Working On Me

In late July of 2005, I was in Mumbai, India. The day after I arrived there, the city was devastated in a record-breaking monsoon. In 24 hours, nearly a meter of rain fell on the city. Homes were washed away, people were stranded and separated from their families, food and water supplies ran low and there were thousands of deaths.

I was in a comfortable hotel throughout the incident, but I felt its effects. The work I was in Mumbai to do was cancelled, and the airport was closed. I was due to return home the following Saturday, but it was by no means certain that my plane would be able to fly from the airport. When the day came, I called to check, and all the signs were good. I packed and presented myself at the airport, where the sweltering heat combined with the presence of thousands of delayed passengers made for an uncomfortable atmosphere. Even in the first class departure lounge, tempers were frayed.

And so when our flight was cancelled and the airline representative toured the lounge, breaking the news to us each personally, she met with much unpleasantness and rage. When she came to talk to me, I listened, asked politely what would happen next and thanked her for letting me know. She seemed surprised that I didn't want to shout at her. In truth, I was as frustrated as everyone else there, but I wasn't going to take it out on someone who wasn't to blame.

After an hour or so during which I called my wife and explained what was going on and started to explore other options of getting out of the country (there were very few and they were very expensive), I felt a light touch on my elbow, and the airline representative urgently whispered in my ear, "Mr Blake, please come with me quickly and quietly – and bring your bags." She had worked hard to secure a small number of seats on another plane that was leaving, and I was the first customer she decided to put on that plane. Those who had ranted were not so lucky. I heard later that most hadn’t got out for another five days.

I was nice to the woman because it was the right thing to do. At the time, I didn't believe there was anything to be gained from being nice, but it turned out to gain me a benefit far beyond what money could have bought me. I continue to be as nice as I can to everyone, whatever may beset and frustrate me, not seeking reward, but knowing it will surely come anyway.

Today you’re busy, too busy to develop a professional network, to pick up the phone or talk to people face to face, to make connections that could be useful to you in the future. You might be busy tomorrow, too, and the day after. But you might not be. You might suddenly have no client orders or be facing layoff. Would that be the time to start building a network? Or would you prefer to have a network of people you could already call on in your hour of need?

Or, to put it another way, perhaps you should dig a well before you get thirsty.

When people tell us that they appreciate the way we look or have acted, it generally creates a feeling of considerable wellbeing. You will probably be able to recall times when people have complimented you, although your memories of what prompted the compliments might be less clear. This is a measure of the impact compliments can have. Generally, however, compliments are rarely made or received skilfully and getting better can make a big difference to ho people perceive you.

People are rather poor at receiving compliments. Here are some typically dreadful ways to respond to a compliment:

• “No, not me. You’re thinking of someone else.”
• “Oh, it was nothing.”
• “What are you after?”
• “I thought you were wonderful too.”

When you respond to a compliment with self-denigration, it is as much of a rebuff to the person giving the compliment as it is to yourself. When you respond with evident suspicion, you are not only rejecting the compliment, but also insulting the person making it. When you respond with a compliment in return, even if it is sincere there is a risk that it will not be seen as such. It is not clear that you felt strongly enough to have spoken had you not been prompted to by the person complimenting you. In any event, by immediately focusing elsewhere, you are devaluing the compliment and risk offending the person giving it. Each of these responses makes it harder for the person to compliment you on something else at another time and may cause resentment. If you genuinely do need to compliment them as well, save it for another day.

Receiving a compliment can feel awkward. You have to say something, and in our culture we see it as important not to appear conceited. The best way to receive a compliment is simply by thanking the person giving it. You can elaborate by sharing your feelings at receiving it if you like. So, if a co-worker compliments you on a presentation you made, here are some ways to acknowledge it:

• “Thank you.”
• “Thank you. I worked very hard on it and I am delighted you liked it.”
• “Thank you. That has made my day!”

When a compliment is badly made, it is usually because the intentions of the person giving it are wrong. To give a compliment well, you need to genuinely appreciate the quality, actions or behaviour in question. If you don’t, the compliment is insincere, and few people are able convincingly to fake sincerity. Even if you are sincere in your appreciation, the person you are complimenting may have become jaded from too many insincere compliments in the past, so you’ll need to be very clear.

