Our Language Needs Help!

We support the contention that we as American’s are arrogant and lazy with our language.  This is a very generalized statement but applicable to many cultural aspects and domains within our culture. We didn’t define this condition and state by ourselves, but agree with the author’s who mentioned it to us frequently – see our blog “In Search of Mediocrity”. If you want examples of this contention, simply listen closely to people around you: friends, family, fellow workers/colleagues, television sitcom’s, retailers service staff, etc. It matters not who, where, or when you observe, but pick someone or groups;  look to understand the conversation context then just start listening.

Two Important Definitions

To help you, here is a definition of arrogance, by way of dictionary.com, which states “an offensive display of self-importance: overbearing pride”.  Sound familiar? How does the word lazy affect you, which states “adverse or disinclined to work, activity or exertion”? Couple these, then you will begin to perceive patterns. Once you have practiced observing others, gained understanding and identification with the contention, look at you own language then ask, “What is happening in my language?”.

Become Aware

Our goal is to have you become aware of yourself, so you cam move away from arrogance and prideful words, begin to use more humble and grateful usage, while lifting your language. Look closely for your attitude, style and approach to see what part they play in your language.  Actually, each of these components mentioned exist inside your beliefs and consequently your usage of language. You’ll hear more about this in future blogs!!!

From our observations, language elevation would be a good thing for both individuals and business people: all ages too! For starters, we suggest dropping business domain language terminology, whether technology, medicine, psychology, or engineering, etc. Also, drop faddish, crude, slang and hip cultural; quick talk brings little to understanding. My wife and I are still surprised by the language of junior and high schooler’s as we walk by them in the morning: our culture seems to find this acceptable.

Word Power

We’re introducing the “Power of Words” for you here:  words have impact to do great good or harm. The good can lift and support people, as the harm can stop and shut people off or down. There too  is an associated spiraling up or down affect. Each affect has the capacity to suck all language into a positive or negative vortex. We like positive to reverse the negative tendency, to enable you  to become clearer, elevate language and use more precision. Your vocabulary will rise in the language waters.

Think Higher Order

When speaking, imagine you are addressing an audience of the highest order.  Act as if your audience contains customers, prospects, clergy and nuns, business leaders, or any group and be thoughtful, respectful and intelligent. If you have not heard “Act Accordingly”, then arm yourself with the concept and begin by thinking about the importance of what you say defines who you are being and who you are. Not a novel concept, but one to remember consistently.

Your words clearly matter in many ways in which you may not yet be accustomed. You may be struck by an idea that we are asking you to be thoughtful, but leave behind your spontaneity. Not so. We want you to trust you instincts, yet become more prudent in your choices of words. How would you do this?

Mindful Public Speaking

You may begin by thinking about public speaking. It may not be your greatest asset; it may be your highest fear. Putting yourself in this mind-frame might bring a few things to the surface for you. We identified fear and you might be feeling some anxiety about this with your beliefs about public speaking. However, we think this is a good place to begin for you. It allows you to think about your beliefs. Yes, we will bring you back to your originating experiences that led you to your beliefs in the first place. We have much more to offer you on this subject in our workshops. But, let’s get back to some basics.

Get Feedback

First off, you are probably not familiar with your own language, what you say, or how you say things. You may understand the impact of what you say by way of the reactions that you receive from those to whom you are speaking. If you have little sense of this though, begin to notice by starting to look and listen for things present in your audience: interest, understanding, glazed looks, acceptance, dozing, anger, etc. If you are willing to look, all kinds for things will appear for you. Within this context, begin changing your words. Start by asking questions of your audience “Does this make sense?”, “Do you agree with what been said?” to keep in close touch with your listeners. There is more, but for now this will help you get going.

We suggest you record a few of your conversations (i.e. please do this legally) and playback your side of the conversation to realize your part in it.  Ask people in your listening circle to give you feedback on your language, your style, attitude, etc. What could and needs to change to become more effective? To be understood better? What other things can you think of on your own?

Conclusion

We want you to strive for excellence in all you do, especially your language, since this is where we all live. Become selective in your word choice, improve your language and lift yourself out of arrogance.

By the way, we all are arrogant and lazy in our language.

Our experience of writing has been rewarding, revealing, healing, protective, playful and yes – creative (i.e to name a few which come present), though not necessarily in any order.

We were introduced to writing in lower and higher education as a learning device and/or technique.  We were told that which you write will be retained and we concur wholeheartedly.  (Note – the two beliefs of manifest and retained showed-up in our language).

