Maximizing Performance Through Applied Common Sense*

Today in society and business there is clear erosion in quality of standards, conduct and manners.  Manners and etiquette play a huge role in conducting successful business and differentiating your brand.  And yet, 80% of Americans think rudeness is a real problem in the country and 99% of Americans consider everyone else to be rude. How about you look at yourself in the mirror and think about what common sense tells you.  Common sense tells you that manners, etiquette, and first impressions are very important.  So think about how you conduct yourself and you make a good first impression, it’s common sense. 

A “You” message is when you tell someone how they are.  When you are talking with someone and you want them to know how rude they are, if you say to them, “look, you are rude, you are thoughtless, you are inconsiderate.” It makes them very defensive, even if you’re right. So, use an “I” message and it will avoid the defensiveness. Instead of telling them how they are, you tell them how your experience is of their behavior.  So instead of saying “you’re rude, you say, “I’m uncomfortable with your behavior, which is clearly less than polite.” If you do it like that, then they are going to be more interested, and less defensive and you might actually get the message across. So use “I” messages rather than “you” messages and you will see results. 

If you think about your relationship with your mate and one or both of you is full of contempt for the other, that absolutely will kill the relationship. It is the most toxic thing you can do.  If you think about contempt, think about disgust.  If one or both of you, while the other is talking, rolls your eyes, or immediately discounts any initiative at all, and all you are thinking about is contempt, your relationship is doomed. My recommendation is to stop this nonsense right now and end the relationship or go get some professional help.  The likelihood that you are going to fix this without help is remote.  So take this seriously, fix it!

If you think about your life, there are a handful of items that are really important:  your health, your wealth, your sleep, your family, your relationships and your finances.  Those are important.  So, what is urgent?  Well, it’s putting out the latest fire, it’s the latest thing you get seduced by, it’s the “We have to clean up the house before the cleaning people arrive.” How insane is that?  If you get seduced too often by the urgent, you’ll notice that the important takes short shrift.  So write down a list of what is really important and set aside time to do those first.  When you do, you are in charge of your life.

When you feel sorry for yourself, in addition to wasting time, you are sucking life out of your relationship.  When you say “Life isn’t fair,” the reality is that is correct, life is unfair.  When you say, “Nobody knows the pain that I’ve suffered,” then you are seducing people into feeling sorry for you.  Decide that it is now time for you to become a grown up.  Quit feeling sorry for yourself and start validating what is good rather than whining about what is bad.  “Poor me” will suck energy out of a relationship so turn it around and breathe life into it. 

In resolving conflict, after you have defined the problems, generated options, and started thinking about what the best options are, now you want to choose the options.  It is a good idea that you, along with those with whom you have conflict, after looking at all the options, start deciding which options are the best.  Take two or three options and put them together.  When you put them together then you can decide how to implement the options, however, you will want get clear on that before you do it.  If you get sign-up to the process of choosing among multiple options you will have much more forward movement.  That’s how you resolve conflict. 

If you are going to resolve conflict, the first thing you want to do is find the problem.  After you have done that, you want to generate possible options.  Let’s suppose you are in conflict with some other people and you’ve agreed to sit down to work it out.  Their first impulse is to come up with what they think is the “right” solution.  My recommendation is to come up with multiple options; certainly more than two, preferably three or more.  If you have paper, write them all down.  You will have a temptation to evaluate the options as they are suggested.  I recommend that you withhold evaluation and that they do so as well.  Generate multiple options and you will see that the more options that are available, the less conflict there is. 

Do you ever notice when food is in front of you it just starts automatically getting stuffed into your face?  A lot of people with weight problems unconsciously eat.  The food is there and they start grazing and they are talking or watching television and they automatically shovel it in on automatic pilot.  Start noticing how you eat.  Start keeping a journal.  This will point out what you are eating, how much, and when you are eating.  Do this for two weeks and you’ll start noticing how automatic it is.  When you keep a food journal you become more conscious of what you are doing and you now have control.