Remember when Mom said, "Treat others the way that you would like to be treated?" Well she wasn't completely right...
The other day my partner and I were meeting with a vendor we have been doing business with for several years. This particular person (I will call her Mary) is a joy to be around. Mary is very personable and loves to talk (just like me). Now you know why I love Mary. She is just like me! In fact, when Mary and I are together we barely get a word in edgewise with one another. We are both "People People" - we are warm, friendly, and very animated as we communicate.
My partner, Mike, is completely different from me. If you took our Behavior Profiles and matched them up - holding one upside-down over the other - we are a perfect combination. Mike is the detail guy and I am the salesperson. We have come to understand one another over our several years working as partners and we work well together. Mike is the Consumer Reports guy - trust but verify. I am the guy who says, "What kind of camera did you just buy?" and then I buy it based on how well I like the person.
Mary didn't understand Mike. In fact, over the last month, Mary has been asking a lot of "Is everything ok?" questions because while working with Mike, Mike was being Mike - Mr. Quiet unless he had something really big to say - which isn't often. Of course, with me - everything is ok with me and Mary. I love Mary. She is just like me. But Mary isn't just like Mike. Mike didn't know it but he was freaking Mary out by not being emotional like Mary.
But Mary was worried because Mike wasn't oozing happy, touchy-feely, "I love you!", warm fuzzy, emotion-filled love every second he was around Mary. That's why we had a meeting.
Consider this... When some people are happy - the whole world knows. When others are happy, the world may not know. When I am happy, my face, body, and voice show it. When Mike is happy, his face and voice might show it - but if you aren't inside his circle - probably not. If you want to see how I am feeling - just look at me. What I am thinking is coming out through how I talk, my facial gestures, and how I hold my body. The same goes with Mary.
For the emotional types like myself, people like Mike freak us out. We tend to think they are angry with us for some reason when the fact is they are just fine. On the other hand, we also assume everything is fine when nothing is being said or emoted when the fact is - what is wrong isn't big enough to justify taking the emotional risk of saying something.
Mike was freaking Mary out and didn't know it. Why? Because Mary expected Mike to show emotion like she does and when he didn't she thought he was angry.
Did you know? Generally, 50 percent of the population shows more emotion than the other 50 percent. Twenty-five percent of the population shows little to no emotion. Twenty-five percent of the population shows a great deal of emotion. Those of us who are emotional like others to be emotional. Those of us who aren't can't stand it when others are emotional. Sounds complicated, right? It doesn't have to be. You can actually learn to "flex" your behaviors more than you are right now. It's called Dynamic Communication. We actually offer a powerful learning program on it.
So when Mom or Dad or Grandma and Grandpa said, "Treat others the way you would like to be treated," they were about 25 percent correct and kinda correct 50 percent of the time and absolutely incorrect 25 percent of the time.
The question burning in the back of my mind... How long had Mary been worried about our relationship? What could she have done with that time she spent worrying?
Question for you... How often do you misread people - expecting them to be just like you - treating them the way you would like to be treated - and get poor results? And when you get poor results, how does that cause you to feel? And those feelings... What stories do you create (that aren't true) as a result of those negative feelings? We are great story-creators!
The bottom line. Don't assume that other people are like you nor assume that they like information, emotion, change, or even steak the way that you do. In fact, how you handle information, emotion, and change is a function of your core behavior style. How you like your steak is a matter of personal taste... :)
Want to know more about your personality style and/or how to help your team improve their interpersonal effectiveness, overcome conflict, and handle change more effectively? We have a behavior profile instrument and coaching process that will blow you away. Drop an email or give me a call and I will set you up with a complementary sample personality profile.
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Kind thoughts become deeds. Choose the right thoughts...
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Copyright 2006, Chris Young, The Rainmaker Group - Helping Teams Maximize Possibility - 701-530-0806 - chris@therainmakergroupinc.com - www.therainmakergroupinc.com. Interested in having Chris and The Rainmaker Group work with you and your team? Give us a shout! Feel free to post this information to your company newsletter, website, or bathroom door - just give credit...
Chris: This reminds me of something I read on Steve Farber's blog a while back about The Golden Rule (check it out here: http://stevefarber.com/mt/archives/2006/07/the_ethic_of_re.html
You can read my comment from the linked website on Steve's site for another opinion about this.
I think this would be a great topic for a future blog. Watch my site for more on this! Thanks for the inspiration!
Jodee
Posted by: Jodee Bock | October 19, 2006 at 02:37 AM