Posts Tagged ‘productive conflict’

The Unsellable Customer

October 1, 2012  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  4 Comments

There is a segment of your market you are missing.  Loyal customers who would be happy to do business with you if only you could let them know who you are and you are trust worthy.  The problem, they are unsellable.  If you can tap this market, they will be your best non-sales people because they share who they trust.

This is a first-hand account from a self-admitted unsellable customer:

I really dislike sales people.  If what you have requires selling, I don’t need it.  If I do need it, I really, really wish I didn’t (I am thinking about my last car buying experience).

Please don’t hawk at me.  If your brochure is covered in large print, bright colors and exclamation points I am going to wonder what you are trying to hide.  Yelling at me from a trade booth or doorway is a sure way to make me run away.

Complementing me is going to make me suspect.  Why are you trying to butter me up?

If I am in your store or booth and you follow me around trying to sell me stuff I will be polite for awhile.  If I have said no a couple of times and am not asking questions, let me know you are available to help me if I need it and go away.  If you miss the cues that I am not interested I will start to feel trapped and have been known to be very rude in order to escape.

Fear tactics, pressure sales, telling me I am wasting money with your competitor, or freebies that aren’t free will get you black listed.

Spam makes me crazier than it does other people.  If you send so many tweets that your picture fills my feed I will scroll past all of them.  Do it often and I will stop following you.  I am even less tolerant of spam-y email.

If you say you are going to do something and you don’t, I likely won’t ask about it or complain.  I will just take my business elsewhere.”

Doc Robyn:  Not surprisingly, all the regular sales methods don’t work for you.  How would you like to learn about new products or services?

Have a way for me to find and learn about you in an online search.  If I reach out to you or meet you at an event and express an interest in your product or service, give me useful information that will help me make a decision.  Ask me questions about what I need or want and then tell me how you can help me.  I have to see for myself that what you have is something I need.

Please treat me with respect.  I don’t know the things you know, hence I am asking.  There is no doubt there are subjects on which I could talk circles around you too.  If you talk over my head or are condescending I will see if your competitor is any nicer.

If things get awkward, let me walk away.  Even if you manage to pressure me into buying something I will bad-mouth you to anyone who will listen. That goes double if you make it difficult or impossible for me to return something.

If I call, answer the phone (or at least call me back).  If I email you, respond.  If I say I am looking for someone to do what you do and give you my email or phone number, follow up with me.  I like websites with an e-chat option.  I can ask what I want, say thank you and be done.  No phone trees, annoying hold music or up-selling.

If I walk in wanting to buy something, sell it to me!  Don’t try to up-sell me.  I will walk out with nothing.

I like being able to browse in private.  If I look like I am looking for someone to help me, I am.  If I don’t, please only offer once.  Catalogs, books of options and websites with descriptions that I can look through at my leisure are wonderful for me.

If I believe I am getting a good product or service at a fair price and you are respectful to me, I will forgive a lot of mistakes.  It is easier than trying to find someone new.

The best way to sell to me is by having someone I know and trust recommend you.  Treat all of your customers well; you never know who my friends are.”

There you have it, straight from the customer’s mouth.  Unsellable customers need products and services too.  How do you find and sell to them?

Dr. Robyn Odegaard (aka Doc Robyn) is a nationally known speaker, writer, and consultant.  She has a doctorate in psychology and is CEO of Champion Performance Development, an organization that enables her to combine her skills in executive coaching, organizational development, sports psychology, and public speaking to show her clients how they can achieve success in every aspect of their lives.  Doc Robyn founded the Stop The Drama! Campaign, authored the book Stop The Drama!, and speaks at high schools and colleges, instilling in students the same skills that bring success to her business clients.  An avid supporter of people who strive to attain a high level of performance in their personal and business lives, Doc Robyn lives by the motto, “Worst case, I want to be neutral to everyone I meet. My goal is to make a positive difference.”

