Words: 277 Reading Time: 0 minutes 55 secondsRecently I was surprised to see an experienced NLP Trainer remark on a lady that spent her time at a dancing class actually talking instead of listening to the music and practising.
He was struck by the fact that even though this lady had been told repeatedly that she should not talk during practice the first thing she did was talk about the not talking instruction!
And when he thought about how this lady behaved in class, he realised she seemed to be talking most of the time.
Well, of course!
The evident mistake is to assume that two people doing the same thing, at the same time, in the same place will have the same motive. That doesn’t follow at all. In fact it is highly improbable given the diversity among people.
Those running businesses often fall into the same mode of thinking.
Owners are puzzled that their waged employees do not share their dedication and whole-hearted commitment to the enterprise.
Directors are astonished that the carefully designed, highly remunerative, shiny new incentive package has not had the motivational effect they expected.
And managers are surprised that the disciplinary code ensuring that clerical staff put everything in writing has not cut the error rate one iota.
Blanket policies and uniform procedures are the bluntest of tools. To improve the probability of connecting with an individual we need to know why they are here and what interests them. Only with that information can we hope to tap into their motivationally wellsprings.
I don’t know the talkative lady at the dancing class, but there’s a good chance she was there mainly for the company, not the La Caida.
2 comments:
Different people have different views. We cannot assume that person next to us has the same interests as we do. So it is very difficult to know what our customers want. Business coaches will help you understand the needs of your customers better.
Thanks Jamey. It is inevitable that the person next to you will have a different view because they occupy a different space and they see things with different eyes.
However, I would avoid wasting time on understanding what customers need. Often that's the last thing on our customers' mind. Pay much more attention to their wants. It's their wants that will drive their behaviour.
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