Walk A Mile In My Shoes

I feel like I have the ability to understand other peoples point of view really well.  I can put myself in their shoes and understand what they are thinking and why they are thinking it.  Does this mean that I always make the best decisions in how to deal with different people?  Definitely not.

I find myself doing this quite often with employees and trying to figure out how to help them.  Many times I don't agree with what they are thinking or feeling, but I understand why they feel the way they are. So the challenge is to take the information and use it to help them.

I have been reading a book on influence and it has been extremely insightful.  I am half way through the book but I am already applying lessons from the first half in the real world.  We identified two major problems within our business and I used the information from this book to design solutions to the problems.  I put myself in the shoes of our employees and tried to understand their point of view.  We called a meeting and I did my very best to explain our point of view to everyone else.

Our expectation for this meeting was that it would be very heated, uncomfortable, and challenging.  In fact, we posted a sign on the door requesting that everyone leave their emotions at the door, so that we could have a productive meeting and find effective solutions.  We also made an important move by meeting with one of our leaders prior to the company meeting, and having a preliminary discussion with her.  This was very effective in bringing out a couple of other issues that needed to be addressed and getting her to agree with our 2 major problems out loud.

So what happened?  Did our company explode and everyone started physically attacking each other in the meeting?  Nope.  Did people get really emotional and we spent the whole time without being productive?  Nope.  We had a very successful meeting.  In fact, we accomplished everything we wanted to without having the tension and anger that we thought was inevitable.

I believe it was the best example of truly applying principles we have learned from leaders, books and experience to make sure we were successful.  It has been only 4 days but the team is already responding positively.  We still have to work hard and correct our issues.  But we laid out specific plans, we set goals, and we created accountability.  I couldn't be happier so far!