We have filled notebooks, book margins, backs & fronts of envelopes, and desk-pads: what wondrous history!!

Today, our writing takes the form of keying similar stuff into our computers or cell-phones, pounding or pecking on the keys. But, the technology is not anywhere near as effective. We ask “How come?”.

Well…..connection between your brain, eyes, and hand. There is something about this combination of age-old action that implants the movement, touch and viewing into our minds – heart and soul – yes? From a learning point of view – definitely.  How then can we suggest that the words will manifest?

Plain and simple – from our experiences.

We can differentiate the creation of futures, whether it be a design concept, or specific outcomes, they tend to show-up in very tangible ways. Also, we find it hard to explain exactly how and why this does occur – but it does.

We believe that we can explain parts of the how and maybe answer one or two ideas about the why.

It’s not really important what we believe about it that matters. What matters most is what you think, know, feel and realize about how this works in your life.

Please , share with us some of your ideas…

We couldn’t hear anything else they were saying: first, because the coffee grinder drowned them out; and second, we plugged in our ears phones from our headsets so we wouldn’t have to hear anyone or noise while we work (i.e. We prefer Bach to stimulate creativity).

Back to the overheard comment. It stuck with us for a few minutes, enough to put some words down about this kind of thinking.

A question comes to mind for us about this statement.  It reminds us of “Good Enough” and how prevalent this exists in our culture and our language. Our question is “What are you in search of then – mediocrity?”. We see a direct correlation here. We have no idea the context of the conversation, the mood or anything else, except his words chosen and spoken.

This point is particularly important to us at Choice Awareness for good reason. Our overriding belief posits choices define us: the words we choose and use define us – everything about us. We agree with the coaching sage Tex Johnston, who has commented many times that “We are arrogant and lazy with our language”. Bingo!!!

For us, In Search of Excellence was a unique book (i.e. included in our “American Guide to Success” mainly because of the concept.  Now more than ever,  searching has been been transforming for us – meaning now “being in demand of our own excellence and others“.

Curious, isn’t it? The sloth and pride in our language. We prefer humility and gratitude. We hope that people would learn to listen more closely to what they are saying and what is being said. Why not think more about what you would say before speaking?

Here is a question for you to ponder.  What would your employees think of – if they heard what this person said? And, it came out of your mouth to them. Would they question your vision statement that may have you striving to be the best in your domain/industry? If they heard anything remotely like this, the apparent disconnect would be noticed in an instant.  What do you think?

Please accept this comment with favorable intent. We suggest that you read more before speaking. Think about what you are saying before you speak. Then when you are ready and prepared, use the guiding axiom “Use your ears and mouth in proportion to their numbers”.

PS. If mediocrity is what you truly desire, it will show up in all kinds of ways. If barely adequate works for you, please re-think the implications -  not only for you, but those around you.

Transformation in today’s self-help industry is implementing change in one’s personal and/or business life. It generally refers to the exposure of training/education courses along with self-help books that allow people to experience change at a rapid pace. (Note) Explore companies like Landmark Education and books like “Working on Yourself Doesn’t Work”, or “First Things First”, etc. The front-runner and source for Landmark was Erhard Seminars.  These kinds of transformation education concentrate upon language (i.e. Ontology - who you are being with your vocabulary) and your actions; elevating language and taking personal responsibility for one’s deeds.

Claimed Affect of Transformation

We concur with taking responsible actions and increasing precision with your language. Transformation methods can produce short-term positive effect – we have experienced it first hand ourselves. Each of the ideas and concepts referenced here suggest practice to make it stick or become habit. We concur with practice not habit. From an acolyte’s perspective, an argument for transformation is that it can provide instant affect, much like revelation.

By staying in the “NOW” this will somehow produce moment to moment awareness with deep understanding, sometimes with great intensity and overwhelming power, such that it touches the uninitiated dramatically;  usually felt at a internal untapped emotional level. These don’t turn one’s hair white, but may cause a profound inner knowing. This inner knowing will keep you coming back for more. For the normal person this can be very revealing and helpful: other than normal – challenging and anxiety laden.

Impact of Transformation

In addition, the transformation moments provide relief of the great emptiness or unspoken challenge we sometimes face, to be replaced with that missing something, occasionally answering the forever-questioned mysteries  “What journey should I be on?”, or “What is my purpose in life?”, and maybe finally “Why can’t I release the life-time resentment toward my parents?”, etc. By the way, indirect claims are made to disappear unresolved challenges completely, only being pointed to upon occurrence in the courses; someone has at least one of these during the course(s). People experience awe witnessing these miraculous shares with their own eyes and can be affected deeply: touched, inspired and moved.

