On Exhibition

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Hello, and welcome to this months Thoughts on Leadership’

At some stage in our lives we all attend tradeshows/exhibition.  When you enter them you can see that people have gone to a great deal of effort to put on a great show.  After all, it is an exhibition; it’s an exhibition of us, come look at us; look at the best of what we can be.  There is a tremendous amount of money and effort that gets put into all of this, for a two/three/four day show, and in reality, we are on show/exhibition every day

Our organisations/companies are being exhibited to our clients, either positively or negatively, everyday.  Whilst, there is a lot of effort going into these two/three/four day events, what is happening every day?   Is there the same amount of money, time or energy being put into how we are exhibiting ourselves on a daily basis.  Do we consider how our people are exhibiting themselves in the way they behave?

When you go to an exhibition, people dress well, people look good, people smile, people – if you’ve ever been to one you all know what I mean – you end up the day with your cheeks been sore because you smiled so much.  Yet we can go into an organisation and people are sat there, looking miserable, it’s hard work to speak to you whereas at the show, it’s out there doing it.

So the question I want to ask you this month is:

Are you thinking about exhibitions as just tradeshows and events, or do you see exhibitions as what we do all day, every day as an organisation?  If you are thinking that way, then what are you doing about getting your people to think like that?  To get into their mind, this is an exhibition, we are on show.  Everything we do is about exhibiting our brand, our products, our philosophy, whatever it is that our business is about.

I want you to really think about; how does your customer see you?  How does your customer see you day-by-day when they visit you?  Not just the times that they visit you on a tradeshow or when they see you first, because it’s being many times I’ve gone to a tradeshow stand and been really impressed and then called the person afterwards and found the real company — the company that doesn’t answer their phone, the company that doesn’t respond very well.  The company where the people don’t smile, they don’t reply, they don’t follow-up.  If you think about it, when you spend all that money on an exhibition, the important part is then following up, if you want to get a return on that money.  It is not just taking all those cards, putting them all in a file and doing nothing with them, you have to do the follow up, you have to follow through and part of that follow through is what you are doing day-by-day in your organisation.

So my question this month:  Is exhibition what you do purely at a tradeshow, or is exhibition what you do every day in your organisation, and if so are your people understanding that?  Are your people rising to that occasion?  In other words, do they appreciate that it’s about the show; it’s about an exhibition every day.

I hope that’s been helpful to you.

I look forward to see you again next month!

Bye for now!

Paul

Dealing with Difficult People

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The other day, I got asked an interesting question: “how do you deal with people who are basically stupid?  It’s just difficult, they are just being obnoxious with you and they are being troublesome.”

I got to thinking about that.  Well, how do you deal with somebody like that?  I actually think the biggest thing is, keep your cool.

The mindset you have is going to dominate the situation, not them.  The moment they dominate the situation and your mindset, then you have got a problem.

So, here’s my suggestion, first of all, you have to come from a premise that everybody means well.  Maybe not the way I approach things, maybe not the way you approach things but it’s the way they have approached it and there is some reason for that behaviour.  If you can understand what that behaviour problem is or whatever, then you can deal with it.

So, if the person’s intention is good, but they are just handling it wrong, then the questions are going to get a lot easier.  It’s right, okay, what was driving this?  How do you now respond to it?  Is there something else that is really the issue?  Can we get around it?  Have you got all of the facts?

This person knows something that you don’t know, often I find that people who know something that you do not know or, they think you do not know and that’s why they are so desperate to make their point to you.

So, they make their point, you listen, ask the right questions and then you are left with a situation.  Is this what I have to deal with?  Can I just politely say “thank you” and move on?  Or are they part of the decision-making process in which case I have to win them over?  If they are not part of the decision making process, do not get bogged down, just move on.  Say, “thank you very much” then get out of the way from it.

But if they are part of the decision-making process, well then you have to take it to the next level.  Start looking at what you can do to get them to see it differently and start asking them questions to make them think a little bit differently about the situation.

The questions I am going to ask you this month:

What is it that you can do yourself when dealing with this situation that stops you getting angry, getting annoyed, getting worked up and giving them the ownership for the situation, because they have basically compressed your mind with the way that they behave?

What can you do about it?  I used to do exercises; I used to start taking deep breaths, or just go off and do something else just to get away from it for a while.  Whatever it takes, have you got a strategy?  What is your strategy?  And then practice it if it’s not quite the right strategy; tweak it, until you find the right one.

We are always going to have these problems; the making of us is how we deal with them.

I hope this has been helpful.

See you next month!

Bye now

Paul

Learning and Teaching

My apologises for the previous update to Thoughts on Leadership.  For some reason we posted up last months information.  Also remember our new site Bridle Infocus

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Get TOL in three ways; reading, watching or listening. The video and the audio versions are available as a free download either directly or via our podcast. You will find the RSS feeds at either: http://thoughtsonleadership.biz/video for the video version or http://thoughtsonleadership.biz/audio for the audio version.

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Paul