It's not what happens, it's how you deal with it that matters (or deal with your stuff properly now) This week's "Coffee with Colm"
It's human nature, no-one is immune, though some appear better at it than others.
Stuff happens that you don't like - someone complains about you, your product or service and you don't like it - so what should you do?
The answer is something; you should do something about it and something is usually better than nothing - though not always. Why not always? Because it's not what happens that counts, it's how you handle it that counts in the end.
Negative feedback is a wonderful, albeit not very palatable, tool for cutting through the noise and directing your attention to what's important - the one or two things that need your attention. So why do we resist? Human nature - we don't like being wrong, we don't like being criticized.
I had a wonderful experience during the week when I attended Pendulum Summit in New York City (more insights to come in the coming weeks people) and was blessed to play a small part as a volunteer helper, which had me up close and personal with Susy Welch, Walter O'Brien, Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul), Deepak Chopra, Nick Sontanostasso (my personal event favourite), Nataly Kogan and Steve Forbes - what a line up, what an opportunity! Chatting with Frankie Sheahan about the event - he said the only thing someone complained to him about was the place was cold at one point. Frankie said, "The great thing about that is, because she told me, I could do something about it and it was an easy fix - I simply asked the venue manager to turn up the heating - sorted!"
The place was cold, the team was running around busy so didn't notice, a punter told us of the problem, our attention was drawn to one issue, the heating was turned up - job done.
Without her complaining, giving Frankie the opportunity to do something about it, she may have left and told her friends and colleagues about the heating issue rather than the world class teaching she was exposed to.
It's not what happens it's how you handle it that matters.
I've been penning weekly articles like this for the past number of years and am grateful they have found an audience, thank you. Most people skim and move on, some engage, like or comment, a few have complained.
One Sunday I posted something and referred to some concept or management theory or something I had learned back in the '80's when I was starting out (truth be told I cannot for the life of me remember what at this stage). It got the usual, skimmers, likes and comments but the one comment my eye was drawn to was...
"Stupid."
I was thrown - what did this person mean?
For a moment it was like a punch in the stomach - I, like most, dislike criticism especially when what I do is well intentioned, and I wondered what I should do about it?
But since it's not what happens it's how you handle it that matters, I called him out on it, I engaged back and asked what was stupid, my article or something in it.
"Your article."
Ouch!
"Explain more please? Help me understand"
He referred to the concept I had used and told me basically that we all learned that way back and I should be teaching more current stuff - and at one level he was right - he and I being of similar vintage, based on his profile pic, for sure had come across it decades ago, however that didn't render it invalid AND there are lots of people not of our age, for whom this could be the very first time they came across it and for those reasons it was just as valid today... to someone.
We countered back and forth for a bit, made our peace with the conversation and moved on with our lives; the point of the story, I didn't brush it under the carpet, I handled it and brought it to a conclusion.
What's it for you at the moment? An unhappy customer, staff member, colleague? Perhaps you are unhappy about something and have decided to tell everyone else EXCEPT the person involved?
Whatever it is, do something about it this week.
Unresolved issues in your business can be like a cancer in the body. Problems brushed under the carpet often grow bigger and uglier when they reappear. Problems between people mean the relationship can never be the same – it will either improve or dis-improve depending entirely on how they are handled.
Remember it's not what happens, it's how you handle it that will make all the difference in the world.
I'm finishing this week with a small snippet from my book, 'Feeding Johnny - How to Build a Business Despite the Roadblocks' where I tell how Sir Richard Branson handled an issue - you want to hear this...
Watch the 6 min video, listen to the 6 min podcast, or read on below to find out what happened...
Snippet from my book...
"Deal with issues.
