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specialists in enhancement and management of human performance |
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A top producing salesperson for a software development company has had many interesting experiences in his 17 year career. One in particular you may find interesting involved a two year sales cycle. This involved a very large international company that wanted to standardize on a particular Testing and Reliability solution to use on the applications. Over the course of two years many incremental sales to prove the product's worth, trial periods, negotiations, entertaining, and all the other activities it takes to close a multimillion dollar deal. In fact, this company already invested over $500,000.00 and was extremely pleased with the results. The last step was to negotiate a contract with the senior management and the board of directors. Feeling that he had done a great job of working with all the members of the Board and staff, Richard was ready for the last meeting. Although he had closed many such deals with companies like Netscape and Intel, this was to be his largest sell ever and he bought a special pen to sign the contract. Much to his dismay, the contract was not signed. One member of the board refused to sign off on the project. Richard realized he miscalculated a meeting he had with this particular Board member, and had no idea that he had offended this person. Even though it was the right solution at the right time, not being able to read the mind or more accurately not reading the response of the board member correctly may kill the deal or at least delay the signing for many months. Are you prepared to lose a $150,000.00 commission check and two years effort because you failed to read the mind of one person? What if you had the skill to read minds? How much more powerful and effective could you be in everything you do? You know you would be outrageously successful. Now, what if I informed you that anyone can learn this skill? First, you need to know this is really not mind reading. The skill is called calibration. Although people may try to influence you with their words, it is very very difficult to hide their true response. I know each of you has had an experience where someone told you something or responded to you in a way you knew they were not telling the truth. Before you can learn to calibrate people's responses you need to understand a little about the structure of communication. For example, if I tell you to NOT think about elephants with big purple spots all over. You can't help but imagine such an elephant. Similarly, if you ask a person a question, they can't help but respond to the question, regardless of the veracity of their answer. So, they key is being able to read that response. To illustrate this point, try this exercise. You either need another person or get a mirror so you can observe yourself. Ask the person or yourself to pick two people out of your life. The first person I want you to remember is someone you admire immensely. As they think about this person just observe their response. You may need to coach them by asking them to remember a particular experience, what they were doing, what the interaction meant to them, etc. Next do something to detach them from those memories such as asking what they had for breakfast today or give them a complex arithmetic problem. Now, you want to do the same thing but ask them to think about someone that is very offensive and obnoxious. Check their reaction and them detach them from those memories, by asking a neutral question, like naming five countries. Finally you can ask a series of questions but ask your partner not to respond verbally. Ask which one is taller? Which one is older? Which one is female? You were just learned how to mind read. More accurately, you just learned how to calibrate love and hate. Now, to calibrate like and dislike you need to practice a lot and refine your sensing abilities better. Before we get into how to develop this ability we need to cover a little about the structure of communication. If communication is only 7-10% verbal, what makes up the rest? Even words aren't just words. Verbal responses have different modalities such as delivery speed, cadence, tonality, pitch, clear, muddled, and many others. The body also plays a part in communication. Perhaps you noticed that the face was more relaxed for the person they loved and more tense for the other. The modalities of body responses include twitches, muscle tension, gestures, location of arms and legs, squinting, lip size, grinding teeth, hair standing up on the neck, and many many others. The difference between love and hate is extreme and usually will be easy to calibrate. Since all of us may react differently to the same stimulus, such as checking for what a love response is, it is necessary to hone your radar or calibration skills. Also, when calibrating for like and dislike the response may be much more subtle and more challenging to calibrate. You might be asking, "Is this really worth the effort and practice it takes to develop this skill". If Richard had calibrated for like, agreement, and/or acceptance, he would have recognized the reaction of the Board member and could have addressed it immediately. What could you get out of life when you develop this skill? You could close more deals, detect dissension in your family or workplace long before it manifests itself with a worse problem. Imagine really being able to really understand your teenage child or that boss or employee that you can't understand. All it takes is to practice the skill now. (NOTE: Allies Consulting offers a menu of programs that can help you become masterful at your performance skills, or your staff to do so. They will meet or exceed your expectations: they are designed to deliver real results. They also leverage our other programs, magnifying your ROI!)
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