Conquering hesitation : Talking to strangers

Why men don’t ask for directions? Of the many reasons, hesitation is one. Many of us are too hesitent to walk up to stranger and talk to them. Even when we are looking for help. When was the last time you spoke to a stranger?

Have you been to an village or small town. People so easily talk to strangers. Have a chit chat – over whatever be the topic – politics, economy, sports, doesn’t matter. Everyone has his two cents to throw in. But what a stark contrast you see in big cities. You won’t even pass a smile to your neighbour, forget the greeting. Why?

I don’t think lifestyle is a reason. In a smaller town, you will somehow secured and easy. A big city gives a very intimidating feeling. Like you are nobody and no one bothers about you. More or less true, but why let that feeling hang on to us so tight? I know, even if you gather courage to tell something to a stranger, first look you will get will be of suspicion. That’s a hazard of times we are living in. Anyway, let get back to the point. We are hesitant to talk to strangers and how we get rid of it.

You surely would have met a salesman and a beggar on the road. Next time notice how they approach to strangers. There’s a lot to learn from them. Both have a very different approach. A salesman will start with introduction, but a beggar cuts all the crap and throws a one liner at you. We all know who is more successful.

Again, lets take it in a vice versa situation. How you would like a stranger to approach you. To be point. Specific and precise. Isn’t it. So lets do the same. When you approach a stranger get to the point right after a a polite greeting.

Easier said then done. We know what to say but approaching take guts. Remember we spoke of Baby Steps process. Lets use the same.

Start small. One day just walk on the road, without your wrist watch. Ask for what time it is. And move on. Try it after every 50 yards or so. This will give you some confidence. Do not forget to smile when you are asking for time.

What next. Perhaps you guessed it right. Ask for directions. Pick up a landmark and ask for the directions towards it. When you are asking for direction, the length of conversation is longer and give you little more confidence.

Now the some more practice. While waiting for elevator or bus or tickets, try to hit a conversation. Now do not use a one liner like “Oh! Such a sunny day”, “The elevator is taking forever” or “Is the queue even moving”. As soon you let something out like this, any scope of decent conversation is over. Because now if say anything more after this, it will look like you are “trying hard” to get that person’s attention. And this puts people on back-foot.

How to hit a conversation then? Its getting longer than I expected to lets split here and take that topic out as Conversation Starters.

 

Conquering hesitation: communicating with (professionally) seniors

Only few managers are very approachable. You are lucky if you’ve got one. But then not all are lucky. and not always too. So how to deal with situations where Open Door policy is just a rhetoric.

Before we discuss how to approach, lets first try to find what really intimidates us? I do not believe its the power they have (by virtue of their position) to affect your career. I feel the intimidation, the fear, is generated from our own desires. We want to impress them, want to be in their good books and a sense that we might not be able to achieve it; is what intimidates us.

Now obviously we can’t do away with desires. But then we need to realize our self-worth. If you know you are doing your job well (knowing ain’t enough. you have to do your job well too). Then you approach your senior with that confidence and self-pride. Both will show in your attitude, and in your conversation. Think of it in a vice versa situation. If you are a senior and a junior approaches you. Who you would be more impressed with – the one who is lost or the one who knows what he wants.

So this will be a helpful approach. When ever you have to appraoch a senior, think of it if you are a senior and a sub-ordinate wants to reach you – how would you like him to behave and that will be your answer.

Now its not necessary that things will definitely go well with this approach. You still might get an unwarranted negative treatment. What can you do if that person had a fight and you were the scapegoat for this anger unleashed upon. I would say do not dishearten. I would look even such thing is a positive way (if we are sure you were not wrong). Because then when that person’s anger cools down, he realises his mistake and guilt takes over. That is the right moment to go back. High chances that you will get what you were looking for, the remorse of being rude at you will give you a bias in your favour if not an advantage.

 

Conquering hesitation

Now hesitation is a vicious circle. It will block you. And it keeps blocking you. The more you let it block yourself, more hesitant you keep getting. Slowly, it becomes a problem to the extent that you are no longer able to communicate with others properly. Of course, the degree varies. You may feel hesitant only when approaching strangers or opposite sex or seniors. It differs person to person. But the traits are same. You want to say something. Want to do something. But you can not. Your mind holds you back. It will project all sorts of negative consequences.