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Don’t Confuse the Situation with the Facts

June 4, 2012  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

How many times have you been in a discussion with someone and either heard or said, “Yeah, but….”?   That phrase means, “I agree with the point you are making but not enough to accept the whole argument or make the decision you want.  Very often when someone says, ‘yeah, but…’ they are agreeing with the facts while disagreeing emotionally.  It is in those instances that I say, “Don’t confuse the situation with the facts”.  What I mean is, the facts are second in importance to the emotion about the situation.  Rather than trying to dissuade someone using facts, work to understand the emotion.

To really understand someone requires knowing the difference between hearing, listening, understanding and feeling heard.

Hearing – The vibration of sound waves against the eardrum.  You can hear a car horn.

Listening - The conscious act of paying attention to sound.  You can listen to a horn to determine where it is coming from.

Understanding – The interpretation of sound into thought that is congruent with the intent of the sender.   You can hear a car horn, realize it is coming from the vehicle behind you and interpret that they want you to notice that the light has turned green.

Feeling heard – When the sender of information believes you understand what they are telling you.  When you proceed through the intersection the other driver knows you got the message.

Of course a car horn is a crude example of those four points.  However, the idea is the same when someone is speaking to you.  When someone (even you) says “Yeah, but…” listen to what comes next.  In all likelihood they are giving you emotional reasons they disagree or can’t do what you want.   A great example is when someone is caught in an inappropriate relationship.  They know all the cultural and societal facts as to why they shouldn’t have done what they did.  But the reasons for their choices weren’t based in fact, they were based in emotion. (I don’t think I need to give examples.  Listen to any audio of someone after they have been caught in an affair.  You will hear emotion, not logic.)

The emotion part of our brain is much stronger then the fact side.  All of the facts can line up on one side of a decision and we will often go with the emotional answer instead.  So, when someone is ‘yeah, but-ing’ you, stop throwing facts and logic at them and work to understand their emotion.  Once you do that you will be able to have a discussion at the root of the decision making process and determine if change is possible.  Sometimes all the logic in the world can’t override emotions.  Why do you think we talk about making decisions with your head versus your heart?

Dr. Robyn Odegaard is the CEO/Owner of the speaking/consulting company Champion Performance Development, the founder of the Stop The Drama! Campaign and author of the book ‘Stop The Drama! The Ultimate Guide to Female Teams’.  She specializes in showing people how to use language powerfully to achieve the most from their potential.   You can invite her to give one of her funny, powerful, insightful presentations and inquire about her consulting services at www.ChampPerformance.com and order her book from www.StopTheDramaNow.com

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What Does “Acting Grownup” Mean – Really? And How Do We Do It?

May 28, 2012  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

We have all experienced situations where we described someone as “not acting like an adult”.  Parents at little league games, fans at sport events, CEOs in boardrooms.  I wrote an entire post about it just last week (read it here if you missed it).  I got a lot of “Yes, you’re right” and “I agree” and “People never really get out of high school”.  I was also asked a very specific question, “What does productive conflict look like when it is done successfully?”  Instead of responding in individual emails I think that question warrants a follow up post.

Let me start by defining ‘Productive Conflict’ – The act of addressing and handling a disagreement or misunderstanding using an established set of healthy communication guidelines which lead to resolution (from Stop The Drama!).

Last week I was able to provide you with several links to stories about people not using productive conflict and several more to studies that showing how effective communication and productive conflict are linked to success.  I was hoping I could provide links again this week to stories in the press of people using these “adult” skills.  But it would seem that people working out their disagreements and misunderstandings in a civilized fashion isn’t news.  So I’ll have to give you an example from my work.

I want you to know that I don’t like conflict any more then the next person.  If I were to go with my default response, I would ignore problems until they exploded and then go in armed to the teeth for battle.  The stories I share (here and in my book) are learned behavior on my part.  And that means you (and everybody else) can learn them too.

