COMMUNICATIONWrite Yourself a Rejection Letter
Is fear of rejection stopping you from approaching your bank, a prospective business partner or even a potential customer? Well, don’t wait any longer — crush your hopes yourself. It sounds like mental self-flagellation, but writing a letter to yourself listing the reasons why your proposal should be turned down will reduce the pain, Dan Pink says, citing psychological research showing that after people experience pain they are less afraid of it in the future. Too lazy to write a letter? Go to the Rejection Generator Project at tinyurl.com/klh7upg. Just choose your favored style of repudiation, type in your email, and you’ll receive a dream-destroyer in your inbox.
MANAGEMENTGet Anti-Fragile
To state the obvious, the world has become a more uncertain place. That doesn’t mean you can’t take preparatory action, notes Nicholas Nassim Taleb, the Lebanese American statistician and author of The Black Swan. “Not seeing a tsunami or an economic event coming is excusable; building something fragile to them is not.” If you have yet to do some scenario planning (expected case, best case, worst case), get busy!
MANAGEMENT‘How Do You Like to Be Managed?’
You may have wondered why your staff hasn’t figured out the way you like to work — how you like to receive information, your best hours, what small things are important to you, your values … The reason is likely because you never told them. And the same applies to your employees. They have their own way of getting things done, their own values, strengths and performance modes. If you haven’t yet, ask them at their next review. Peter Drucker, the OG of management studies, called taking responsibility for relationships in this manner an “absolute necessity” for an effective workplace.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSBuddies For Life
In his book Predictably Irrational, behavioral economist Dan Ariely notes that if you go the “I’m your buddy route” in retail, you need to maintain it. Companies that ask customers to make a purchase as a social transaction (“Join the family!”) but then treat the deal after as a purely economic matter (“You should have read the fine print.”) provoke enormous enmity with their former “BFF,” he says.
Advertisement
COMMUNICATIONIf It Wasn’t For You …
According to a Gallup and Workhuman study, fewer than 40% of employees feel appreciated enough. Yet hearing “Thank you” just once a week from a manager was shown to cut disengagement in half. In Meaningful Work: How to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee, authors Tamara Myles and Wes Adams say one particularly powerful way to show gratitude is by using “If it wasn’t for you” messaging. Example: “Thank you for helping to close up on Friday. I would have missed my friend’s dinner party if you didn’t come through for me.”
MANAGEMENTSoft on the Person, Hard on the Problem
In a difficult situation, the best approach involves separating the person from the problem, or in the words of productivity coach Ben Meer: “Be soft on the person and hard on the problem.” This approach — which involves active listening, understanding the other person’s perspective and avoiding accusations, while also being decisive in addressing the issue and its root causes — allows for a more productive and less emotionally charged interaction, Meer says on his blog.
SALES FLOORFocus on Benefits, Not Features
A University of Kansas study found that one of the reasons people are more reckless with credit than cash is because they feel free to focus more on product benefits and less on costs. Similarly, avoiding product attributes and focusing instead on narrative and emotional triggers led to significantly less activation of rational thought centers. “When marketing bypasses these parts of the brain, (shoppers) are likely to make impulsive decisions,” study author Clay Warren says.