I suggest a structure to your compliments that has three parts:

1. An expression of appreciation
2. A reason for it
3. A question about it

Here’s how that would look if you are complimenting someone on a new coat:

1. “I love your new coat…”
2. “…because it fits you beautifully and gives you a really elegant look…”
3. “…where did you get it?”

And if you were praising someone’s work, it might look like this:

1. “The work you did on the marketing campaign was great…”
2. “…because it really helped me see why the main messages were important…”
3. “…what is the next stage of the campaign?”

It can be seen that the expression of appreciation – usually all you get in a compliment – is really only an introduction to the compliment. When you add a reason, you are justifying your comment with evidence, establishing sincerity. The role of the question at the end is to save the embarrassment of the person you are complimenting who may not know how to receive a compliment properly. It should save them from falling into the various traps we covered earlier.

When you become good at giving compliments, people begin to appreciate you more, and look for reasons to compliment you back. When you become good at receiving compliments, people want to give you more too because you seem to genuinely appreciate them. And the best part of this is that compliments cost nothing at all, and there’s an unlimited supply of them. Catch someone doing something good whenever you can.

Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” He knows the power of WIFFM. Pronounced ‘wiffum’, this is an acronym that stands for “What’s In It For Me?”

You are probably used to asking people to do things, whatever your role in work or at home. You either have co-workers, subordinates, bosses or family members who have it in their power to do something that would help you. For instance, if your boss were available at a set time each day for you to discuss problems or refer for help, it would let you organise your day better. If a teenage son would stop using his bedroom floor as a combined cupboard and bin, it would allow you to vacuum his room in half the time.

But here is the thing. Does your boss really care very much about making it easier for you to organise your day? Does your son really care about how long it takes you to vacuum his room? In the case of your son, you could probably try shouting a bit (you probably already have) and you may get some short term compliance, but it will be resentful and short-lived. You could probably shout at your boss, too, but this is not a recommended strategy.

Instead, both of these people need to know their WIIFM. If the boss makes a set time available, how will it help HER? If your son keeps his floor clear, how will it help HIM? They are far more likely to act to secure benefits for themselves than to secure benefits for you.

It is down to you to find that WIIFM and give it to them with your request. For example, you might suggest to your boss that if she were to set aside 30 minutes at the same time every day for queries from her team, she would have to put up with far fewer interruptions throughout the day and as a result be able to achieve more. For your son, how about suggesting that currently it takes too long for you to vacuum his floor because of all the things which are on it rather than stowed away, so from now on it is up to him to undertake the task every week? Alternatively, if he were to keep his floor clear of debris, you would be able to vacuum for him.

Bear in mind here that you are not pretending that all your actions are motivated by altruism. Don’t try to disguise the fact that these actions will benefit you as well. But by giving people a reason that benefits them you are far more likely to get what you want.

How often are you frustrated when you're trying to make progress with someone, and you get to "I don't know"?

Often, we ask questions which require thought of another person, often more thought than they can be bothered to commit. This is typified by questions like these:

(To a child) “When do you plan to tidy your room?”

(From a life insurance salesman) “What would happen if you were to retire on a fraction of you current income?”

(To a working spouse) “How are you going to devote more time to the children?”

(To a partner) “What are we going to do about a holiday next year?”

More often than not, the easy answer will come back: “I don’t know.” When that happens, come back quickly by asking:

“But if you did know, what do you think you would say?”

You have to say this quickly, so that the other person responds quickly, before they realise what is happening and engage their conscious mind. You would be surprised how often people will actually give you a meaningful answer. That answer comes straight from their unconscious, and will probably surprise them.

Earlier this week, I wrote about a system to keep in touch with people. When you start working your KIT system, you will notice that strange things start to happen. Before long, people will be calling you more regularly, meaning you need to undertake less contact activity yourself. Also, you will find that when you call people for no real reason, they often say, “I was just thinking of you, because…” and then relate some opportunity that you can benefit from. If you hadn’t have called, you’d never have known.

So, with your KIT system in place, you might want to consider an emergency repair strategy, to rescue those atrophied relationships. One thing to remind yourself straight way is that it takes two people to lose touch, so don’t shoulder all the guilt.

The only effective way to re-establish contact is to get on the phone, pick up a pen, or go to the computer and be honest. Say or write something like this:

“I feel bad that we haven’t spoken so long, and I miss your friendship. I’d really like to re-establish regular contact.”

