The television series House is a favorite of mine. Don’t you wish you could be a cowboy like Dr. House and shoot blunt talk bullets and still be able to keep your job and relationships alive? I work with real life leaders like House who produce phenomenal results while improving their relationships, by their own testimonial accounts, using the TALK2ME© system. Just you try it and see for yourself, Dr. Skeptic.
THE CASE OF COWBOY
Judge for yourself. Here is the real story and candid conversation I had with a computer whiz kid, whose MO was to come into a company to solve legendary problems, ahead of budget and ahead of time…25 leading companies, to be exact, all of which you would recognize by name.
Although everyone revered Cowboy’s results, his people skills left a lot to be desired. A C was the best grade he ever received in communication from any of his bosses. In fact, coworkers who were Empathizers would predictably end up feeling shunned and gunned down by this inventive Instigator. Cowboy just didn’t understand. Wasn’t he delivering what few could do, saving companies hundreds of thousands of dollars?
INSTIGATORS DON’T INTEND TO HURT YOUR FEELINGS
Instigators don’t intend to hurt your feelings. They’re just trying to produce positive results and get the job done…and if your feelings get hurt in the process, you should just get over it and mosey on down the Talk Trail. Empathizers, by contrast, will shrink away from the Communicator Table and go to their bunks when feeling shot at by outlawed communication tactics.
Sadly, Cowboy unintentionally but eventually got into it with Empathizers (E-types) on the team, male and female alike. What could he do to change this pattern? First, he could understand that Empathizers walk in shoes, not cowboy boots. E-types tend to live in town, follow the rules, socialize more than strategize, and they want to move projects cautiously forward, after carefully looking at alternatives. Empathizers want to include contributors on their problem-solving team. Cowboy learned about these differences…to great advantage.
DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?
Cowboy achieved the following results with just 3 coaching sessions with me, using the TALK2ME tool of knowing the differences between Empathizer and Instigator preferences. Here’s the scenario: Cowboy is ready to snap at an Empathizer co-worker who needed his help. This action could have brought an entire project crashing to the ground, a project that involved millions of dollars with lives at stake…
In the past, I would have put Al’s response down flat. I’d tell my boss, “Look, I’m already propping up five or six teams technically. Al was assigned this task, and he doesn’t have the right people; but the fact is, it’s Al’s task. He needs to be more technical, and I don’t see how it’s my problem that you put someone in charge who should go back to school.” This would have gotten me labeled arrogant and not a team player. Now that I know I was talking with an Empathizer communicator, Al, I took another route.
Short story: Al ended up singing my praises to the boss and going to bat for me because I called to talk with him on the phone instead of avoiding him, tuning him out, or turning a cold shoulder.
Historically, it’s been a Battle Royale, and I’ve lost, because people at the top have perceived me to be arrogant and breaking the rank and file. I’ve been at 25 companies. Company presidents I’ve reported to said I pushed people out of the way to get things done…and I ended up making enemies. Dennis, your message and techniques sink in a lot faster than I thought….You can’t treat people badly who are less skilled than you.
TALK2THEM
Here’s what I said to Al, using the TALK2ME© approach, which includes being pretty open and phrasing my words in a positive way…
Al I know you are in a bind and this task list is due. I want to help you out. I’m supporting about 5 other people now, and my time is pinched. I want you to know that I’ve liked working with you on problems in the past, and we’ve had phenomenal success at high levels. The fact is, I’m being told I have to support these other teams. How can I help you? Have you been given the right resources? Did they offer someone else up to help? I can’t spare time now but I can in a couple of weeks. I’ll do whatever I can. I can break away a few hours if Hal hits a roadblock. He’s pretty good technically. You are extremely effective at setting up appointments and the detail work. Together we work fantastically well.
Dennis, you told me this would be effective. I’m the type of person your system applies to directly.
I HADN’T PUT TOGETHER WHY PEOPLE HATED ME
I had to make a good call, based on our discussions. I told my wife, “I’m not used to this.” What I really wanted to do was to call Al and tell him to buzz off. It’s the first time in my career that I knew why what I did would or wouldn’t work. I hadn’t put together why people hated me. It changed the entire office atmosphere the next day with our group of 40. The chaos and tension were gone, and the team was moving forward again. It was as though the crisis had never existed in the first place.
