Seeking Validation
Sticking with last week’s theme (see: Gold Elite Status), here’s a conversation I recently overheard while checking out from a hotel:
Hotel manager: “I need you to start cleaning rooms much earlier. Something like 8 or 9 am.”
Housekeeping manager: “But remember how we talked about that? People don’t like it when they’re sleeping and there’s a lot of loud noise right outside their door.”
Hotel manager: “I don’t care. Just get it done.”
Whether you are a CEO dealing with the stockholders, a working professional dealing with a boss, a small business owner dealing with a client, a student dealing with a professor, or a child dealing with a parent, we all answer to someone.
The big question is, how do you navigate between what you feel is best and what someone wants you to do instead?
We must begin here: What you want and what they want are two different things. What you know and what they know are similarly different. In the words of Seth Godin, “If you knew what they knew and you wanted what they wanted you would do the exact same thing.” Here we must exercise our perspective-taking skill. Put yourself into their shoes to understand what they might know and what they might want. Then you’ll see why they have chosen that particular course of action.
It is only from a place of understanding that disagreements can move forward productively. Whether you agree with them or not is largely irrelevant. Connection is not about agreement. It’s about understanding.
Case Study
What does the hotel manager know? He knows that if the rooms aren’t cleaned by a certain time, he can’t get new guests in as early, which sets off a chain reaction for the rest of the day. If he falls behind, his boss will come down and yell at him, or worse, deny him a promotion, bonus, or gold star.
What does he want? He wants to meet and exceed standards so his boss will not only not yell at him, but possibly congratulate him on a job well done.
So, why does he want to start cleaning the rooms at 8am? It’s probably not because he’s a monster who takes pleasure in disrupting sleeping guests. He wants validation and recognition for his work.
Which, incidentally, is what the Housekeeping Manager wants. Except he wants it from the front desk manager, who will thank him for keeping guests happy, which reflects in their feedback and surveys, garnering THEM validation from the very Hotel Manager who wants the rooms cleaned at the crack of dawn.
Your Turn
There’s no denying that these are tricky situations. Instead of doing what I usually do and providing my suggestion for how the Housekeeping Manager could have responded differently, by employing perspective-taking, empathy, and a bit of conversational magic, I want to hear from you.
CONTEST: Instead of “But remember how we talked about that? People don’t like it when they’re sleeping and there’s a lot of loud noise right outside their door,” how could he have responded to his boss in order to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome?
RULES: Comment below or respond via email to threenewpeople@gmail.com with the subject line “Let me sleep!”
PRIZE: I’ll share the best responses in a bonus blog with next week’s email, and send a free signed copy of Three New People to whoever comes up with my personal favorite. To qualify you must abide by the rules listed above and be a subscriber to my weekly blog's email list. Sign up here if you're not.
