It happened at a group coaching workshop I was conducting for the key executives from sales, marketing HR and logistics functions. As one of the activities of the day, I had the participants review their experiences of the past 15 days of their service delivery interactions with internal customers. These were to be in areas of Coordination, Cooperation and Collaboration, examples of each which were provided,such as;
Coordination: Reduce the need for others to require clarification resulting from unclear communication
Cooperation: Accept feedback from others without being defensive
Collaboration: Follow up all agreements in writing with customer within two days of oral agreement.
At the end of this review, the participants were to map their feelings about each of these interactions on the Emotigraph. This was a graph with Interaction event on the X-axis and Feelings about the interactions on the Y-axis, which was on a scale of 1-5; where 1=Unpleasant and 5=Very pleasant. The exercise completed, I asked the participants, "Having done the exercise, how many of you felt in the interactions reviewed, that you were right and the others wrong?
I mapped their feedback on a scale of 1-10, and the responses stacked up as follows:
90% put themselves between 1 (they were right) and 5 (maybe the other party was right). But Navneesh's response floored me, he placed himself at 10 (the opposite party was right!). When I asked him to explain, his reply was an astounding, "Sir, I cannot change the behavior of others, but I can change mine, and therefore, I always believe the other party is right." One would imagine that this is a wimpish or defensive strategy guaranteed to lose every argument. But one couldn't be more wrong. In point of fact, an attitude such as Navneesh's can help to quickly gain trust and resolve conflicts. The attitude has helped him be a person with with a high degree of a positive 'can do' attitude and one of the highest sales achievers in his team. Where does an attitude such as Navneesh's stem from? It comes from the practice of what Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People describes as, Seeking First to Understand and then Be Understood. The practice of this habit can lead to rich dividends. It can help employees within organizations to seek common ground with a colleague and a way to move forward together.
Dr Xavier Amadorin in his book I am Right You Are Wrong, Now What? Has a more detailed process for the practice of the 5th Habit which he calls LEAP (Listen-Empathize-Agree-Partner) process, With the use of the LEAP process and strategy, employees can;
- stop trying to force their colleagues to say they are wrong
- begin to listen in a new way that immediately lowers their own anger and defensiveness,
- convey genuine understanding, empathy, and respect for the others point of view, even when they disagree with it.
The result? Dissatisfied customers and ultimately - an unhealthy impact on the bottomline.