EVERYONE WAS LOSING IT—THEN THEY CALMED DOWN
Even though I am I-type, I have habits I can change….Everyone was losing it. In my mind’s eye, I can still see it – everyone calmed down. For example, Al and Hal were mad at one another but started getting along better. People stopped taking sides. At heart, we all just want to solve problems, but this was building to one of those critical junctures where generally I would have quit and gone on to another contract. It would have been a battle, and I would have put my technical books in a box and prepared to leave.
I like the adrenaline rush from the technical work. I’ve gotten my accomplishment fix. Because I have the skill set, I could walk away from any job and be hired quickly by another company. But I want to click with a team of people and have stable and positive relationships.
IT WAS BETTER THAN EXPECTED
Truthfully, I am still surprised. I read your book and blog. It was exceptionally accurate in a lot of ways. However, the results were far better than I expected. In fact, what I was really surprised by was that it almost seemed like it calmed the whole team down.
THE RIPPLE EFFECT: IN THE PAST, I DIDN’T THINK OF THE TEAM DYNAMIC
At one time, I thought of myself as a ringer or cowboy who would come in, fix things and leave. I didn’t think of the team dynamic and my positive or negative impact beyond the work itself. The positive results of using those TALK2ME strategies were phenomenal. Looking back, I must have had such a big impact on a team and could make the process a train wreck. I never thought of it that way. If you ask me to fix something, what does someone feeling bad have to do with it? The positive impact had such a ripple effect – several days after that phone call, there was a warm, fuzzy feeling that was functional instead of dysfunctional. Suddenly, people who weren’t even in the war room came back and started talking again. That split that started to occur…if I had gone my normal route, I would have continued to force a wedge into the split for several more weeks or months – without intending to.
A FIRST TIME IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE
The thing that most surprised me, even though everything you told me made sense, was that it was the first-in-a-lifetime experience. I was out of my element when I made that phone call to Al. But it really did lead to astonishing results. I’ve played cowboy a lot, and, man I have to tell you, people have asked me if I was lonely out there, playing cowboy by myself. That’s all I had; I didn’t know anything else. Put bluntly, some people wanted to be me, like Dr. House in the television series, telling the boss off and solving the problem and then giving the department the finger and leaving…and that was a pretty bad feeling. There’s an entire other side of it that I see now.
IT DIDN’T TAKE THAT MUCH TIME TO MAKE THAT PHONE CALL
It didn’t take that much time to make that phone call to Al. In fact, it felt good having made the phone call. Al was so responsive, right from the start of the call. In the past, I was being torn apart and burning out over issues of clarifying communication and getting around impasses.I was the classic Cool Hand Luke-type cowboy. Where are you now? You know, being defiant until the Warden threw him in solitary saying, “Son, what we have here is a failure to communicate.” Playing the role that I played, there was nobody propping me up. I feel the connection now. I realize that Al really felt that I was treating him like dirt, although that was not my intention. However, intentionally or not, he felt that way. And as an E-type, he felt that I had abandoned him and walked away from his needs.
I’VE GOT TO TELL YOU I’M GRATEFUL FOR YOUR SYSTEM
I’ve got to tell you, I’m grateful for your system. All the same, I don’t like referring to it like computer stuff – a system! Maybe it could be a program or something….I was almost amazed at how effective it was, once I made that call. I expected it to work, but I had never imagined that there would be exponential results. I really did not anticipate that ripple affect to the team. I was worried about being tweaked or changed as a person, instead of improved as a communicator. I was scared if I talked to you and you changed me too much, I would lose the edge that I wanted to keep as part of myself. Now I know that I had nothing to worry about….
YOUR CALL
It’s your call, my beloved Empathizer and Instigator leaders. These results aren’t a fluke. They happen like clockwork when you take a few minutes a day to learn them. In fact, you will go from the Wild West of wayward communication and train wrecks, to a Wonderful World of engine-propelled communication. Are you driving a blue Empathizer communicator car or a burnt orange Instigator communicator car? Are you licensed to drive on the two-way communicator highway?
Make your House call today at www.drogrady.com
ABOUT THE TALK2ME© SYSTEM
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is the founder of New Insights Communication, a coaching and relationship counseling practice located in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Dennis O’Grady is the author of three works, the most recent being Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along with Anyone, which is a communication training book. Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a corporate trainer, keynote speaker and motivational speaker. His executive coaching and business consulting programs are targeted at the areas of leadership development, communication, change management and conflict resolution.