Transformation is made all the more palatable by suggesting some higher purpose too can be gained through the usage of the techniques. This involves declaring how one would make a difference with people, while occasionally thinking large enough to impact the entire world (e.g. historical data suggests that it does happen in some people/groups). Integrity training among others, further ensures and solidifies the highest regard of the student – weighty and principled stuff.

Initiation to Transformation

As an example, Landmark uses an inculcation strategy inviting family members and friends of the active transformation participants (students) to a gathering of like-minded followers (i.e. seekers). This provides an initial exposure to real people and their transformation homilies, which generally produces intrigue or disgust; some exposed comeback to enlist, while others move on to something else in their on-going search.

As expected, all methods suggest enrolling in the course, buy the book, and study with vigorous participation.  Somehow, the “NOW” moments require practice to continually occur. Curious – huh?

Transformation can be Helpful, but…
We think that the experience, training and exposure to transformation ideas can be very effective in ones life, but we haven’t noticed any long-term affects. Our witness of the occurrence of transformation appears vital and real, temporarily.

As an example, we recently inquired with an initial group of ten people as a curious follow-up. The group contained participants who had experienced the course(s) months and years before, usually within the past six.  Many of these of these had fallen away from their usage of transformation. Three different, intelligent and active professionals in our colleague-circle were asked details about what is working from their years long commitment and active efforts with the transformation self-help education. All but two of the thirteen had stopped using transformation. (Note) The sampling size would make the statistician cringe as scientific study – not intended as such – yet it highlights an important point).

All said that they got real benefits but no longer participated. The fourteenth inquiry made just yesterday (outside the active-circle-of-colleagues) produced in us spontaneous laughter, but only after we left the man.  We asked him, “In what kind of education have you been involved?” Answer, “I took the Walking-On-Fire weekend a few years ago”. Question, “What did that do for you?” Answer, “Absolutely nothing!!!”.

We believe this points directly to self-help shelf-life (i.e. after separation from the training/usage, the effectiveness falls away within months, if not days).

Summary of Transformation Characteristics

Based upon our own experiences and that of others we see some interesting, if not, disheartening outcomes. Our summary below points to our findings:

1. Rapid change, sometimes miraculous
2. Emotional stimulation with high hope
3. Quasi-belief initially with strong enthusiasm, desire with limited commitment
4. Continued participation, spreading the good news – enlisting others
5. Study and practice, lifting language and activities
6. Good to excellent results depending upon sustained commitment, usually temporary
7. After active participation, loss of effectiveness (within six months)
8. Finally, separation and discontinued usage

This is not a compelling enough reason to continue going down this transformation road.

What Does it Mean?

It probably means lots of things. But, we want to know if something is beginning to emerge for you?

Like us, you may be asking  “How come it fails?”. We have some answers for you and more questions, but consider this…

For us, a couple of things come to mind immediately.

First, transformation for us is just another word for change.

Second, transformation beckons us because it sounds sophisticated and compelling: it certainly is, isn’t it? The transformers thrill us with their use of uncommon/meaningful language, and we’re told of the years of experience required to attain teaching mastery – it being arduous and fraught with rigorous integrity. What really gets our juices flowing though, is three-fold: 1) the next new thing; 2) the hope of possibility filled with instant impact, and; 3)  the holy grail – revelation is available to you, like so many others that have experienced it. Oh yeah…. bring it to us right now!

Since our and many other cultures promote instant (e.g. look at hand-held technology, food, health, wealth, etc), it is not surprising that we would yearn for this. (Note)  Consider the reasons and strategy to make distinctions to differentiate transformation and change: perhaps designed to create whole new consulting/education/industries with ripe growth opportunities – maybe?  Yet, try this on…

Third, the founders/designers of these transformation offerings are clearly believers in their products. Large groups of people are enrolled in them.  But, are the enrollees truly believers?  We don’t think so, or their transformation methods employed would survive in the people! Here’s a good question for you to ponder “Do The Self-Help companies have a preponderance of life-time-customers?”. Maybe – so. We know book publishers and book sellers do.  Look at the Amazon’s model to see how effective they are – very.

We, think the seekers continue to seek, looking for that one thing that will produce – the answers.

