A LinkedIn interaction from some time back still sticks with me today. Why? He and I connected, then he immediately asked to review my personal finances so he could do for me what he had allegedly done for so many other “thrilled customers.” I told him “No thanks.” He replied back asking me why. Being the direct guy I am, I told him I thought it was insincere to connect with me and immediately want to review my personal finances and try to sell me on his service. He said he never asked me to send my personal finances through LinkedIn. At this point, the discussion was no longer about him trying to sell me a service; instead, I wanted to provide a teachable moment for him. I told him that sending personal finances through LinkedIn wasn’t the issue, but I didn’t want to divulge my personal finances to someone I didn’t even know who connected with me only 30 minutes ago. After another couple of interactions, he told me that “nice people” would agree to meet with him (I guess I’m not a nice person) and that he was rescinding his offer to meet (even though I already told him I didn’t want to meet with him). It was kind of like “you can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you first”. He then wished me the best. He made an impression on me for sure, just not one he wanted.

In a recent phone call I told the CEO of my insurance brokerage that after being a loyal customer for 15 years I had moved all my business to other providers. Given our long-standing relationship, I felt I owed him an explanation; not because I wanted to see someone fired, but because I wanted him to know my reasons for leaving so he could put any lessons learned to use.

It started about seven years ago when the person assigned to my business insurance seemed to lose interest in me. He wasn’t on top of my renewals, made me do work that he could have done for me, and didn’t competitively bid my insurance. I moved all of my business insurance to another agency. A similar issue happened in the past year with my personal insurance; I simply didn’t feel that I was important to my agent. The final nail in the coffin came when my bank notified me that my homeowners’ insurance had lapsed two months earlier without any notification from my insurance agent. I then reached out to another agency, who quickly bound coverage for me at 10 p.m. on a Saturday evening.

Excerpted from The Truth about Getting Your Point Across…and Nothing But the Truth

Within a few months of my open door policy, I saw my own productivity drop and my frustration level rise because I kept getting interrupted by people taking me up on my open-door policy.  My open-door policy soon turned into a series of random interruptions that caused me to not get my stuff done.  I came to recognize that I needed to be accessible to people but that I could control the accessibility through scheduled time.  Open-door means be accessible, not come in whenever you want.

Excerpted from The Truth about Getting Your Point Across…and Nothing But the Truth 

So let's cut to the chase...

You may be a great consultant, one who effectively applies his or her wisdom and experience to help his or her client solve some tough business problem.   That's all fine and well.  When it comes to facilitation, though, it's a different ballgame and a very different approach to problem solving.  I like to think of the difference as follows:

Jane was a group manager over a team of six buyers for a large department store chain.  Her team specialized in buying house-wares, including linens, sheets, towels and small appliances.  Her team met every week to discuss advertised specials for upcoming weeks and any supplier issues that the team needed to be aware of.  There was one linens supplier, Patty’s Linens, that has had some difficulty with product quality and the department store was experiencing higher-than-normal returns on the product.  Two weeks earlier, the supplier submitted a plan for how they were going to improve the quality of their product.  The department store decided to keep the supplier on for three more months to evaluate their plan and give the supplier an opportunity to resolve the quality issues.  With this as backdrop, we eavesdrop on Jane’s current team meeting:

Excerpted from The Truth about Getting Your Point Across…and Nothing But the Truth

Unless you excused yourself for whatever reason you were there for at least fifteen minutes listening to his philosophy.  The problem was that Moe was friends with the person managing our contract so we had to put up with him. 

So everything isn't always peachy keen when it comes to working together.  At times co-workers are going to get in each others'  face and have some conflict.  As a bystander, there's some things you can do and not do to help put out the co-worker fire:

• Let them know how their conflict is affecting the rest of the team - Many times team members in conflict are only concerned about their own situation and don't see how the conflict impacts others. Truth is, when doing a team meeting with two ice-cold colleagues in the room with the pressure so thick it can be cut with a knife, the entire team is impacted. If the conflicting colleagues know the impact they are having on others they may be more likely to extend olive branches to each other.

Some time back I spent about three hours writing and doing emails at one of our local malls.  I love this place because there are lots of tables to sit at and the mall has free wireless access so I can be online all the time.  As I was exiting the mall I noticed a woman about 20 feet away from the entrance heading into the mall.  As I walked out the door I held the door open for this woman for a few seconds.  As she walked by me into the mall she said "WOW!"  She was surprised that I actually took three seconds out of my life to hold a door open for a complete stranger.  Imagine what I could have done with those three seconds that I wasted :-).