Mike Lehr's Blog

My post, “Beauty as Power”, resulted in a commenter questioning, “Is beauty the same as attraction?” The short answer is, “No.” However, elaboration helps us to position beauty better as an attracting force by comparing and contrasting it to other attracting forces. Beauty is just one such force. Many things attract us not just beauty.

For instance, we can find ourselves attracted to low prices, flashing lights, accidents, disasters, loud noises, foods, water, statistics, designer labels, celebrities, power and many other things. On hot days, ice cold drinks attract us, on cold ones, hot beverages and soups attract us. Sporting events, musical performances, movies and plays attract some of us. Advertisers, merchandisers and politicians certainly work hard to attract us. News programs and publications attract us with bad news. Politicians attract us with negative advertisements. Some reality shows attract us by displaying personal conflict.

Some of us will find beauty in all and some of these things. Beauty is a higher form of attraction. Beauty is to attraction what skill is to work and what talent is to effort. It’s true that beauty attracts us, but not all things that attract us are beautiful. This also explains the difference between beautiful and attractive. Beauty is a far stronger attracting force than attractiveness alone. Beauty is the qualitative aspect of attraction in the same way a fine restaurant is of all eateries.

What this means in terms of beauty as power is that beauty is more powerful than attractiveness. In other words, the attraction we have for certain things becomes more powerful if we also find them beautiful. It also means that as we discover the beauty in something or someone that thing or person will come to exert more attraction on us.

Related link: Beauty as Power

Here’s a friend’s story. It’s an example of what we can hypothesize about people from everyday comments. They are a starting point from which we can probe, learn and build relationships.

Black Bark

Situation

My friend, as part of a touring group, visited a contemporary art gallery. She was talking to a man in the group who said he prefers artists who “stab him in the gut.” She asked him what a mainly black piece composed of bark and charcoal meant to him. He said it was “very cleansing” and that the black pieces on the canvas “represent all the dark and negative energy in the room being absorbed.” For him, it made the room light and “cleansed of all negative energy.” My friend found two other pieces that he liked disturbing.

Commentary

Possibly, the pieces of black wood and charcoal might not only be pulling negative energy from the room but also from him. This is further supported by preference for artists who “stab him in the gut.” Feelings of mutilation can often be prompted by negative energy from within. Moreover, knowing my friend, she would not want artists (or anyone for that matter) to stab her in the gut, a disturbing thought. On the other hand, since feelings help us feel alive, the man might value intense, almost shocking feelings.

Approach

In building a rapport with him, I would initially:

• Allow him to “shock” me
• Avoid expressing disapproval
• Show extreme interest
• Encourage him to do most of the talking

If he appeared disinterested with this approach, my alternative path would involve direct and edgy questions and remarks. I would also consider expressing, in a positive way, how unique he was for holding such views.

Note: Details of the original story have been changed. Any relationship to specific people is coincidental.

A question posted by Expat 21 asked for examples of patience in the workplace, especially those demonstrating a contrast between American and other cultures.

While I find non-American cultures more patient, the examples I have aren’t that distinguishable by cultures except in their acceptance of patience-oriented approaches and the rules under which they might apply them. However, these rules don’t alter the basic strategies and tactics behind the employment of patience; they will only make application of patience more or less accepted.

With that said, Rahm Emanuel’s well documented quote,  “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before,” summarizes the business implications of patience. However, this means partnering patience with our knowledge, experience or insight about the future that others lack; we are waiting for the “crisis” that we know is over the horizon.

For example, I worked on an IT project involving the rollout of client management software (CMS). From my experience, I pushed for certain functionality that I knew sales executives would want. However, the CMS team discounted the functionality, had other priorities and didn’t incorporate it. I could have pushed harder, irritated the team and achieved only a partial list of what was needed. Instead, I waited for the rollout because I knew sales managers would request the functionality. When they did, I had their entire support to get the team to do what I originally proposed and much more.

Another example for me was the reorganization of an 80 person call center. They had already gone through three reorganizations in four years. I had advised patience to the new executive because her people were “shell shocked” and hadn’t been able to establish sound interpersonal working relationships; they needed a period of stability. She went along with her reorganization anyway; she felt pressure to do something. However, the reorganization reinforced anxieties, undermined executive credibility and made achieving goals difficult. She left after only eighteen months.

“Management by walking around” and “teachable moments” are key general examples of techniques employing patience. People are more receptive to instruction when they approach us than when we approach them. We can encourage it by making ourselves accessible but we need patience to make this work.

Some macro-business applications of patience deal with such things as branding, investment, public relations, training and marketing. In each of these cases, patience is required to see a return. Often the urgency of the moment disrupts these initiatives before the return on our patience is realized. It’s personal discipline combined with the corporate and social culture that will determine how much patience is accepted; however, the basic strategies and tactics remain fundamentally the same across cultures. It’s similar to warfare; weapons, training and supplies might be different, but the basic principles remain the same no matter who is fighting.

Related Post: Blue Heron Instructs on Patience

One of the best problem-solving techniques I learned is writing down the problem as specifically as you can. This technique helps find solutions by:

• Putting the problem in a form that allows you to see it
• Uncovering aspects of the problem you had not considered
• Encouraging you to think about the problem as you choose the right words
• Ensuring everyone is tackling the same problem in brainstorming sessions

My most successful use of this technique involved the design of a week-long seminar for top sales reps regarding some new product lines. I worked with the National Sales Manager to define the problem based upon the questions his people were asking. This question seemed to sum up the rest and became my definition of the problem:

How do we integrate our various products into our story and our presentations?

The training solution this definition gave me was focused on questioning, the premise being that the questions you ask say much about what you’re selling. Therefore, an integrated product line required integrated questioning. How did I arrive at this solution from this definition?

Basically, I contrasted the sales process his people were using with the question and saw something missing: the focus was on what to say about the products at an introduction (story) or closing (presentations) not what to ask, the most important part.

The training was extremely well received by the sales reps; eighteen product managers focused on questioning strategies that the reps could use to uncover problems. I provided the overarching questioning strategy to integrate those. By writing down the problem, I saw something missing. In this case what was missing became the solution.

Intuition’s most practical advantage to problem solving is the enhanced sphere of good solutions it offers. Generally, this sphere will produce five types of benefits. They will appear as solutions that can:

1. Address seemingly intractable problems
2. Save a tremendous amount of money
3. Reduce work and headaches to employ
4. Reach higher levels of effectiveness
5. Make objective- or scientific-based solutions better

Let’s look at some examples.

We can solve many customer service problems without necessarily solving them directly; we do it by listening, sympathizing and encouraging venting. We can save a tremendous amount of money on moral building efforts; we do it by employing our personal power to remember names, shake hands and extend “thank you’s” which don’t cost a cent. We can reduce the work and headaches involved in disciplinary efforts; we do it through the power of asking and of positive reinforcements. We can reach higher levels of effectiveness in change initiatives; we do it by organizing those emotionally adapt at change and by using compliments to encourage them. Any software rollout becomes better; we do it by selling the effort rather than commanding. Any training becomes better; we do it by influencing expectations beforehand and not just focusing on content and delivery during.

All these solutions employ emotional elements. Listening, sympathizing and venting encourage customers to feel better about a problem. Our personal power encourages employees to feel better about us at no cost. Asking and reinforcing encourages people to feel better about changing their behavior. Uniting emotionally similar people and complimenting them encourages them to feel better about change. Shaping how people feel about software and training encourages them to adopt the new practices.

In short, changing how people feel opens a vast, new sphere of solutions to the problems we face.