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. 

Helicopter parents are parents who call the teacher or college professor to tell the professor to change the grade of their child.  How insane is that?  When I was a child and came home with a bad grade, my mother would tell me to study harder and get better grades.  It would have been unthinkable for my mother to call the teacher to try to protect me.  If you are parents, you are the parents of the children rather than their friend.  It is really important to provide good role modeling, safety guidance and helping your child to learn lessons about life rather than protecting them because you want to be their buddy.  You are their parent rather than their buddy. 

Think about how often you hear people say, “You probably won’t like this, or this probably won’t work.” When people say that to me, then I usually say, “you’re right, I absolutely dislike this.”  When you failure forecast you are helping people to conclude that failure is on the horizon.  So replace it with success forecasting.   Change your words to “you are probably going to like this a lot.”  When you do that, when you intend on success, then you are leading people to that result and you are more persuasive. 

A lot of people speak in disjointed thoughts and sentences, they start an idea, stop it in the middle, then start another idea then stop it and start another one. Notice, when you do that, people really get uncomfortable because they are trying to keep up.  What you are doing is trying to manage your anxiety because your brain is ready for the information sooner than your mouth can get to it.  So, simply slow down, deliberately slow down and complete each thought.  When you do that, you are in command and the listener finds it easier to follow you. 

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. 

You may find that when you talk about yourself, you speak in the second person a lot. You use the pronoun “you” rather than “I.” When you do that, you are watering down your authenticity or your power.  Here is an example: “In order to be a public speaker, at first you have to do a lot of prep and you feel uncomfortable because everybody’s judging you.  Or “When I speak in front of people, I’ve done a lot of prep and at first, I was uncomfortable and after a lot of practice, it got easier.”  So speak in the first person when you are talking about yourself.  It’s more compelling, its more authentic, and you have more horsepower. 

Do you ever notice how often you discount yourself?  You will say, “I’m just lucky to be here.”   “I’m not really educated on this.”  “This is probably beyond my pay grade.”   “I don’t know much about this.”  “This may be a stupid question.”  When you discount yourself upfront, you are teaching people how to treat you.  If you are discounting yourself, you are encouraging them to discount you too. If you say, “This may be a stupid question…” And then you ask the question, I may say, “You know, you are really smart, that is a stupid question.” The problem is, is that you are leading me to discount you.  So instead of discounts, just ask the question or make the remark and you’ll be taken more seriously.