Being Understood

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

As the last page of the calendar streaks by with alarming speed, let's grab a few minutes to check the rear view mirror and invest some precious time to assess where we (and our organizations) have been.  Noticing what we've achieved in the past 12 months is an excellent way to launch the plans we make for the new year.

With our eyes firmly fixed on where we're headed, we often forget to celebrate or even notice what we've already accomplished. As a coach, I often ask clients to catch themselves doing something well and stop to savour the moment. I can, sometimes, forget to take my own advice.

Last week, I made time to do that, as I joined with a friend and fellow solopreneur to refine our business plans and set action priorities for 2008. Our first activity was to make a note of what we'd each achieved. At her suggestion, we also listed the names of people who had helped us get there.

You call this entertainment?

It's hard to be a Help Desk person. We customers only call when we're angry or confused or both.  If only we could just learn to enjoy:

• waiting (Kenny G is Top Of The Pops on "Hold" this week)
• listening to long multilingual messages that don't make sense in any language
• bouncing between service people (I suspect they have a [Random] button to send us to other departments where we will hear, "That's not my job," immediately before they ask the obligatory question, "Is there anything more I help you with today?")
• getting nowhere and taking forever to get there

In a bid to be the "ideal customer," I have started to use my problems as entertainment, for both myself and Help Desk employees. I had a great chat, this morning, with someone at Bell Canada. He was wonderful and had the customer service spirit so often missing in call centres.

The Deadbeat Harrassment System
I'm not a Bell customer, except for the occasional pay phone. However, I'm receiving daily "Pay up or die!" calls from an automated  system that asks me to call a phone number that turns out to be the credit department at Bell. It seems a former holder of my new phone number hasn't met  some of her financial obligations. I know this because Bell wasn't the only firm calling about monies owed. Fortunately, the others sent humans or included an account number in their recorded messages. These companies understand that communication requires some content and contact.

Not so Bell Canada, which is, ironically, Canada's largest communications network and has corporate communication departments in several cities. This was the sixth time I had called Bell on this matter - and the first time anyone seemed interested. This lovely agent dug into my case like detective Hercule Poirot. He revealed that, for this giant company whose business is phones and phoning, a phone number is insufficient information. He searched on all my particulars, diver's licence, social insurance nubmer, and such, just to rule out identity theft. Then he determined, to his and my regret, that there is absolutely nothing he or Bell can do to stop the system from hassling me.

A solution is found (maybe)
Firmly convinced that you can always get good service if you communicate, I didn't give up. There is a possible solution. Caller blocking! So the next few times Bell calls, I can note the time and caller phone number and my telco can stop the nonsense. 

How do I know this? You guessed it.  I called the Rogers Telecom Help Desk.

Cheers - Sue

Communication Sinners - Are You One?

I have invested far too many hours, this weekend, trying to sort out a communication mess.  A member of a volunteer board, on which I serve, has, effectively punched the rest of us in the head.

We probably deserve it.

There are sins of commission and sins of omission. Both forms are present on both sides of this particular communication mess.

The sin commtted is that of  working up a good sense of outrage, sending off the e-mail equivalent of a nuclear attack on the entire world, and sitting back to watch the explosion 

I confess.  In my younger, stupider days, I committed that very sin, myself, though on a smaller scale (and using cleaner, crisper, clearer language).  I loved being outraged and articulate about it. Later, I became a journalist, and was paid to commit that sin.

In the situation this group faces, today, it's the sins of omission that are more disturbing.

Try? There is no Try!

Many of you will know that I am in the throes of authoring a book about workplace communication.  You may not know that I'm trying to complete it by the end of February, just 13 short days and nights from this moment.

Talk To Me - Workplace Conversations That Work, blends fiction and nonfiction, weaving a story around and through the communication ideas to put them in a 'real world' context. It's a book with an accompanying learning program and a slew of downloadable recordings and worksheets to support it. Mercifully, these extra bits are not due by month's end.

This morning, as I was trying to write one of five chapters required this week, I interrupted myself to coach a young entrepreneur of unusual talent. Today was not her best day. She acknowledged that she's trying to be a certain way. And she'll try to think bigger. And she'll try to put some ideas together. And she'll try to do something about it.

And all of a sudden, I could year the great Jedi guru, Yoda, screaming at me, at her, and at the world, just as he screamed at Luke Skywalker. "Try? There is no Try! There is only Do and Not Do."

Eclectic and Enigmatic - the Women's Show

"So how was the Women's Show?" curious friends asked me. "Well," was my cautious answer, "I'm not sure what to make of it."

Talk about life!
It was fun.  No question there.  Very little lights me up more than talking to people about their lives and their work.  Women of all ages stopped by to pick up a fortune cookie and laugh at my bad joke: "Your fortunes improve when you work with a coach!" (Just because it's true, doesn't make it any less corny.)

Many who stopped by agreed to do the "Life Wheel," sharing how satisfied they are with eight major dimensions of life. The result of that conversation is a  "snapshot" of their situation and, often, some insight about  where they might want to do some work.  "It's not that I didn't sense this," said one of our booth visitors, "But I didn't really see how out of balance things are."

Mini Trends
I noticed some patterns that weren't surprising.

Many of the people who reported that they aren't having much fun in life also report concerns about their health. And vice versa. That mind/body connection is clearly at work.

There seemed to be a similar relationship between satisfaction with one's financial situation and the personal growth dimension. Those who are yearning for more of one, tend also to be yearning for more of the other.

The people visiting the show on Saturday were more likely to rate their satisfaction with career as a 7 or 8 out of a possible 10.  The Sunday folk tended, on average, to be around 5.  Theories anyone?  Perhaps people who just jump in and do things, whether it's work or play, just have a better time.

The other interesting thing was that some of the people who visited the booth actually knew what life and business coaching is and wanted to come and talk about it.  (It didn't hurt that the business section of the Saturday newspaper featured an article on how coaching isn't just for executives anymore. )

Theme: More of everything
As for the rest of the show, anyone looking for a pattern was left confused.  Booths around us included local colleges, the police department, cosmetics of all sorts, belly dancing, armed forces recruiting, fitness clubs, chiropractors, sewing machines, handbags, aromatherapy, mutual funds, real estate - in a word, "eclectic."  The only conclusion I drew is that women are interested in everything - like that's news to anyone?