I’m trying to help my in-laws move out of their house into an apartment.  One came up for rent in a building they like.  I called the agent who was listing it.

“Are they looking at renting it now?” she asked.  “Because it’s vacant.”

“They might” I replied.  “It depends on whether they like it and if it meets their needs. If it doesn’t, then they’ll wait for the right one to come along.”

“Well, no offense”, she says, “but if they’re not going to rent it, then I don’t want to waste my time showing it.”

Nonplussed, I paused.  “Well I can’t really tell you if it will fit their needs until we see it.”

“Well I’ve just posted some very nice photos on the Internet.  You can see what it looks like there.”

What I said to myself was “You’re kidding, right?  Who rents an apartment based solely on photos that they see on the Internet?”.  What I said out loud was “If you want me to rent it, then I have to look at it before I can make a decision.  You decide if it’s something you want to do or not.”

“Okay, let me think about it and I’ll call you back” she said as we ended the call.

She still hasn’t called me back, and quite frankly I’m not holding my breath.  For her sake, I hope the reason is because the apartment has already been leased.  But the whole odd incident got me thinking …

I’ve always believed that if you want people to buy — buy your product, or your service, or even you — then you need to show them, clearly, in brilliant technicolour, the compelling value that you have to offer.  Which means that you do whatever it takes to help them see, first-hand, what it is that you or your product or your service does to meet their needs or make their lives easier.  Yet this lady was too lazy to even let me see the inside of an apartment that she wanted me to lease.

So … is this okay?  Am I being unreasonable when I expect that those who are trying to sell me their ideas, products, services, or even themselves will do whatever is necessary to make sure that I see the all the advantages and benefits that will accrue to me?  Or is this just an example of the new way to “sell”?  C’mon, tell me what you think — am I on the mark, or am I way off base?!

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So how can you overcome this?  Persistence and tenacity.  Involve these people by listening, really listening, to them.  Ask probing questions and be relentless in your follow-up.  Find out what the real reason for the delay is.  Don’t give up, you may have to ask several rounds of questions before you get at the real reason.  Once you find out, provide assistance and offer to help them, but don’t let them off the hook.  Determination and doggedness is the only way to combat stalling.

What do you think?  Do negative people resort to stalling?  And how have you dealt with it?  Add your comments below please.

P.S. here are some links to previous blog posts that addressed ways to deal with workplace negativity.

• Feed the grapevine
• Be inclusive when you communicate
• Let people talk
• Challenge extreme language

When you offer your expertise and advice in the workplace, do your managers stop and listen? When you share your knowledge and experience, do your colleagues and team mates nod their heads in agreement and use it as a springboard for further discussion and dialogue? Perhaps most importantly, can you influence others, even senior leaders, to come around to your point of view, particularly when their minds are already made up? If you answered “yes” to these questions, then congratulations as you have mastered one of the most essential and fundamental skills of effective business relationships.   Your ability to persuade and influence, to get your ideas understood and accepted by others, particularly by those who are senior to you in an organization, is a key predictor of future professional and career success. But … if you weren’t able to answer these three questions in the affirmative, then it’s time to take action to change this state of affairs! In this fast-paced content-rich webcast, you’ll learn specific and practical ways to gain greater respect and influence for your ideas, and as a result, improve your track record in getting your ideas recognized, accepted, and implemented.

It got me thinking about the procedures manuals and check-lists that exist in the various departments in so many organizations.  Many managers and supervisors I work with advocate eliminating these documents.  They’re outdated most of the time, no one ever looks at them, it takes effort to keep them current – these are just some of the reasons I hear from those who would do away with them.  But the real worth in such documents comes during times of crisis.  It’s when things start to go wrong that people seek out the manuals and check-lists.  It’s when the unexpected happens that people turn to the security of what has been documented in writing.  All of which suggests that perhaps there IS value in job handbooks and process guides, even if it takes work to keep them current and even if they get outdated the moment they are completed.   What do you think?  Waste of time, or worthwhile effort?

