Archive for the ‘Human Nature’ Category

I’ve written about the power of apology in the past, and today I was reminded of the power of the words “I’m sorry” by a short article I read in the November 23 edition of BusinessWeek magazine.

As part of a larger article titled 10 Ways to Cut Health-Care Costs Right Now, I found item number 10 under the heading: Aplogize to the Patient.

This short piece quickly describes the financial impact of a program initiated by the Sorry Works! Coalition. Sorry Works! suggests that hospitals immediately inform patients and their families of medical errors, investigate the cause, change procedures if necessary, and offer a settlement if the heath-care provider is at fault.

In effect, they promote saying: “I’m sorry.”

According to the article, the University of Michigan Health System and the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago both reported significant (in the range of 40-50%) reduction in malpractice claims by applying the Sorry Works! program.

So, what’s the implication to workplace conflict resolution?

Just say, “I’m sorry.”

Very rarely have I ever been involved in a dispute with another person when they were totally at fault. In most situations, I have contributed to the situation in one way or another.

Rather than debate the what I did or didn’t say, what you did or didn’t say, what I did or didn’t intend, or what you did or didn’t intend points of the conflict, just say “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry for what I said or did. That’s it. No justification. No rehashing of the events. No blaming.

Will this always work? No.

Will it usually work? Yes – the reduction in malpractice suits proves it.

“I’m sorry” flies in the face of our natural need to protect ourselves. It’s often difficult to say, and it works.

Yesterday, I stopped at a fast-food restaurant to grab a sandwich. When I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed six or seven cars in the drive through line and no one standing in line inside the building. So, I parked my car, walked inside, purchased my sandwich, and returned to my car in about two or three minutes.

When I exited the building, four or five of the cars originally in line when I arrived were still in line and the line had grown to something like ten cars. And still, there was no one waiting in line inside the building.

This situation occured on a sunny day with the temperatures near 60 F – a beautiful day for November in central Indiana.

At first, I thought how silly the picture was of people waiting in their cars in line for ten or fifteen minutes when they could be in and out of the parking lot in three to five minutes by simply going inside. Then I made the connection to leadership, communication, and conflict resolution.

People have a tendency to do what seems to be easiest even when it will not produce the fastest or most efficient results.

For example, we sometimes avoid a conflict resolution discussion because it seems easier to ignore the situation in hopes that it will go away. Generally, the situations get worse rather than better when left alone. So, by avoiding a brief conversation now, we buy ourselves a week or a month of hurt feelings and reduced effectiveness. It seems easier in the moment, but it costs us in the end.

Or, we fail to confront poor performance with our employees, children, or friends because we don’t want to experience the pain of resolving the issue. As a result, we get more of the poor performance in the future until we get frustrated enough to “deal with it” (probably in a highly elevated emotional state) in a way that escalates the frustration rather than resolving it.

Conflict conversations, confrontations, and efforts at resolution are not always easy. Avoiding (or sometimes condemning) can seem easier in the moment. Taking a lesson from the drive through example:

Easy isn’t necessarily best.

Effort, work, and emotional investment to resolve a conflict while it is small can pay huge dividends in time savings and preserved relationships.

Recently, I was working through an issue with another person. They were distressed over the results of a process that affects both of us. I helped to create the process. I have authority to change the process if necessary. And I have knowledge of the system to troubleshoot and fix a fair number of problems.

As we were discussing the issue, they kept talking about their concern without giving me the details I needed to fix it for them. Since I was trying to fix the problem, I started to get a bit frustrated.

They talked.

I grew frustrated.

The talked some more.

I grew more frustrated.

The cycle continued until I said: “I get that you are concerned. I totally understand that you have a concern. Is it okay if we discuss how to solve the problem so that your concern can get resolved?”

They immediately said, “Yes, that would be great.” Their emotional level decreased. They focused on giving me the information I needed to fix the problem for them. And we had the situation resolved in less than 5 minutes from that point forward.

The other person is not a bad, difficult person. They are committed to their work. They want to do a good job, and they had a genuine concern. Because they had a concern, they became emotionally invested in the situation, and their emotional investment became a barrier to our communication. They needed me to understand that they had a concern.

Until I acknowledged their concern, they could not see past it to help me solve the problem. Their need to be heard and understood outweighed their ability to focus on the details of the problem.

The learning lesson in this is pretty simple. When you engage in a tense or emotionally charged conversation with another person, hearing, understanding, and acknowledging their emotion about the situation often creates the right environment for moving on to joint problem solving.

The converse is also often true. Failure to hear, understand, and acknowledge their emotion can create an insurmountable barrier to effective communication and joint problem solving.

This morning I have been catching up on reading some of my favorite blogs. As always, I saw really thought provoking content by Tammy Lenski, Victoria Pynchon, Kevin Eikenberry, and Kare Anderson.

The post that struck me the most was Common Courtesty Should Not Be An Oxymoron by Diane Levin.

I’m not sure why it struck me so strongly today, but it did. Maybe it’s because I’m not always so great at following-up with thank-yous myself. Maybe it was a selfish motivation to inspire others to thank me. At the moment, I can’t tell whether self-reflection or self-protection really triggered me today. I just know that Diane’s thoughts resonated strongly, and I want to add my two-cents to her comments by way of asking a few reflection questions for all of us to consider.

• Why haven’t I taken action to genuinely thank someone who has gone out of their way to help me?
• What is stopping me from acting with common courtesy?
• Is it really that hard to just say “thank-you?”

I’m asking myself these questions today. In the name of common courtesy, will you join me?

(BTW – In case I’ve failed to properly thank you for your contributions to the blogosphere and for your encouragement to me, I would like to say: “Thank-you Diane. I’ve learned alot from you.”)

We all have experience. You get experience by simply living life. However, our experiences really don’t matter if we fail to reflect on and learn from them.

Over the last few days, I have been reading a fascinating book titled The Brain that Changes Itself. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I really like what I’ve been learning so far. I’ll likely have more insights from this book in the next few weeks.

The key point of today’s post is this, experience without reflection is rather pointless.

Here’s a quote from the book referencing a study on brain plasticity (changes in brain structure and function) done by mapping brain activity in monkeys:

…Merzenich (the researcher) discovered that paying close attention is essential to long-term plastic change. In numerous experiments he found that lasting changes occurred only when his monkeys paid close attention. When the animals performed tasks automatically, without paying attention, they changed their brain maps, but the changes did not last. We often praise “the ability to multitask.” While you can learn when you divide your attention, divided attention doesn’t lead to abiding change in your brain maps.

In short, failure to focus – reflect on your experience – does not lead to long-term learning and improvement.

I have often noticed that some people have 20 years of experience and other people have 1 year of experience 20 times.

I’m guessing that the former group thinks about and reflects on the lessons from their experiences and the latter group keeps having the same experiences without ever stopping to reflect or focus on them. The former group “changes their brain map” and the latter group doesn’t.

To become a better communicator, parent, teacher, student, or leader, I suggest that you stop to reflect on your experiences so that you can learn from them rather than consistently experiencing interactions on autopilot so that you have the experience but not the learning.

Remember, experience is mandatory but learning is optional.

Photo courtesy of www.sxc.hu.

Great insights by my friend and colleague, Kevin Eikenberry. Once again, the video says it all.

So, what’s lulling you to sleep? What seems comfortable right now, but could really improve your performance if you changed it?