For us, we know what delivers the answers (some of them).

What it Takes to Make it Stick

In our understanding, change will stick if there exists true belief, set by design and made real with practiced connected experience: it is that easy to grasp. No complexity, no sophisticated design, and available to all who do the change (e.g. desire and want are excluded here because a decision doesn’t produce action). True belief is in the heart, mind and soul of the believer. The believer will act on his beliefs. The non-believers are capable of deciding but rarely act.

To summarize, we say that change occurs with belief, belief based choices, and belief based actions. Read this again. Use transformation to your hearts content, but support it with underlying belief and you can experience effective results. You’ll sustain the investment in the education and reap benefits continually.

But what does it take to establish belief?  We say both design and experience – they are not mutually exclusive.  Look no further than current day newspapers to read of examples of these believers, regardless of the culture or whether the believer does good or evil (e.g. good/evil can be fluid with reverse meanings depending upon which side of the street you stand).

Belief was once a fundamental in committed families, religion, some private and public education institutions, all branches of the US military, firefighters, rescue and emergency teams, to name a few. But who today promotes belief and instills it into us as a design? Look around you to notice where this happens. You may be surprised….

A word on habits – they are repetitions without judgment. That’s it for us. Do again and again coupled with the secret unsaid possibility that change will occur over-time and stick. It usually doesn’t. Of course, we would ask “Is the habit effective?”.  Maybe. More importantly we ask “Does your belief support the habit?”. Our experience suggests usually not.

Final Word: Real Self-Help Defined

We expect to affect the model for self-help. We want to arm people with tools that they can use on their own, not requiring continued involvement with us, but reliance upon themselves, their intimate friends, colleagues, teams and the groups they build to support themselves. That’s it.

Sure they can come back once in a while to re-tune, but we want people to be self-sufficient and rely upon themselves and others for support. We understand today, that this involves belief and right choices. We also say the right choices system. We will support you but you must accept personal responsibility for yourself. Quit deciding and do. Build your experience set upon beliefs and you can conquer anything.

VALUABLE LESSON

While we have been frustrated by these situations, we consider ourselves fortunate that we could experience the impact first hand because it affords us the opportunity to understand a valuable lesson:  each interaction is an opportunity for EXCELLENCE. And, it can be measured.

Look close by to get an idea about how you might measure it.

We are not hyper-sensitive to situations but we are focused – I am a business coach/mentor and Janet is an event planner, so we take our services interactions seriously – they are the life-blood of what we do and strive to deliver.

LIFE-TIME CUSTOMER

I’ll describe one of the first-hand unfavorable occasions with a hotel in a bit, but each one of these companies may have lost a life-time customer.  Their unfocused attention and misunderstanding of interactions is a grave error in a services approach, which is so vitally important in our competitive world today.

Rightly or wrongly, we expect high levels of service excellence for lots of reasons:

1. we are conditioned from advertising and the media,
2. excellent companies exist and spread their good news to the detriment of average and less-than-average businesses,
3. we want what we see others getting,
4. we want it now, and….
5. by gosh, it better be very good, especially if we are paying a premium!!!

Here is a point worth considering: if you consistently satisfy and delight your customers/clients, you have an opportunity to serve them for a life-time. Re-read the last sentence a few times to let the significance touch you.

This should be an easy task in our world today, since service levels provided typically fall short of average. Can you think of some interactions you have had yourself recently? Maybe… a clothing store, or how about the electronics plaza  – yeah? Not only do the staff in these organizations have inadequate training, they don’t clearly understand what should occur in an interaction.

Well – not so great examples – since they are commodity based businesses but hopefully it reminds you of the less-than-average services you encounter frequently. Now think about your own business and what comes up?

Do you understand the financial impact of losing a life-time customer or client? It is significant, especially when you consider that 80% of your revenues  come from your top customers.

It is time to be reminded of the importance of this characteristic.  Start again now to imagine what affect this could be for your business…

We had three separate occasions which were very irritating -  just in the past two weeks. The occasions have provided us insight, while prompting this blog.

IT MATTERS

If you are a business owner, in management, or in a service capacity responsible for making a difference with people, you don’t want them going away whispering about you.

In the picture close by, the couple may appear to be having an intimate exchange, yet imagine someone passing low level barbs about you and your  company’s lack of service excellence.

Remember too, that in today’s world, people blog and spill the beans in great detail, within minutes of the occurrence: they shout it out loudly!!!!

OK, sure….. we all want to produce great service – no one could dispute that.