In his book, Losing My Virginity, Sir Richard Branson tells of a situation where a regularly travelling business-class passenger on Virgin Atlantic had encountered a problem. Her electronic wheelchair had been broken during a flight and it caused her significant stress, not to mention inconvenience. She was furious and told the staff in no uncertain terms that she would never fly Virgin again; she was taking her business to British Airways, Virgin’s nemesis. Word got back to Richard. What did he do? He rang her, that’s what he did. Sir Richard Branson, the knighted multi-billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, picked up the phone to this woman at her home one night and after he had introduced himself (can you imagine?) apologised and told her that he understood her position and that even though she may never fly Virgin again, he went on to say there was a motor cycle courier en route to her home as they spoke with a catalogue of specialist electronic wheelchairs, would she please pick one and it would be delivered in the coming days courtesy of Virgin Atlantic. That, my friends, is dealing with an issue.
Lest we get all bent out of shape thinking that the only issues we have to deal with are customer issues, nothing could be further from the truth. Every interaction, every relationship in the team we spoke of earlier, as well as many we haven’t spoken of, has the potential to cause an issue. You may have spousal issues to handle, banker issues to take care of, supplier challenges, cash flow problems, staff personality spats, product deficiencies, laws suits, insurance claims, offspring problems. Anything. An unresolved issue is like a cancerous cell in a body. Untreated all issues are detrimental to the development of your business and some can be fatal.
Tommy O’Brien, my dad has always said that when there is a problem, the relationship can only go one of two ways; it can either improve as a result or dis-improve as a result but it can never be the same and experience has taught me that he is right. Someone once said, “It’s not what happens, but how we deal with what happens that’s important.”
The truly wonderful thing about problems (and perhaps their universal function) is that problems point very specifically to something we can and must fix. I remember back to my early café days with Stephen Halpin and Co. We used comment cards on the tables; you know the type of thing, a card inviting you to tell us how we did during your visit in relation to food quality, temperature, customer service, speed of service, cleanliness of facilities, etc. Most were glowing, which, while lovely to hear and periodically important to find out you are actually doing a good job, was frankly a waste of good trees. The ones that had value, that held the nuggets of gold, were the ones that said, today you sucked at…whatever because that would give us the chance to review the issue and take appropriate corrective action.
A word of caution here; you have to learn to understand the difference between one-off problems – that may in fact be more to do with the person complaining – and real problems that need your time and attention. Try if possible to avoid knee-jerk responses to one-offs. Where possible bide your time, cultivate patience and look for a pattern; if the problem raises its head again and again, it is real, if it doesn’t, it may not be. That said, don’t, on pain of death, act like an ostrich when it comes to issues. Do not put your head in the sand and hope they will go away all on their own. Not only do they not go away, the sand acts like fertiliser – they oftentimes grow!
Thank you for thinking with me.
Yours truly,
Colm
MORE. Did you enjoy that? Fancy a sip of some of my recent “Coffee with Colm” Blog posts:
- Fear – Butterflies In Your Stomach – Wish they would go away? (or tips on what you can do about it) - click here.
- Bend, Don't Break (or the importance of embracing flexibility while staying strong in the pursuit of your vision) - click here.
- Ireland Inc. 2040 (or what the Pope, the Rose of Tralee, an Ice-hockey Player, Sanitary Towels and Hedgehogs teach us) – click here.
HIRE ME TO SPEAK. Consider me speaking at your event, launch, awards, or as your after-dinner keynote. Find out more here.
WORK WITH ME OR THE COBM | SOUNDING BOARD TEAM. Need help with your business? Check out the areas I and The Sounding Board of trusted experts can assist with. Find out more here.
FREE AUDIO BOOK. If would like a complimentary copy of my book “Feeding Johnny – How to Build a Business Despite the Roadblocks” in audio, narrated by yours truly so you get all the nuances, feel free to grab one here.
DEEP DIVE. If you would like to go deeper in your own personal journey, you can review the first step in my “12 Steps to Create the Life You Really Want” for FREE. Check it out here.
LinkedIn. Perhaps the thing to do right now is simply to hook up professionally on LinkedIn – if that’s of interest, click here.