Install A Pause Button....!

When you’ve retired from coaching executives for over three decades, you have to learn to shut up.??Why??Because you have an opinion on EVERYTHING – and nobody is paying you for your opinion anymore!

But sometimes, I just have to speak up.?That happened today, when I was sitting reading in the shade next to the Welcome Center at the Orlando resort we’ve gone to for 29 years.?The name is ironic, because suddenly, three people of different ethnicities walked out of the the door and two of them started a heated discussion right in front of me.?One of the women was glued to her phone and never said a word.?The other younger woman was clearly disagreeing with what the man was saying, doing so in a firm, intense but calm manner.?She was holding her own pretty well in a professional fashion.

Then there was the guy, who wouldn’t stop talking and got more and more animated and agitated with every breath.?He was just below yelling, but well above sounding really pissed off.?At one point, the woman he was dumping on saw me and tried to smile as if to say, “It’s OK, just a work discussion!”.?But I wasn’t buying it.

At that point the man turned and saw me, saying, “Hello, ma’am”, to which I calmly but firmly replied, “You really shouldn’t be carrying on an argument in front of an owner.?It’s a bad look.”?With this, he wrapped up the conversation hurriedly, turned to me and said, “I just didn’t see you sitting there”, and exited back into the building.

Just because you're oblivious doesn't excuse your behavior.

The woman glued to her phone also went back inside, still without a word or a glance up.?But the woman who had been dumped on took a deep breath, looked up, blinked hard and said to me, “Thank you for saying something.?People have been trying to give him feedback for months about his behavior but he won’t believe it.”?I said, “I hear ya, sister.?Been there.”

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I thought that was the end of it….and then the man came back out, knelt down at my chair and proceeded to tell me in great detail why he was upset.?He blathered on, until I gave him what my daughter (and a number of my former clients!) would call, “The Look”.?It’s my special “don’t give me that BS” silent stare that works incredibly well to shut people up who are in justification mode.

?It's kind of wonderful to be 68 and able to speak your mind freely! Something for you to look forward to! :)

So at that point I sighed and said, “Look, I don’t care why you were upset or whether you were right to be upset.?You not seeing me sitting here while you went after a colleague is a fact, not an excuse, but that is not how to behave in front of owners.?Perhaps no one has ever told you this, but when you get frustrated, you sound and look intensely angry.”

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You know what he said??He muttered, “I was just nervous.”?I sighed again and said, “Beyond the concept of criticize in private, praise in public, you also need to realize when you’re nervous, you have get in touch with your body – breathe first, lower your volume, speak much lower and flatter and say far fewer words.?You’re doing the opposite right now – you’re raising your vocal intonation and volume so it sounds like angry yelling and then you’re pouring a whole bucket of those angry words all over the other person.?It won’t ever work.?They’ll walk away mad and you’ll walk away frustrated.”

It's like trying to teach a pig to dance - you get dirty and the pig gets annoyed!

The man stared at me for a second, speechless.?Then he took a deep breath, looked hard at me and slowly said, “Thank you, ma’am.?Many people have said I seem angry to them but I thought they were crazy because I didn’t feel angry inside.?No one ever described the experience of what I was doing to others, or what I should do instead.?I am grateful to you, and hope you have a nice day.”?With that, he walked off, deep in thought.

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I decided in that moment to take advantage of one of the superpowers of women over 60 – the power of invisibility!?We are easily overlooked and it’s unexpected when we respond.?So I said my piece and then vanished into the crowd, metaphorically.?Who knows what this man will do in his next moment of passion??But I do think, based on the look on his face in the moment we shared, that he’ll install a pause button between his brain and his mouth and maybe, just maybe, be able to disagree with a colleague without total alienation. ?It was a second in time that reminded me why I loved coaching so much – I got to see firsthand how a simple idea can change the course of someone’s career.?Blessed??Lucky??Grateful??You bet – or as we say in my Minnesota homeland, “You betcha!”