***

I had been working with this team for awhile.  They knew and trusted me which created an environment where we were able to accomplish a lot of work in our weekly meetings.  On the day in question we came to the end of our meeting time but conversation was not at a clean stopping point.  As a group we engaged in a conversation about what was planned after our meeting and what it meant for us to run over our allotted time.  As a group it was decided that we could spend an additional 45 minutes before we had a hard stop.

Fast forward three days.  I received a nasty email (this would NOT be the productive conflict part of the story) from the team leader accusing me of unilaterally deciding that my meeting was more important than the meeting he had scheduled for the team after I was supposed to end.  He continued to inform me that my position with the team was a kindness bestowed upon me by him and he could remove my access at anytime.

There were two productive conflict conversations I needed to have.  1 – With the team: Why hadn’t they told me they had another meeting scheduled; causing us to make a decision without all the cards on the table.  2 – With the team leader: Clearly he had made a litany of assumptions based on something other than the facts, he was not respecting me as a valuable member of his support staff and he had not shared the expectation that he thought I was accountable for his team staying on schedule and had not provided me with a scheduled to which I could hold them accountable.

I was not looking forward to either one of those conversations.

Here are the steps for preparing to engaging in productive conflict (even if the person you are speaking to does not understand the foundation of it).

  1. Know what you need to achieve with the conversation.  Productive conflict isn’t about winning or losing.  It is about reaching a resolution.   For both conversations I asked myself – what is my end goal?
  2. Understand and remove any preconceived ideas you have about why the other person did what they did.  This is most clear with my response to the team leader’s email.  All of the reasons I gave are about him jumping the gun and being unfair.  Maybe he was.  But I needed to approach the conversation from a neutral place if we were going to have a productive interaction.
  3. Know your timeout point.  All of us have buttons that can get pushed.  Knowing when you have reached the point where you are fighting rather than discussing and take a timeout.  As I always say, just because a conversation starts to go downhill doesn’t mean you have to go with it.
  4. Now you are ready to implement the actual steps of productive conflict which I wrote about in this post


In the case of my story, the conversation with the team went very well.  They understood why I felt lied to and they explained that they didn’t realize the meeting after ours had actually been confirmed (if we had ended our meeting on time they would have seen that).

The meeting with the team leader was substantially more tense.  I left with the impression that he was feeling threatened by the team’s increasing trust in me.  I explained that he and I were on the same side, working to make his team as productive as possible and that I was in no way undermining his authority (in fact quite the opposite).  I did not leave with the feeling he trusted that.  However, we were able to get the specific issue at hand out in the open and reach a resolution on team meetings running over their allotted time in the future.

Do you have an example of having being prepared to have a conversation you knew you needed to have but didn’t really want to and it went well? We would love to hear it!

Dr. Robyn Odegaard is the CEO/Owner of the speaking/consulting company Champion Performance Development, the founder of the Stop The Drama! Campaign and author of the book ‘Stop The Drama! The Ultimate Guide to Female Teams’.  She specializes in showing people how to use language powerfully to achieve more from their potential.   You can invite her to give one of her funny, powerful, informative presentations and inquire about her other services at www.ChampPerformance.com and order her book from www.StopTheDramaNow.com

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Why Don’t Grownups Act Like Grownups?

May 21, 2012  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

You don’t have to look very hard to find people behaving badly in just about any walk of life.  I found five stories without even trying (CEOs, Baseball umps, “Regular People 1, Regular People 2, and Athletes).  If you spend more than two seconds on any news site or with the TV on you are bombarded with adults behaving badly.  Granted, it is disproportionally bad behavior that is broadcast because, well, it’s news.

But even in everyday life I see adults engaging in behavior that we shouldn’t even accept from children.  Just yesterday I witnessed an adult in a screaming match with a store employee over a return policy and in the same store saw someone cut in line because they didn’t think the person in front of them was moving fast enough.  What is going on with our society that being a grownup no longer means behaving like one?

