OH, BITE ME
Friday Oct. 19, 2018
I hear people complain, often, when people they are dealing with – friends, family, colleagues, bosses, employees and most especially customers – change their mind.
I’ve encounter my own angst moments over this many times. What I’ve come to sense is this problem is too often viewed incorrectly. It isn’t so much that people change their minds, as it is that they don’t know how to ‘make up their mind’ in the first place. Whims become ‘choices’ but then indecision sets in. They don’t change their mind so much as they hadn’t really made up their mind in the first instance.
And, I’m also convinced, quite often is passive-aggressive behavior of ‘appearing to go along’ when deep down they really hold some contrary view they have not disclosed. Ferreting out what people really think is a daily challenge in management of people in any setting, in families often and in sales – always, always, always! This is not to say that decisions shouldn’t be changed, and sometimes very swiftly, when circumstances change. Change the facts, review the decision.
The trick, when someone makes a decision, is knowing whether that is really a decision, or of it is just ‘getting you to shut up’. I get that sometimes. And sometimes I miss it completely until it comes back to haunt me …