But, WHEN and HOW?

We’ll use our dinning experience as an opportunity to demonstrate some ideas.

ONE EXAMPLE

We decided to play all afternoon in Half Moon Bay, California, then capped-it-off by visiting a hotel spot where we can really enjoy the ocean view, drinks, and each others company: to unwind.  We finally decided to eat dinner there too – the place is typically billed as being world class – we deserve it, right?

We sat down for dinner, ordered, and had a great conversation until our meal arrived. Up to this point the service was excellent, especially being left alone to enjoy ourselves, which was very nice not having our water glasses filled every two minutes.

OK, the meal arrives and we try it: my salmon was raw, her chicken was rubber. BIG SURPRISE. We called the waiter over, mentioned the issues and he removed both plates to do-over. Thirty minutes pass. I am foaming at the mouth for food and Janet is beginning to wonder if I will make a fuss – loudly.

Nope… but I am seething and more foaming. I look around wondering where our waiter is and what is going on.  15 minutes later, I begin to start speaking about leaving  and going some place else – soon, very soon! Finally completely famished (i.e. my tongue is picking up lint from the carpet) the do-over is about to arrive,  and I am standing up to leave and she pulls me back into my seat – calm down Bob!  I cool my jets and accept a sincere apology from our waiter.

The do-over has been done really well – mine is a 9 and Janet’s is an 8 (i.e. scale of 0 to 10 – this is very good). Yet, when I stood up to leave, I was no longer a life-time customer.  Even though the waiter had made an apology  no one else came by – strange, huh? (If you hotel senior management need some hints on how to do things – check out the One&Only Palmilla in Mexico as a model for believing customer service is why you exist).

OK,  so where is the SERVICE EXCELLENCE for this billed-as-a-world-class-company?  What should have occurred?

We talked about this on the ride home from the coast, came up with a few things to share with the firm, but agreed to offer positive suggestions and see what occurred for them and how they might handle our concerns.

QUESTIONS THAT CAME UP

Our experience produced more questions than answers – as noted below:

1. Why didn’t the waiter tell his management about the issue? (training & beliefs)
2. Why didn’t the manager come by our table and suggest an interim food or drink alternative while we waited. (lost opportunity & beliefs)
3. Why didn’t someone call us when we told the waiter our experience surprised and soured us on their company? (service follow-up & beliefs)
4. Why did we have to initiate a call to the hotel? Why did we have to listen to someone who repeats the words world-class with no suggested resolution? (training & beliefs)
5. Why did Janet get directed to the food & beverage director when she called the General Manager? Why did the director take two days to get back to us? (training & beliefs)
6. Why did we really care about this at all and not just blow it off? (training and beliefs)

We look for opportunities to do things better and have also had great experiences with world class companies.  However for the most part, the advance advertising falls short on delivery many times, and in some cases its merely a hope for excellence.

OPPORTUNITY

It seems to us that the real opportunity exists exactly at the moment of contact in the interaction, when you are in the midst of delivering and/or receiving the service. It happens in those moments – where training, beliefs and excellence have the opportunity to show up and occur, or not!

Not later or after – because it will be clean-up and way past the moment you might make a difference.

It is possible to recover but it takes great effort, action and expense. (American companies stop and consider what you are doing. Take note of sister companies in Japan that send executives to front doors to restore faith, honor, save face, and…..better yet – retain a life-time customer).  Who would have thought that we would outsource our customer contact off-shore? The very point of intimacy moves off-shore – my gosh are you sitting on your brains!!! But that’s for another blog.

OK, so if you buy this concept that service excellence occurs at the moment of delivery, then it might open up all kinds of possibility.  Consider a mind-set that has you creating excellence “in the moment”. What comes up for you now?

WHEN

All of your possibility exists inside the belief system of your company, how people operate inside those beliefs, how they use their training, and what power(s) they possess to make things right when things go wrong.  This isn’t about when-things-go-right because you designed  your service delivery to delight, it’s for the other.  That other, is filled with endless possibilities, especially in determining what you do and don’t do. For world class firms it must permeate all things, while its people execute throughout everything they do.

HOW

Change the belief system, focus attention for what occurs in the moment, train and empower people to get it right the first time and recover quickly when it doesn’t. Sounds easy and it is. Stop sitting on your brains and start designing the right stuff for your business. If you can’t articulate why you exist, you won’t.

Just change two things – your beliefs and have  all your actions stand inside of your beliefs.

More to come….