Baby Steps

Hesitation can not be killed in a single day. You have to make conscious efforts. conscious small small efforts. Slowly curing it. You can start with identifying things that you are hesitant in doing. Now sort them. Where you feels least hesitant on the top and so on. Now if may so happen that that even the first item in you list is proving too much to handle, them think of smaller things, which you would be less hesitant in doing. So start with it. Collect you guts and go ahead. Do it. Now proceed to next item only if you feel confident. If not, repeat the first item few times, till you feel ready for next. Keep taking baby steps. Do not try to measure, how much you are out of it. To think about hesitation is to get into it even more.

The most commonly seen hesitation is to communicate with strangers, opposite sex or seniors. There is one more – expressing yourself in public. I feel we need discuss all four in detail. So instead of clubbing them together, I will break them into different posts.

 

The more you know the less you need to say

This world is full of stupids. And specially those idiotic species who can blabber on any topic non-stop. Full confidence. As if they know it all. (What? I am one of them? Huh. As if I care if you say that).

But the more you know less you need to say. I will tell you why my blog doesn’t come under that. But later.

How many times this occurred to you that you joined a conversation where someone is blabbering without knowing the facts. Do you correct that person? why take the pain. Two reasons. That person will never accept that he doesn’t knows anything about what he is speaking. (Am not gender biased. Read He as She if you like it). If you correct him, he will straight take it on his ego. Making it a prestige issue. And will start cooking false reference which no one can verify. And the second reason being, why waste your time and energy on such stupids.

How to deal with them? Ignore them. The are all around us. We can’t fight with each one of them. We might need their help someday. So keep silent. But if he is really pissing you off, then this is what you do. Guide him. Ask open ended questions and raise such topics which you know he has no clue. Slowly he will venture too far for everyone to see that what he really knows. This should give sufficient joy to you. And if you really don’t care, then take him down as soon as he spits out something very lame. Everyone would be watching his recklessness and will be eager to join you in taking him down.

Now the reason why you and me don’t belong to that category is that though we know and we like to tell. We don’t force our self on others. When we don’t know something, we say we don’t know. We say what we know and make this clear that this is what WE think.

 

Don’t be cannon fodder

Last night we discussed the importance of updating the skills. I guess I missed to iterate on what will become of you if you miss updating your skills. Well, my dear friend, you become cannon fodder.

You become cheap labour and dispensable. In any industry, you are just a resource. If you want to feel better, I will call you human resource. Now, I am not going to feed you the same old vague story of moving up the value chain. What I am highlighting today is the Darwin’s theory of Survival of the fittest. If you are fit. And skilled. You will survive. Its all about adapting with change and blah blah blah.

But what happened to our idea of last night, that keep learning the skills of your interest so that you move towards it. If I tell you to adapt and for sake of it acquire the skills to survive. You will end up just like any other blind mice in the rat race.

Learn at a brisk pace. And always run your own race.

Survival is must. So that goes without saying that you need to do what it takes to survive. But beyond that, don’t just keep changing with time. Change the time. Be the Agent of Change.

Change the circumstances of that you don’t just keep chasing your dreams. Change the hurdles so that you can realize the dreams and what always interested you. Off course, this never going to be easy. But the easy thing is to chase, not change.

So don’t be that 80% that is fed to the cannons of difficulties so that the skilled 20% can then win the war. Be in that 20%, so that you go and win your war.

 

Skills are like money

Skills are like money. If the are not increasing, then they are depleting.

Which ever industry you are working in. Whatever domain. Skills are the best and mot important investment. They control your relevance. Your reputation. Your compensation. So never discount their importance. Updating skills is important and keep learning new skills is even more important.

Time generally leads the list of excuse we make for not updating our skills. Everyone gets the same 24 hours each day. If you are not getting enough time to update your skills then perhaps time management is the first skill you should go after. I am not scoping just the technical skills. Technical know-how is just a fraction of the skills you should be looking to acquire.

We often neglect the importance of soft skills. Communication skills are as vital as technicalities of your work. A job well done is not worth enough unless you are able to communicate the success to relevant people. We communicate through various media – voice conversations like debates, discussions, presentations, interviews, etc to written media like electronic mails, papers, articles, instant message conversations, etc. Each media warrants certain level of skills to be effective. so identifying the common modes of communications you use and acquire necessary skills to become effective with them.