This is the problem and how we fix it:

‘Feelings’ has become the new F word while the real f-bomb is dropped without a thought.  I can hardly be in public without having to hear it.  Sitting in traffic with my window open, waiting for a friend in a sushi restaurant, in a stadium trying to enjoy a double-a ball game, I have even heard it in boardrooms.  But say the word feelings or have the audacity to ask someone how they’re feeling and everyone looks at you askance.

I hate to break it to you but those emotional tirades people go on and use the f-bomb (a completely useless word that provides no meaning to the conversation what-so-ever) are driven by feelings.  In most cases, feelings that aren’t understood and that person has no idea how to manage: hence the explosion.

Speaking of not knowing how to manage our feelings – how are we supposed to learn what to do with negative feelings?  Who teaches this stuff?  I mean other than sport psychologists and executive coaches.  It seems that somewhere along the way we have forgotten to teach our young people how to have a disagreement without being rude, disrespectful and throwing a tantrum.  Now we have people who don’t know how to manage anger and disappointment raising children.  Somehow that doesn’t make me feel very good.

Why does it matter?  Well aside from general human decency (which I think is a pretty big issue), knowing how to use productive conflict and engage in a professional disagreement has been shown to lead to greater success.  And success leads to more happiness and higher income.  Need evidence?  See here, here, here and here.

What are we going to do about it?  Well I don’t know about you, but I am on a campaign to show people from junior high through CEOs how to understand what they are feeling and to use language powerfully to move toward resolution rather than epic meltdown.  You can call it organizational development, teambuilding, professional coaching or team psychology.  Whatever label you put on it the bottom line is this – grownups who are able to act like grownups are going to get further in life.  And I am not suggesting people suppress their feelings.  In fact I teach exactly the opposite.  We all can benefit by learning how to express ourselves productively rather than using the volcano method (push it down until the pressure is so great it explodes).

And while we’re at it, if we could tone down the use of the f-bomb it would make it a lot easier to focus on what people are trying to say rather than being distracted by their lack of vocabulary.

What is your most recent experience of someone not acting like a grownup in public? Share it here.

Dr. Robyn Odegaard is the CEO/Owner of the speaking/consulting company Champion Performance Development, the founder of the Stop The Drama! Campaign and author of the book ‘Stop The Drama! The Ultimate Guide to Female Teams’.  She specializes in showing people how to use language powerfully to achieve more from their potential.   You can invite her to give one of her funny, powerful, informative presentations and inquire about her other services at www.ChampPerformance.com and order her book from www.StopTheDramaNow.com

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Are Boys’ Sports Better Than Girls’?

October 10, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

It has long been considered a fact that sports, particularly team sports, provide athletes with the opportunity to learn and practice leadership and teamwork skills.  But is that true across the board? Is it valid for us to assume that an athlete is generally going to be better at working with others than a non-athlete?  Clearly the answer to that question is “no”.  Some teams and coaches are better at providing those skills and some athletes are better at picking them up and implementing them than others.  But the problem runs more deeply than that.  If you put aside the variation from team to team and coach to coach, I believe there is a deep divide between how applicable the skills boys’ teams use are compared to those used on girls’ teams.

That is not to say I think boys are being taught something fabulous.  That certainly isn’t the case. But the skills they use are at least transferable to business relationships.  What most girls get from sports is not only non-transferable; it is detrimental to their workplace success.

Allow me to explain:

On boys’ teams there is often bravado, some posturing and likely even a little physical pushing and shoving.  But in the end, a direction is chosen (maybe not the best one, but a direction) and everyone on the team works towards that goal – together.

By contrast, on a girls’ team there is gossip, backstabbing, and grudges.  A direction may be chosen, but there could be a clique made up of several members of the team who will not work toward that goal.  Members of the team may refuse to work together at all.  Hurt feelings and anger escalate and the team becomes hooked into a firestorm of “she said, she said” causing individual and team performance to plummet.

