I was eating dinner last night in Wisconsin with a wonderfully warm and straight-forward group of people who typify to me the hard-working owners of small town businesses.<\/p>\n
They were discussing my new book and why I had written it when I recklessly mentioned that I was looking for contributions to augment the examples I had collected.<\/p>\n
Without missing a beat, the young man on my right asked me, with a wicked grin, "How do you get someone to listen to you?"<\/p>\n
It didn’t help that the entire group chuckled and his wife added, "He works for his father." She indicated the man sitting across the table from me.<\/p>\n
To use a sailing metaphor, I had been running happily before the wind and I was about to fetch up on some sharp rocks in shoal water. I came about smartly and started beating my way clear of the rocks without losing way.<\/p>\n
I smiled indulgently at him and told him it’s all a matter of perception. <\/p>\n
As he looked at me quizzically, I launched into the story of my presentation to Melpar some years ago when a top salesman and myself, the engineer, went to Melpar to discuss a pending contract. He gave an excellent presentation and so did I, but we received strange signals from our audience. <\/p>\n
When the salesman pitched return on investment, the customer team would look to me for confirmation. When I gave them the technical pitch, they tried to get corroboration from the salesman. They seemed to be struggling with our presentation.<\/p>\n
By the time we went for lunch, the customer team leader had had enough. He said, "Which one of you is the engineer and which is the salesman?" (At that time, I was a vest-wearing dandy. The salesman looked like an unmade bed and wore a pocket protector.)<\/p>\n
We laughed and carefully explained who we were again. At that point, everything fell into place for them and we wrapped up our discussion successfully in less than an hour. <\/p>\n
Until then, the customer could not accept technical input from a slick-looking dude or sales input from someone wearing a pocket protector and a wrinkled shirt. It was like they just could not accept the data because it was coming from an inappropriate source. <\/p>\n
As the group at the dinner table nodded in agreement, I related another example: A woman I worked with made an excellent presentation to senior management, only to have the big boss turn to a junior male employee for confirmation. He would not accept meaningful input from a woman.<\/p>\n
This triggered a number of similar stories from the women at the table, and we were off and running with a long discussion about the inability of some people to accept input from others..<\/p>\n
I wound up making the point that it isn’t always enough to make intelligent suggestions. One has to break through the barriers that prevent the other person from listening to you.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t address the young man’s real question, which was how does he get his father to listen to him, but I hope I gave both father and son enough information so they might begin discussing the issue together.<\/p>\n
I know I have just scratched the surface of this issue. If there is interest, I will suggest some ways you can break through some unconscious barriers of prejudice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was eating dinner last night in Wisconsin with a wonderfully warm and straight-forward group of people who typify to me the hard-working owners of small town businesses. They were discussing my new book and why I had written it … Continue reading