Many times you are stuck in work which is not in agreement with your interests. Though it is very important to follow what interests you but many times either is not feasible or not as easy as said. Such circumstances need special handling. And off course extra hard work. If you are going through such scenario then what I would recommend for you is that you to focus not just towards the skills that interests you but keep upgrading on your work related skills too. Basically, you keep improving in the work you are doing besides keeping yourself up with the skills you wish to shift to. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.

 

Too proud to beg, too dumb to steal

Remember that It’s probably me song? Too proud to beg and too dumb to steal. That is what most of us are. If you are one like that, what you do? You search the city for one friend and it’s probably me. That’s how song goes. But that doesn’t makes it untrue.

Too proud to beg, too dumb to steal? – go look for friends.

The friend you should be looking for is yourself only. On one can help you until yourself is ready to help. Next you reach out to the wise ones. It is easier to point out other persons mistake. But more difficult is to empathise with them and come up with a better action for those situations. So go look out for friends who would do this for you.

With two friends already your side, what remains is the friend who would help you execute what your wise friend have told you to. This is the most tricky part. Be very sure of the person you are taking help from. Be very careful of false friends. One wrong pick here will screw you for ever.

So when your life is fixed. No need to beg. No need to steal. What you do? – Help others. Go help those who are like you were once.

 

Curing Mediocrity

We have seen various forms of cost cuttings in companies. From shortage of toiletries to laying off people. But I am yet to see a cutting of Mediocrity. In my opinion, it is the single largest reason for loses. Yet its seldom that something is done about it. Many managers seem to accept it as fact of life. I feel that its mediocrity saving mediocrity. If someone is tolerating mediocrity then its a reflection of its own mediocrity. Before you object that your hands are tied. I am ready to discount only those cases where you don’t have authority. But if you have authority yet you tolerate mediocrity then its a clear proof of your own mediocrity.

It is like a virus. It tries to replicate itself. And if your defenses are not as strong, it gets into you. So how to counter it? What should you do when you face it. Before discussing what to do, let me warn you what not to do. Never confront it. The first rule of mediocrity is that you don’t talk about it. Ya am copying that from fight club. But that doesn’t make it wrong. If you tell such a person that he is mediocre, you will not only lose the trust of that person, but also any chance you had of curing him.

So when I meet such a person, first thing I would do is to remember my achievements. The honor, the pride I used to get each time I climbed those stage stairs at my school. That motivates me so much, I can never let mediocrity into myself. This is how we can prevent it. But how to cure it…in others.

Curing Mediocrity

Motivation doesn’t work on losers attitude. That needs to be fixed first. I feel Kick and Carrot is a better option. You force that person to perform. And then reward him (consider him as him/her/it). You make it a cycle, till the person gets used to it. Then even if you remove the Kick, the person will get used to working hard. But before you release the pressure. Its important to motivate the person. So as to charge him enough to continue with hard work.

Sometimes a person is just too lazy. The spark is there. He will work hard but just too lazy to go that extra mile that will make him shine. I really don’t know how to cure laziness because I am myself a lazy person. But I have a tweak for you. Give that person mundane task. That will bore him and then he will start thinking to counter it. Out of his laziness he would then try to find to cut short on the mundane stuff. He will. Remember he is hard working. Before you question me let me clear how a person is lazy yet hard working. Such person will work hard but would be quite lazy to tell anyone. He will continue to slog but won’t do anything to change things. So you need just introduce to change. And make him comfortable with change. That’s why I say, give him very boring task. Then he will try to change it. Make him initiate the changes. And when he reciprocates, reward him, motivate him. Never ever try Kick and Carrot on this person. You will only push him deeper in the quicksand of mediocrity.

 

How to handle criticism?

We often face criticism. In our personal life as well as professional. In fact, where-ever we interact with other persons, there are chances we might face criticism. Now don’t confuse criticism with harassment. Harassment is NOT even superlative degree of criticism. Lets start with understanding it.

What is criticism?

Criticism is others showing disagreement or disapproval of our ideas or actions. It usually consist of pointing out of our mistakes and shortcomings (of our actions/ideas). Though there are various direct and indirect forms of criticisms, we generally get the idea when it is and what. So instead of trying more on defining it, lets jump straight to handling it. That’s what I think would be more relevant to you too.

