Increase Your Credibility By Paying Attention

• 00:04 So I always start by chronicling a person's strengths in the category
• 00:09 that we're dealing with.
• 00:10 Now, you may be managing someone who
• 00:14 has problems talking to customers over the phone.
• 00:18 And you may want to talk about all the good things they do when they're talking
• 00:22 one on one to customers who come to your store, come to your office.
• 00:26 Or all the things they do well speaking to fellow employees or colleagues.
• 00:31 Talk about their strengths as communicators before you go right to that
• 00:36 criticism of, my God, you're so rude, obnoxious, and
• 00:39 you're cursing at the clients on the phone and hanging up on them.
• 00:44 That's crazy, you're going to be fired.
• 00:46 You can't just go to the negatives.
• 00:49 So start by chronicling the positives.
• 00:52 In the case of my colleague with the public speaking issues,
• 00:57 I may spend ten minutes just going through everything they do well.
• 01:03 Now, this is important for several reasons.
• 01:06 Number one, it relaxes them.
• 01:08 It's always more relaxing to hear people tell you what you do well.
• 01:14 And it's legitimate, and it's meaningful.
• 01:16 It can't be you telling me, TJ, you have the prettiest, thick,
• 01:20 dark curly hair I've ever seen.
• 01:21 It can't be something that seems like total BS.
• 01:24 It always has to be rooted in reality and you have to be sincere.
• 01:29 I don't give praise to anyone, unless I legitimately mean it.
• 01:34 But also remember, the bar can't be low.
• 01:38 If I'm giving somebody credit for speaking with a good volume,
• 01:42 that's not that hard, because most people have okay volume when they're speaking.
• 01:48 It's the bottom 20% or so who lower their voice and they sound scared and timid.
• 01:55 And not everyone rocks in a way that makes them look nervous.
• 01:59 But for someone who doesn't rock, I'm happy to give them praise for
• 02:04 not committing other common blunders.
• 02:07 So the first beauty of starting off with something
• 02:12 positive is that you relax the person, number one.
• 02:16 Number two, your credibility goes sky high,
• 02:20 because they can tell you're really paying attention to them.
• 02:25 And you must be brilliant, because you're telling them things that are specific,
• 02:31 seem real that other people hadn't mentioned.
• 02:34 So when I praised this speaker who says all the uhs and
• 02:38 ums, I'm being legitimate, I'm being honest.
• 02:42 And I'm probably telling them 20 things they're doing well.
• 02:45 Maybe ten of them are things they've never thought about before and
• 02:50 no one else has ever praised them on that.
• 02:53 So they now think I'm a genius.
• 02:55 They think I'm a nice guy, and I'm a genius for
• 02:58 telling them all the specific things that they do well.
• 03:02 So my credibility is very, very high.
• 03:05 And that's why I urge you, it's the first important step,
• 03:09 is you've gotta look at the general nature of the issues involved.
• 03:14 In my case, if somebody says ums, it's how they speak and communicate.
• 03:18 In your case, it may be how does an employee treat other employees?
• 03:23 Or how does this person deal with clients over the phone?
• 03:28 You've gotta pick the subject matter.
• 03:30 But then you've really got to do an exhaustive analysis
• 03:35 of what this person is doing well, and lay it out.
• 03:39 It's critically important, relaxes them,
• 03:42 makes them receptive to the criticism that comes.
• 03:46 Makes them feel comfortable with you, and
• 03:49 it makes them feel like you aren't legitimate.
• 03:53 You legitimize your expertise if you're spotlighting what they are doing well,
• 03:58 because then if you have criticisms later, it just seems a lot more legitimate.
• 04:03 So that's the first step, and that's against our nature.
• 04:07 The easiest thing to do especially if your boss says, hey, Smithers, don't do that.
• 04:11 Sally, you're a pig there, clean up that mess.
• 04:13 Hey, dude.
• 04:14 The easy thing to do is to just go right to the criticism,
• 04:18 but it's not really the most effective.
• 04:21 I'm not asking you to lie.
• 04:23 I'm not asking you to make up stuff.
• 04:25 I am asking you to take the extra step, really analyzing every
• 04:29 single thing this person does in this niche, and writing down or
• 04:35 at least thinking about what it is they do well so you can tell them.
• 04:40 So that's your first step.
• 04:41 I need you to think of some employee you have to criticize, you have to manage, and
• 04:46 I need you to come up with a comprehensive list of everything they do well.
• 04:51 Do that now.

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