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This Land of Strangers - Robert E Hall

This Land of Strangers

"..the most important book of the decade." — Richard Boyatzis, co-author of best seller Primal Leadership

Relationships, in all their varied forms, have been the lifetime study of Robert Hall. He brings a rare combination of experience as a researcher, consultant, writer, teacher and CEO in dealing with the real-world relationship challenges of modern organizations. When coupled with a decade of hands-on experience in the gritty world of inner-city homeless families it translates into a tapestry of vivid stories, well-researched and oft startling facts, and strategic insights that weave together the yet untold narrative of society's gravest risk and most stellar opportunity.

Building Customer Relationships – Getting to Yes

“It sounds simple, but in fact you could capture all of my research findings with the metaphor of a saltshaker. Instead of filling it with salt, fill it with all the ways you can say yes, and that’s what a good relationship is.” – John Gottman, Making Relationships Work, Harvard Business Review, December 2007

• • •

Getting to yes in as many ways as possible – yes, that certainly sounds simplistic. Yet the spirit of yes is a very powerful and empowering thing that can take the sting out of no and enlarges yes. Now in today’s sub-prime real estate environment it is quite easy to look around and see where yes has run amok. Yet, it is in an environment of too much yes that we are so vulnerable to a pendulum that will psychologically be a repelling no to our customers.

If you haven’t heard of John Gottman, he is the 15-90-15 researcher in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink who demonstrated an uncanny ability to hear about 15 minutes of interaction between spouses and predict with 90 per cent accuracy if they will still be married 15 years later. Initially an MIT math student who got sidetracked into the study of relationships, he has been able to isolate key variables that powerfully predict relationship outcomes. For those of us whose lifetime work is to develop lasting, productive and profitable employee and customer relationships, his learnings are worthy of a look. There are three that stand out.

Yes, the first point is about getting to yes in as many ways as possible. One of Gottman’s findings is that for a marriage to survive, the ratio of positive to negative emotions in a given encounter has to be at least five to one. We might call it a spirit of yes, and it is a ‘can do’, positive, ‘yes-if-at-all-possible’ attitude. It is leading with ‘yes’. When a customer aspires to do something, focus on the part you can do, rather than on the no part that you can’t. It does not mean that there will not be ‘no’s’ or conflict. There will obviously be requests that cannot be fulfilled, but even that can be done in a positive manner.

One of my personal pet peeves is sales or service interactions where representatives in a begrudging, belittling way – in a spirit of ‘no’ – give a yes against their will – like waiving the fee but not the dirty look. This bothers me because it results in the worst of both worlds. They take on whatever risk was inherent in the borderline yes they have granted while eliciting all of the ill will of no. The spirit of yes can trump the answer of no and vice versa. In essence, yes affirms the person even when you have to say no to the person’s request.

The second point is about what matters in building relationships. Gottman says that good relationships aren’t about clear communication – they’re about small moments of attachment and intimacy. So often we attack the ‘how do we communicate this more clearly’ problem and do nothing to create attachment in the customer or employee experience.

It is one of the reasons that for most industries, the dramatic increase in the use of call centers greatly improving customer access and convenience, has been associated with a decline in customer loyalty. Face to face communication in a store or branch offers future contact and promotes a much stronger likelihood of attachment and intimacy – having something in common like a shared experience, little things like being of similar age, same gender, common background or ethnicity, same school, same neighborhood – things that can cause a connection. Most organizational communication and interaction management processes are designed for clarity of communication and closing transactions, and in fact are sterile and often discourage relational attachment or connection.

Third, contempt is the single most powerful predictor of relationship collapse. Contempt is speaking from a higher plane in an attempt to push another person to a lower plane. It seeks to impose social hierarchy. What this really entails is an unwillingness to share power with others, carried out by attempting to control them. Gottman says this is particularly important for men. When a man is not willing to share power with his wife there is an 81% chance that the marriage will self-destruct. Relationships cannot withstand contempt – especially from someone who believes in and desires shared community. Most of us have learned the sound of ‘that tone’ in others we are close to (and ourselves) that reflects contempt – and we know how deadly it can be to relationship.

So the big three: It is being and acting yes to the person even when the decision is no. It is not settling for just clarity when what you really want is relationship attachment and connection. And, it is staying out of the contempt penalty box – avoiding the power-grabbing higher plane – no matter what. Yes!

(Column appeared originally in ABA Bank Marketing magazine – January-February 2008)

By ROBERT E. HALL

Not to be reproduced without written permission. All rights reserved. © Copyright Robert E. Hall 2008

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