How to handle it?

Whenever you face criticism, you should first realize that others have as much right to express their opinion as you have. So you should respect it. Because criticisms are generally negative comments, you need to be sure of what is getting criticized. In most cases, its our ideas or our actions that are criticized. Realizing this only is the first step. Because then you know that you are not being criticized but its the idea or action that is getting criticized. This way you alienate yourself from all negative comments.

I understand that you might be feeling very passionate about your idea. Or you would have taken some action in rightful spirit. But this does not mean when they are criticized you take it to your ego or worse, make a prestige issue.

You should start by calmly explaining your thoughts and reasons. The facts and the circumstances. The logic and the rationale behind it. Most of our actions are function of our knowledge and the circumstance. Under similar conditions, quite probable that others will do the same. So try to get them to empathize with your situation.

Sometimes, we our-self start feeling guilty because its a genuine mistake. Instead of having that add to the negative comments, you can use it to counter it. This technique is also called fogging. So when someone criticizes, you accept the mistake right away and mention that it was due to so and so reasons and perhaps next time you won’t repeat your mistake. You can also make others indulgent by asking what they would have done. This shifts the focus from what you did to what they would have done. Thus, fogging creates a maze where the negative comments simply gets lost and never reaches you.

Anticipating criticism also helps. It takes away it surprise value. So, if you are prepared, you are not shocked by it. You have you thoughts and your plan of action already in place.

 

Habit 9: Agents of Change

If The Joker be an agent of chaos, the innovative people are Agents of Change. They don’t fear change. They bring change. They adapt and evolve with change.

Why is it so important to change? No, I don’t say that you would perish if you do not adapt. Otherwise old wouldn’t be gold. I have different thoughts about it. I feel it is important to change if you want to innovate. Let me explain it further. We are used to working in a routine fashion. With time, we slowly become expert in that routine. So far things remains in that well accustomed domain, we are good. We grow so used-to of the situations that we stop thinking about improvements and improvisations. And slowly mediocrity starts sinking into us. We start getting habitual of sub-standard stuff. Now you are intelligent enough to know its ramifications.

My focus today is not why you should learn to change. It is up-to you, you want to or not. But if you want to be a successful innovator, you will have learn to create change and to adapt with change. That is the point am trying to highlight.

Innovation demands change. The demand itself is the problem. And that problem, if solved, will lead to a better solution. An innovative solution. So you should not wait for circumstances to change. And then follow the wind and adapt with change. This is what you do to survive. not to innovate.

Innovators do it other way. They innovate and thus, cause change.

 

Fear of change

Life goes on. So lets move on. And talk about the most common yet least admitted fear – Kainotophobia - the fear of change.

We, the humans, have a high tendency to ignore change. Not only deny it, we resist it too. If we look around in nature, we find that animals are far more adaptive and flexible towards change. They always look ready to move to new pastures. Some migrate as if a routine. But we. We wait. for new grass to come up. We sometime wait so much that we sometimes even perish in wait. I really can’t figure out how we evolved as most deveoped species despite having these traits. May be these traits are recently acquired ones. Whatever!!

Crux is that most of us fear change. We are scared of getting out-dated. If not extinct. But I have seen more reasons. Some of us are just too lazy to change. No attitude. No will.  Worse, some are just too dumb to get it. But until forced, no one wants to change. This one point I want to highlight today. We really don’t change unless something forces it upon us – sometimes its professional. Sometimes its personal obligation. Seldom we change because we want to.

 

Perception is bigger than facts

Its not a fair world. And it turns out that its not logical too. Perception matters more. More than facts. Reason. Logic. And Rationale.

So what you does not matter as much as what I perceive that you do. Now what would you do? You can close yourself in your shell and keep doing what you feel like. Like hell you care. Good. Go ahead and do that. But what if I am a stakeholder in your work. Then you like it or not, you need to bother yourself with what I think about you and your work.

Dear friend, this is how this world goes. And if you don’t fix the perception, you go down the drain. The whole politics (Poly – tics ) thing runs on perception instead of facts. Who has time to find the facts. And if you have the facts, may be I am too busy to analyze them. May be I don’t have patience enough to verify them. May be I am full of mental filters. So I am going to jump on conclusion. And with my Ego at stake, I will choose my perception over your reasoning.

