Change The Batting Order

It’s probably happened to you before. Sometime. 

You get a call out of the blue from an old friend. Someone you were good friends with, but haven’t been in touch lately. He asks about you. And the family. And talks about how he misses those good old days. And then says we must catch up, you must call me when you are in town. Let’s grab coffee. Or a drink. In fact, you must come home he says.

And then before hanging up, he asks do you have Rahul’s co-ordinates, could you share his number please? And you say sure, no problem, will WhatsApp the number right away. 

And as you put the phone down, you know exactly why he called. It was for that number. The opening bits about “how’s the family, and long time is, must catch up” somehow begin to feel artificial. You hit the auto-delete button on all those lines, because by the end, you’ve figured why he called.

Maybe this has happened to you. Or perhaps you find this conversation eerily familiar because you were the one who made that call. Yes? Well, time then to change the batting order. 

Next time you call or write to someone for a favour – ask, right up front. Get to the point. And once that is out of the way, get down to asking about his work, his family and about catching up. This way, the other person knows exactly why you called. And once that’s done, he’ll appreciate the time you are taking to talk about all the other things. He will believe you when you say all you do.

Why do most of us get the sequence wrong? It’s probably because of a feeling in our minds that we will seem to be rather selfish, calling-only-when-we-need-something kind of people if we ask for the favour right away. So we try and pave the way with a few minutes of small talk and hope that the person will think that’s really why we called. 

But you know what? Other people are smarter than we think. They understand. 

This happens with feedback too. We are uncomfortable giving hard feedback. We fear for the person’s self-confidence. So we first lace it with some positive stuff – and then get to the point. How does the recipient feel? By the time you are done, he knows the intent of the conversation was the hard feedback. He thinks you said the other stuff just like that. Perhaps you didn’t mean it at all.

It pays to be upfront. It builds trust. Candour adds to your credibility. Respect the other person’s intelligence. By delaying getting to the point, you won’t really achieve anything. People respect honesty. Just like you do.

Remember the good old days of limited overs cricket? Even though the objective was to score quick runs, teams would play cautiously in the beginning, preserve wickets and then slog in the end. Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana and Mark Greatbatch changed all that, and attacked from the first ball. And cricket was never the same again. Maybe there’s a lesson there for us all. 

Next time you are writing a mail or making a call or asking for something, get to the point first. And then say the rest. Change the batting order! Try it. And see the difference.