/ THE BUSINESS OF PARKING /HUMAN RESOURCES
A Matter of Perspective By Julius E. Rhodes, SPHR
A
S WE ENTER THE LAST MONTH OF THE FIRST Q UARTER OF 2021, I hope each of us has had an opportunity to
Remember this: it’s OK to feel as you feel but it’s not OK to expect others to feel as you feel.
reflect on what this new year brought us after the dumpster fire that was 2020, and I hope the remainder of this year greets you and your loved ones with great favor. This month, let’s talk about communication—specifically, the plethora of information around “handling difficult conversations or communications.” What I am about to share goes against the conventional wisdom and that’s a good thing, because if you follow the crowd you usually wind up in a place you don’t want to be. Divergent viewpoints are good. happened to me on more than one occasion. However, my efforts on those days were as good if not better than the days I wanted to work out. I didn’t go to a default position of allowing my potentially negative thoughts to become a detriment to my exercise routine. Instead, I took the perspective that this was an opportunity to grow and achieve a goal, and not allow the negative attributes to take over. I took a growth mindset over a fixed mindset and I may have started slow, but once I got going, I ended up ahead.
The Growth Mindset
A Communications Process
All communication is potentially difficult, especially if we enter the conversation with a fixed versus a growth mindset. How many of you have been in a performance review, either as the giver or receiver? How many of you felt a certain amount of anxiety, even when the news you were giving or expected to receive was positive? Performance reviews are a classic example of how even a positive exchange can generate myriad feelings and cause anxiety. You never know when a curveball might occur. Another example: How many of you have had an occasion when you just didn’t feel like working out? This has
So, what does all this have to do with handling difficult conversations or communications? The process we must take is the same, regardless of how we view our impending exchanges (positive or negative). There is a process we need to follow to maximize our ability to connect with others: 1. Always have a plan of what we want to communicate. It helps us value the time spent by both parties. 2. Having a plan is great, but understanding what counters you may need to employ is essential. Rarely do things go the way we plan, especially when we are engaging with another individual
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with their own frame of reference. 3. Make it personal. People want to know you will treat them as people and not just recite prepared remarks. Make the communication conversational and a real dialogue. 4. People always want to know the dreaded WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Show the benefits for everyone involved. Deliver your information in manageable chunks. If we share a long string of information all at once, it will be forgotten. We must be able to identify what the person we are speaking to can handle at one time—know your audience. Remember this; it’s OK to feel as you feel but it’s not OK to expect others to feel as you feel. We have to go beneath the surface to get at the real depth of what someone may feel about an issue. And we do this by communicating in an open, transparent, and trusting manner that emphasizes our desire to see everyone take a growth mindset, which leads to mutually beneficial outcomes. ◆ JULIUS E. RHODES, SPHR, is founder and principal of the mpr group and author of BRAND: YOU Personal Branding for Success in Life and Business. He can be reached at jrhodes@mprgroup. info or 773.548.8037.
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I see communication in the same vein as money: None of us has all the money we want (with want distinguished from need). Communication is the same in that no matter how much we get, we always want more. The ability to communicate effectively is essential to building long-term, mutually beneficial and trusting relationships. I’m not saying we have to be great orators like Kennedy, King, or Gandhi, but we do need to be able to deliver our message in a manner that resonates with our intended target.