Now, before you get all up in arms and start writing nasty comments about how not all girls’ teams are like that – I know.  Not all of them are.  Sometimes you will get lucky and a female team will not have to deal with girl drama.  But that is the exception and not the rule.  I have worked with enough female teams to say with certainty that most of them have at least one mean girl and often entire cliques of girls engaging in mean girl behavior.  But most importantly, no one is doing anything about it!

Everywhere I go coaches, parents, administrators and even athletes are frustrated by how mean girls are to each other.  But all that is said is “sometimes girls are like that.”  Is that really the best we can do for our young women?  We throw up our hands, say they are just like that and send them into the work world with no useful leadership, teamwork, communication or conflict resolution skills.  I personally think that is ridiculous!  We are failing young women and particularly young female athletes by not stepping up to the plate and challenging the idea that there is nothing we can do.

I am on a personal campaign to Stop The Drama! on girls’ teams and for young women everywhere.  To provide them with the ability to engage in productive conflict on their sports team so they can take those skills into the work world and succeed.  The reputation that women are mean, catty and unable to work together needs to be changed.  If there is a young woman in your life who you love, do her a favor and don’t leave her floundering around trying to figure out how to achieve more from her potential.  Give her the skills she so desperately needs.  Don’t you think you owe her at least that?

To learn more about the Stop The Drama! campaign and Doc Robyn’s new book on the subject, visit www.StopTheDramaNow.com

Next week: Should schools be providing a more practical education?

Last week: How a diva in your life will limit your success

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We Need More Conflict in Our Lives!

September 26, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  1 Comment

I’m guessing you think I am crazy, but it’s true.  We all could use more conflict in our lives.  But not just any conflict – productive conflict. But what is productive conflict, why do we need more of it and how can you use it? I am so glad you asked!

Productive conflict

Productive conflict occurs when two people who disagree get to state their case, have a discussion about the points on which they disagree, develop a solution and implement it. No screaming, no hurt feelings, no gossip, no misunderstandings and no drama.

Why we need more conflict

Everyone I know hates conflict.  There is nothing fun about it.  It is uncomfortable and wrought with emotional landmines and risk.  So most of us avoid it like the plague.  We dance around a problem, hint at what we want, stew when it doesn’t happen and then explode.  We expect other people to just know what we want, understand that the only right way to handle the situation is how we want it done and do it.  It never works that way but that is what we want.

The reason we need more conflict is to keep the explosions and hurt feelings from happening.  If a situation is discussed and addressed as soon as it is a problem it will be over before it gets ugly.  So we need more tiny conflicts and less huge ones.

How to Use Productive Conflict

It is important to realize that most people have no idea how to have and manage a productive conflict conversation.  After reading this post, you will likely know more about it than anyone you know.  So you are going to have to be responsible for making it happen.  Here are the steps:

  1. Notice that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.  We are so skilled at avoiding conflict you might not even be aware you are doing it.  When something is bugging you, don’t ignore it.

  2. Set aside time to have a conversation.  Don’t try to have a productive conflict conversation in the hall outside the bathroom or at the water cooler.  Schedule real time to talk.

  3. Tell the other person your concern using “I” based statements. Catch yourself anytime you start to say “you”.  Can you reword it into an “I” statement so you own your power?

  4. Ask them to share their side of the situation. LISTEN!

  5. Restate your understanding – “If I understand correctly you are saying…” “Your main concern is…”

  6. Discuss common ground and solutions

  7. Implement



Conflict is never fun.  But coming up with a solution and avoiding a major confrontation is very rewarding.  You will also get a reputation for being a great team player and knowing how to be a leader if you are able to use productive conflict successfully and avoid the grudge matches that can so easily undermine your ability to succeed.

Do you have an example of a simple issue that turned into a huge problem because it wasn’t handled right away?  We would love to hear about it!

Next week – How being friends with a diva limits your success

Did you miss last week? Catch up on our discussion about school’s responsibility to deal with frenemies here.

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