Symptoms:
Charlie had been working with a long-time client and just can’t believe why some meetings could really get under his skin. Charlie left angry with this client’s attitude towards him, the ability to waste time like it was nothing and at times complete disrespect for Charlie and his process. Yet, this client was important to Charlie’s success each year and he was unable to fire them. He opened his stamp book and added a nice bright red anger stamp on this client’s page after the last meeting he had.
Diagnosis:
No, Charlie didn’t have a real stamp book and box of stamps in his glove box, but in his head, yes. Charlie was having a hard time letting go of the feelings he had with this client. He kept score of how that client made him feel with stamps and filled page after page for not only this client, but all of his clients.
Every time he visited the client, he could feel himself starting to boil up and ready to cash in all those anger stamps for one large blow up at the client.
Charlie knew continuing to hold onto the feeling of anger with this client was not a good thing to do. He also knew blowing up at the client would not result in anything positive for anyone. How was he going to stop feeling this way?
Prescription:
Charlie needed to remember he cannot control the client, but only control his reaction to the client. He was deciding to let his client’s actions make him angry. He could eliminate that stamp book and go into each meeting without any baggage by changing his emotional reaction to the client.
Changing an emotional reaction can be hard work. It’s a mental game to control your emotions. There are a few other tactics that can help. Let's insert bringing out that disk profile and remembering how to identify different disk behaviors and communication styles. There are a few other tactics that can help Charlie not only change his reactions but also set the whole meeting up to be more successful.
Here are a few tactics that Charlie needs remember to deploy to change the tone, setting and emotional response that he has with the client:
Give homework to the client so the meetings stop wasting time.
Set the expectations with the client for each meeting when scheduling the meeting.
Practice “let’s pretend” and talk to the client about how the meetings are making him feel.
Put ego aside and ask your client for help.
Critical Thinking:
Do you have someone in your life that you have a stamp book for? Maybe a client, friend or even a family member? Identify why you are keeping a stamp book on that person, and how are you going to toss that book out and free up your mental and emotion space from all of the baggage?
The Drill:
Final Thought for the Morning:
"The minute you start keeping score, you're destroying the relationship."
"If you are keeping score, win."
Your Top 3 Goals & Tactics for the Week:
LAST WEEK:
Update us on how things went last week with your stated Goals and GD Tactics.
THIS WEEK:
Please share your Top 3 Goals for this week and the GD tactics you plan to deploy.