Now this is some thing you can not fix about this world. Only option you have is to make your make your way through it. So start caring about what people think about you. You can’t live in isolation. You will have to fall in line. Ah! your ego hurts doing it. How you will sleep now?

Look, you need to detach your ego from what you do. Be witness. You do it but don’t invest your emotions and feelings in it. Easier said than done. But then realize this. What is that you want? What are your priorities? OK if can’t keep your feelings away. Then you will have to make extra effort to reach to me and explain me your side of story. So the onus will now lie on you. You will have to go that extra mile. But if you want to do it your way and want others to understand it. You will have to make that extra effort. Without this you will not be satisfied. You can not be happy. Don’t you want others to appreciate your work? So either do it their way or be patient and make them understand.

 

Self Presentation

Very much a vague term. I kept wondering for quite some time when I first encountered it. What is means? Presentation to self? Presenting self to others? I guess most will go with the later one. And, off course, you knows English will say so to. But leave it to self-help gurus to coin these terms. How else they will run their shop?

Anyway. Let’s discuss it today. And see if it really makes any sense. To me both version makes sense. Presentation to self. As well as. Presenting yourself to others. But I feel a hint of Self-Representation too. See I can coin terms too. But we will discuss what really i had in my mind. And more than understanding what self-presentation means. I feel we should know the fundae. Then its just a matter of naming them. How does it matter?

Presentation to Self

Yet another double entendre. Is it like making a presentation to yourself while preparing for a presentation. Or is it how you are selling (presenting) some idea or something to yourself. Leave the literal meaning of words for now. Lets stick to fundae and theme. So how you sell something to yourself? You do sell. Don’t you. Our mind plays so many tricks on us. And this one I love the most. Even when we know the good and the bad. Yet our mind will trap us. Will make us biased toward one side of it. Ask alcoholics. Don’t they know the evil of drinking. Still their mind play the game and is able to sell them the idea of drinking. So its important to be self aware.

Presenting Self to others

Show Off? In a way. Yes. But its like how you carry yourself. Because that speaks volumes about your self confidence. That marks an impression on others. And if you are able to present yourself good, you will be able to present your ideas well too. Good presenters use it to empathize with the audience. And as we discussed yesterday about selling. We are always selling something. So it becomes more important how we present our self. Let’s discuss it more in coming days.

 

She sells Sea shells on the Sea Shore

Yeah. yeah. You can speak it. May be fast enough too. But that not am talking about exactly. You know whats the tricky part in this tongue-twister? Sells. Shells. Sells. Shells. So its about selling. There. You got me now. So tell me one thing. Was I able to sell it to you? Hell yes. You are still reading me.

So that’s the deal am talking about. It all about selling. Do YOU know how to sell? Shut up if you were about to say its MBA stuff. Because its not. And don’t tell me its not something techies need to worry about. Because you know it very well. You wouldn’t have forgotten your last appraisal so soon.

So dear. You need to know how to sell. If you don’t want to take bath, you still need to sell that idea to your mom, to you wife….whoever shouts at you more. So next point is, we already know how to sell. Only we are able to sells somethings better than other things. And why is that?

Think. Think.

That is because the things you sell better are the things you really wish to sell. Are the things that you believe in. You really really want them to. And also happen to know about them. Off course. And that is what that gives you the motivation and the energy to convince others. Unless you believe in it, how can you sell it to others? You can’t convince others juts like that. So if you want to sell something – you have to REALLY want to sell. Now hey, just your conviction in your idea won’t do. You need hard facts too. And a good story as well. And then how to weave the two together, will decide how good you sell it.

 

Kung Fu Panda – the secret ingredient

The secret ingredient is nothing. You just need to believe in yourself. The same old story. Beaten to death. If you believe in yourself, YOU can do it. OK. So you can do IT? What is that you can do?

If you start believing in yourself, you still can not be Superman. You still won’t be able to fly. Then, what is IT that you can do? That’s where you need to understand what self belief is. Self Belief is about knowing your skills and capabilities. And having the confidence that you can deliver.

Self confidence is not self belief. Self confidence comes for what you have achieved. Your past success give you confidence of repeating it. That confidence on your abilities is self confidence. But self belief is a step further. It helps you achieve what you haven’t achieved so far. It helps you raise the bar. It makes you do what you haven’t done before.