023: Personalization, Being Liked, Delivering Bad News
It's all about emotions!
Hello from Bengaluru!
✋In case we haven’t met - my name is Narayan Kamath. I am an Executive and Leadership Coach, helping Engineering/Technology leaders multiply their impact, enjoy greater career success and feel more fulfilled.
I was at the neighbourhood supermarket and waiting patiently for the person in front of me to finish checking out.
And then another counter opened and the cashier beckoned the person behind me to his counter.
And I lost it!
I loudly asked the cashier whether he had a problem with me - did he not see that I had been waiting too?
And he said “Sorry sir! Senior Citizen Sir!”
That’s when I turned around and saw an older lady slowly moving to the newly opened counter.
She hesitated, looking at me.
I felt like sh*t!
The cashier invited the lady behind me because it was their policy to serve senior citizens first.
Without looking to see who was behind me, I assumed he was ignoring me.
In other words I took this to be a personal slight and overreacted, without understanding the situation completely.
A psychologist would say I was personalizing the situation.
Personalization is a cognitive distortion - a habitual pattern of thinking that is not based on facts and leads to inaccurate perception and bad decisions.
As part of my training to be a coach, I have studied cognitive distortions, and often help my clients become aware of such faulty thinking in themselves.
However, that knowledge does not seem to prevent me from indulging in such faulty thinking myself.
And to paraphrase Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate and author of the best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow: The fact that we know a lot about cognitive distortions and how they work, doesn’t make us immune to them.
And that’s a humbling thought!
How to Make People Like You Instantly
I used to think that the way to get people to like me was to show them how intelligent I was.
I would argue passionately.
I would talk about my credentials, experience and achievements - so that people could know how intelligent I was,
I would jump in and solve their problems - and then let the whole world know how helpful I was.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that people don’t usually like someone who outsmarts them.
I swung the other way - flattering people. Saying nice things about them - that neither I believed, nor they.
I had no idea how to make people like me, and was always looking for a tip, a secret, a technique.
Then I came across Dale Carnegie’s book “How to WIn Friends and Influence People”.
That’s where I learned about the six principles that you need to follow in order to make people like you:
1️⃣ Become genuinely interested in other people. Do this and you’ll be welcome anywhere.
2️⃣ Smile. This is a simple way of making a good first impression.
3️⃣ Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. If you don’t do this, you are headed for trouble.
4️⃣ Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. This is the easiest way to be known as a good conversationalist.
5️⃣ Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. Doing this makes them think you are an interesting person.
6️⃣ Make the other person feel important -- and do it sincerely. If you learn to do this, they will like you instantly.
Dale Carnegie wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1937.
That’s about 85 years ago.
Yet these principles apply today, 85 years later.
And that’s because these are principles, not techniques.
Embrace these principles to become a person of influence.
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5 TIPS TO DELIVER BAD NEWS BETTER
I have some bad news for you.
If you are the typical leader, you hate delivering bad news.
And that’s bad news, because it can seriously undermine your relationships at work, reduce engagement, and impact performance adversely.
But there’s good news too…
You can learn to deliver bad news in a better way.
Here are 5 things you can do:
1️⃣ Don’t wait to deliver bad news.
The longer you wait, the more difficult it gets. And there is also greater damage to the relationship. This is not to say you should not pick the right time/place, but the earlier you convey bad news the better it is for all concerned.
2️⃣ Don’t soften the message.
The best way to deliver a difficult message is to deliver it straight - not to sugar coat it, and not to pretend that it isn’t really that bad. This just confuses the other person. You can and must soften the delivery - through the words you use, through your tone, facial expressions, posture - all indicating that you are coming from a place of caring (which is hopefully true!).
3️⃣ Practice Compassionate Empathy.
Leaders have to be empathetic, but don’t stop at emotional empathy. When you empathize emotionally, you feel what they feel. This is necessary but not sufficient. As a leader, you also need to show compassionate empathy - going beyond how they feel in the moment, to what is good for them, for the team and the organization in the long run.
4️⃣ Be willing to listen.
Sometimes you find the act of delivering bad news so unpleasant and stressful, you want to “shoot and scoot.” However, as a leader, you need to ensure that they have received the message, allow them to process it, and make sure they understand what it means. This might mean being willing to answer questions, hearing their point of view, or just being there as they work through their emotions.
5️⃣ Manage your own emotions.
You have obviously prepared yourself and ensured you are in the right state of mind to deliver difficult news. However, it is possible that your emotions are triggered by how they react. And it’s not just about regulating your emotions in the moment - you also need to ensure you don’t walk away with emotional residue that you carry into your next conversation, or internalize without processing.
Doing the above won’t make you feel good about delivering bad news.
However it will ensure you don’t make it any more painful than need be.
End Quote
To end this edition, here's a quote I've been pondering on this week:
“Remember, you only have to succeed the last time. ” ― Brian Tracy
The next time you envy someone for their success, remember you have no idea what it took for them to succeed. We only see their success, not all the failures and heartbreaks that came before it.
That's all this week! Thanks for your time.
👋
Narayan
PS: When you are ready, here are some ways we can work together to amplify your impact:
1. Grab a free copy of my Deliver Through Others Checklist - It’s a useful summary of the key principles to working better with and through others— Click Here
2. Work with me privately - If you are an Engineering/Technology leader aspiring to evolve into an inspiring and impactful Business Leader, let’s talk! Set up a no-obligation exploratory call with me - Click Here