In leadership, it can sometimes be a challenge to decide when to engage your followers and when to simply tell them what to do. In this blog post, I’d like to explore the value of the former.

I recently had an opportunity to attend a workshop on Engagement Strategies that focused on a wide variety of techniques for engaging people to a greater extent than simply telling or lecturing to (at?) them. There was widespread acknowledgement amongst participants that this was a far superior way of both transmitting information as well as increasing a sense of ownership for that information. It seems organizations are often driven (by time and budget constraints) to deliver information in the fastest and least expensive way possible. Unfortunately this is often at the expense of absorption, ownership, accountability, etc. I see it happening when a new vision or mission is being rolled out, new products announced, policies and procedures described, organizational changes laid out, etc. One of the lost opportunities in many organizations is the ability to access and apply the knowledge and wisdom residing in the heads of their employees. Companies run “town hall” meetings with large percentages of their employees getting together in one place at one time, but fail to design those gatherings for optimal engagement. The result? Some people may hear (and ideally absorb) the opinions of one or two bold individuals, but others are enraged (or at least disengaged) because they didn’t have an opportunity to contribute to solving a common problem or addressing a common opportunity. It’s ironic that although organizations seem to not have (or take) the time to more fully engage their employees in the dissemination and exploration of information, they are somehow able to pull time out of their hats (or other locations not to be mentioned here) to repair the fallout that occurs from lack of understanding and commitment that results from one-way, passive communication.

There are numerous well-documented and proven approaches to more fully engage employees in the presentation of information. Too bad more leaders don’t use them!

So, what examples and situations have you observed where employees are engaged … or enraged? What did you (or the leader) do that made it work … or not work? Do share.

You can contact David through his website at www.davidgouthro.com

Jump in and share your ideas on how you overcome procrastination.  This is the last of three posts on this subject (at least for now), but you can add your comments to this or the previous two posts anytime.

Well, what do you think?  Do you have other things that you do to overcome procrastination?  Do share.

I call it “the 5-minute technique” and it works really well for things that I don’t like doing; usually for me, that means routine tasks. So for example, I dislike routine filing and I am apt to put it off for as long as I possibly can, usually until the “to be filed” basket is overflowing. The 5-minute technique is exactly what it sounds like. I set a timer for five minutes, and for that period of time I do nothing but file. Once the timer goes off I have the option of resetting it for another five minutes, or just patting myself on the back and moving on to something else. But because it’s just five minutes, I do it – I figure I can tackle anything if it’s just five minutes, even the stuff I don’t like. And often, I find that the first five minutes builds momentum for another five. So it gets done!

I’ve got a couple more ideas that I have used very successfully to get things off my to-do list, and I’ll share them with you in next week’s blog posts. But for now, what about you? How do you overcome procrastination? Share your approaches please.

And I can help! If you hesitate or struggle with delivering bad news, or if you’re unsure how to communicate unpopular changes to your team, then join me for one fast-paced and content-rich hour in which you’ll not only learn specific ways to communicate changes and decisions with openness and honesty, but also techniques to deal with negative employee responses.

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More than anything else, you need to be the boss that employees can trust, and I can show you how to develop and maintain your credibility so that you can create better working relationships and a more productive working environment.  And if you act by April 25, you can take advantage of early bird savings!

Here’s just some of what you’ll learn:

• Six specific techniques to formulate and deliver your message so that your employees see and know that you’re communicating with openness and honesty
• The one critical factor that will allow you to maintain credibility with your staff when the going gets tough
• Six proven strategies to deal with the negative responses you might get from your employees
• The well-known change response model, and how it gives you an insight into why people react the way they do when they are faced with negative changes
• How to rise above your own conflicting emotions – it’s hard to support and implement a decision if you don’t agree with it yourself!

Join me on May 2, 2012 at 11 AM MDT. Early bird pricing in effect ONLY until this Wednesday April 25!

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