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Treat the Client, as if it were You
It has always happened to me that, in any activity, whether it’s personal life, work or relaxation, that there is a time and place when I can see myself from the sidelines. It happens that I can feel myself in a crowd of people or in discussion, or simply just walking down the road, I start hearing my own words and almost feel outside my body, as if inside me there’s another person in charge.
These moments can be very useful, e.g. they enable me to see and hear what is frequently concealed by the succession of events that follow one after the other throughout the day. They enable me to step aside from the habitual style of work developed over the years, stop at some moment and say to yourself: ”Stop! Now you can do it a different way.”
One would ask how is this connected to management and working with clients?
In particular, this helped me to make a number of useful observations.
One would ask how is this connected to management and working with clients?
In particular, this helped me to make a number of useful observations.
Treat the Client, as if it were You
The first observation is that my level of communication, the efforts I apply to completing a business task, my haste in solving problems, completely reflects my internal state and relation to myself. I cannot be more than the person I am at that moment. The people I work with can definitely sense this. This can be put into a simple formula: Treat the Client as if it were You.. If you just use this like a teaching formula nothing will happen, what matters is personal engagement and interest in the process. In my opinion in this case interest is some sort of intuitive emotional experience which is experienced from genuine contact with someone else. It’s intuitive because I absolutely know exactly that I am behaving correctly, but emotion is like food - a shot of energy. It doesn’t matter if I write someone a letter, have a chat with him or talk on the phone. I offer him the same solution, product or service that I would use myself, and I’m not indifferent how the client takes it, which impressions and emotions cause the result.The Client is Always Right
The second observation is how I relate to someone’s reaction to an event. If I’m not interested in something I usually don’t pay it any attention, but it could work both ways. Meaning this: if I’ve paid attention, it could be interesting. Interest assumes engagement in a situation, problem, search for a solution – whatever. I take enormous pleasure, for example, when I can offer the person I’m talking to what they need. There is even more pleasure when I can see several steps ahead and can work out the situation in my head, and when I try to think about it I feel as if I wasn’t capable of this. Its about the chance to listen and personal experience to the past. Then the expression “The Client is always Right” acquires a very precise and clear meaning. The Client is actually always right because he’s expressing his opinion, his vision, his perception even if it doesn’t agree with mine, but at this moment in time presents his view of the world. It’s very important. In this situation I have an opportunity to offer the Client what he needs if I listen to him thoroughly. If I don’t hear the client and only listen to myself then nothing will happen. Paying attention is the key to this. It should be paid in two directions – to the other person and your inner self.Cards on the Table
Today the third observation I want to write about is openness. Nothing else quite forces someone to extricate themselves from difficult circumstances in the future than often unfounded attempts to avoid some proposed problems in the past. The most correct decisions are often concealed in simple things. The source of a problem at the end of a project can be traced back to something that was done at the planning stage. This is all “Common Sense” about which much has already been written about and said. It seems something else is important here. An open approach is equally important, as is the sense to say no when necessary and agree at that very moment when you feel that it’s right to advise the Client, to advise of issues when they arise, and offer a solution when inside you’re saying “Yes, yes, this is the moment! Go on, do it!” Yet another essential thing is being able to recognise mistakes. This is also directly linked with openness and sincerity. A mistake, in essence, is a simple event, like success or right choice. If I recognise success I also have a chance to recognise a mistake. There’s no difference between these two things.Responsibility to...
This term is loved by many when it comes to decision-making, choice of supplier or worker, when “blame-storming” a project, evaluating the work of employees and so on.
I have myself witnessed on more than one occasion situations when someone has been entrusted a task for which he had barely had an idea how to complete, who had the necessary management skills and internal potential for completing the task handed to him. He had been “conferred with responsibility” and he should carry it triumphantly barely understanding with what exactly he had been entrusted.
Everyone’s head is filled with ideas about how one should conduct oneself so it looks responsible without a distinct understanding of what it is in actual fact.
Examples can be found every day. If something didn’t happen for someone, the deadline expired, poor work was submitted, was rude to a colleague... what are they most likely to do? They’ll say that “it happens”, “they pushed me,” “they didn’t do this and that for me,” “and why did he behave like that?” In this context responsibility is represented as a form of duty to answer for carrying out an action or not. But what does “to answer for” mean? In my opinion the answer is a conscious evaluation of one’s capabilities and perceived choice. It’s important to replace the illusion of “responsibility for something” to responsibility to oneself.
It’s a unique look inside. At this moment a wide field of my capabilities opens up, from which I can formulate a strategy for future actions. By manipulating my capabilities alone I cannot say that someone forced me or pushed me to take one step or another, the consequences of which I would be responsible. For me this understanding is another boundary for sincerity to oneself, there’s no chance to lie to yourself or blame someone for failing.
This very principle will also work when delegating responsibility to someone else. It’s important not to simply issue a task and forget about it. In this sense everything will be subject to the will of Fate. If the person doing it turns out to be good, the task will be completed, but if not then you have to constantly interfere with a badly-working mechanism, directing and correcting its course. You have to feel this and have an intuitive feeling of a conscious choice when delegating, which exists in an understanding of your own responsibility to yourself. After this it should be enough to just follow the process from time to time without interfering in it and allowing it an opportunity to develop along its nominated path. So you can formulate the following principle of whole-hearted management. It can be regarded as the approach to carrying out tasks from the position of responsibility to yourself.
Examples can be found every day. If something didn’t happen for someone, the deadline expired, poor work was submitted, was rude to a colleague... what are they most likely to do? They’ll say that “it happens”, “they pushed me,” “they didn’t do this and that for me,” “and why did he behave like that?” In this context responsibility is represented as a form of duty to answer for carrying out an action or not. But what does “to answer for” mean? In my opinion the answer is a conscious evaluation of one’s capabilities and perceived choice. It’s important to replace the illusion of “responsibility for something” to responsibility to oneself.
It’s a unique look inside. At this moment a wide field of my capabilities opens up, from which I can formulate a strategy for future actions. By manipulating my capabilities alone I cannot say that someone forced me or pushed me to take one step or another, the consequences of which I would be responsible. For me this understanding is another boundary for sincerity to oneself, there’s no chance to lie to yourself or blame someone for failing.
This very principle will also work when delegating responsibility to someone else. It’s important not to simply issue a task and forget about it. In this sense everything will be subject to the will of Fate. If the person doing it turns out to be good, the task will be completed, but if not then you have to constantly interfere with a badly-working mechanism, directing and correcting its course. You have to feel this and have an intuitive feeling of a conscious choice when delegating, which exists in an understanding of your own responsibility to yourself. After this it should be enough to just follow the process from time to time without interfering in it and allowing it an opportunity to develop along its nominated path. So you can formulate the following principle of whole-hearted management. It can be regarded as the approach to carrying out tasks from the position of responsibility to yourself.