What can sometimes smooth the way is to add an apology, like this:

“I am so sorry I haven’t tried harder to keep in touch with you these past years.”

Don’t make an excuse at this point, just offer the simple apology. Almost without fail, your contact will respond with a similar apology and insist on shouldering his or her share of the blame.

Once this is out of the way, it’s time to set the foundation for ongoing contact. The easiest way to do this is to get the other person talking, and you might ask:

“So, what’s new in your life since we last spoke/met?”

Before long, you’ll be chatting just like in the old days.

In my last post, I spoke about the situation where you’ve lost contact with a business contact, but now need their help. However dire your need, don’t ask for that help at the first contact call, or you are likely to be labelled a user and cut off forever! Try to leave it for the second or third contact, but if it really is very urgent, call a couple of days after first contact.

How many people are there in your life who you’ve known well at some point, but drifted away from or out of touch with? If you’re like most people, you will have many lost friends and lost acquaintances, many of whom you now miss.

People drift apart for many reasons. It’s perfectly understandable not to call or make an effort for people you don’t really like, but why do we let people we respect and whose company we enjoy slip away from us? The main reasons are apathy and lethargy; we don’t care enough, and we’re too lazy. Paradoxically, the more secure we feel about a person’s friendship, the less effort we’ll take in staying in touch when distance divides us.

Eventually, we’ll realise we’ve drifted away from that person, and we’ll feel sad. But by then, it is difficult and embarrassing to suddenly call or write again after all this time. Furthermore, the person may have moved somewhere else. Perhaps they’ve been so upset about our heartless treatment of them that an approach now would be unwelcome. It would be even more tricky if it were a business contact we’d neglected for all this time, and the reason we now want to get in touch is that we need their help.

If this is starting to ring a few bells for you, then you need to take action now to design a KIT (‘Keeping in Touch’) system to make sure this doesn’t happen in future. To operate it effectively, you’ll need one of the following tools:

1. a computer with a personal organiser program; or
2. an electronic organiser; or
3. a card-index system with diary tabs or desk diary; or
4. a pocket diary and address book

Whichever tool you use, you’ll first need to sit down and list all the people you want to stay in touch with. When you’ve done that, decide for each person how often you think contact would be appropriate. When I say ‘contact’, this could be any form of communication, such as:

• a phone call
• an email
• a postcard or letter
• a greeting card
• a face to face meeting

For some friends, you might feel that once a month is the right amount of contact, for more peripheral acquaintances, you might settle on once every quarter, or every six months.

So, now you have a list which might look, in part, something like this:

Judith Lane 1m

Kerry Leaver 6m

John Marshall 1m

Sam Masters 1m

Jill Merry 3m

Now, you simply have to make up a diary entry for each person on the list. Spread the names out widely, so that the first contact for each of them happens within – say – two months. Put no more than 3 or 4 names down for any one day, and try to keep one or two days every week free. This means that keeping in touch won’t become too arduous, and the free days mean that if you miss day or two, you’ll have put time aside to catch up.

If you have a PC or personal organiser with a repeating to-do function, you can programme in the monthly repeat or six monthly repeat automatically, but if you are using a paper system, make your entry look like this:

NC: Judith Lane (1m)

‘NC’ stands for ‘Network Contact’, and this prefix makes the entry stand out from other appointment data or to-dos you may have in your diary. After the name, in bracket, remember to put the frequency of contact you chose for this person. This way, as soon as you have initiated a contact, you can cross through the entry, and make a new one in one month’s time which looks exactly the same.

Depending on the nature of the ‘contact’ you make, it might be advisable not to delete the entry just yet. For instance, if you telephone and leave an answering machine message, you might not want to get rid of this month’s NC entry until the call is returned or until you try again another day and actually make contact.

And do try to vary your KIT activity. If you call a person this month, then when the NC record next appears for that person, send a card or an email instead.

When you get to an NC entry where you have recently spoken to or received a call from the person, feel free just to rediarise without initiating another contact. The purpose of this system is to keep in touch, and if that is happening already, then there’s no need to go overboard!

You will find that when you start working the system, all sorts of wonderful conversations start happening and all sorts of opportunities arise. I know very few ways to gain so much from so little effort.