a hilarious scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which a king is instructing a guard to watch his son:
KING: Make sure the Prince doesn’t leave this room until I come and get him.
GUARD: Not … to leave the room … even if you come and get him.
KING: No. UNTIL I come and get him.
GUARD: Until you come and get him, we’re not to enter the room.
KING: No. YOU stay in the room and make sure he doesn’t leave!
GUARD: And you’ll come and get him.
KING: That’s right.
GUARD: We just need to keep him from entering the room.
After several minutes, the guard finally understands clearly…then follows the king out the door.
Sound familiar? It is AMAZING how the simplest instructions can get mucked up in our heads. One reason is how very much is flooding in all the time. We are swimming in a sea of data every day. The only reason we don’t drown in it is because our brain is constructed with the capacity to shape the data into something meaningful. Less than ten percent of what we hear is consciously assimilated, and less than ten percent of that is retained.
We filter the excessive data that besieges our brains. The gatekeeper of the brain—the part that decides what stays and what goes—is the thalamus. Thank goodness for the thalamus, or we’d spend each day looking like a deer in the headlights. .
So how does this play out?
Susan, Abbey, and David go on a joint call to their highest revenue-producing client with the intention of letting Joe know they appreciate his business.
Joe says, “I love your company and the value your products provide for us. My budget is cut this year and I’m going to need to find some discounted options. I’m going to need a miracle to be able to do more business in Singapore—a very critical market for us.”
In the car on the way to the airport, Susan says, “Gosh, Joe really loves what we do. We should ask him to do a video testimonial for our upcoming promotion.” Abbey says, “Weren’t you listening? He’s about to leave us unless we knock down our prices.” David can’t believe his ears, “Where were you two during that conversation? This guy is begging for help with Singapore and we’re either going to make him or break him with how we respond.”
Silence takes over the car. Each thinks silently, I work with idiots!
Filters are necessary in our brains so we don’t overload, but most people overcompensate and filter out entirely too much of what is needed to make good decisions. As a result, we make “either/or” decisions instead of “both/and” decisions.
In other words, we don’t consider enough of the information when making a business or personal decision. As a result, our decisions are compromises. Ingenious opportunities are missed because alternatives and different viewpoints are not thoroughly explored. Life is on a path of mediocrity.
Susan, Abbey and David all missed the message. In fact, even adding up all of their interpretations isn’t the message and will not create an optimal solution.
Ideally, each person needs to be trained to recognize ambiguity, right up front, and ask questions to clear it up. Then, when Susan, Abbey, and David get back to the office, they need to be able to look at hundreds of potential solutions and fully hear each other on why each could be the right solution or one of the right solutions.
There’s no point trying to wish away our filters. Instead, train them!
Dear Roxanne, I am a dad and a department manager at a national freight company. I also coach my son’s soccer team. It’s a bit of a juggling act sometimes, but I get everything done by multi-tasking. Now my immediate supervisor has started ragging on me about phone calls home and checking my Blackberry during meetings AND my wife is complaining about the work I bring home! I need somebody on my side here. Please help me show them that the outcome is the thing, and I’m doing all of my jobs well.—Philip W.
There’s a song I love to play over the loudspeakers at my Marketing and Sales Management Boot Camp™ events. The song is “Let’s Get it Started” by the Black-Eyed Peas, and we use it to call everybody back from break, to pump them up and get them ready to GET IT STARTED again!
We could use just about any high-energy song to get people’s attention, but this one has something special, and it’s right there in the title––Let’s get it started. It doesn’t say, “Let’s hope somebody else gets it started.” It’s about US, you and me, getting started and making things happen.
Maybe you’re playing a waiting game in your company, waiting for management to get the memo and start making a positive culture change happen. You’ve filled out enough suggestion cards to fill the old card catalog at the New York Public Library. Maybe you’ve even dropped a few heavy hints in person. Nothing. Ever. Happens.
Time to stop waiting. It’s time to get it started!