Oh, don't say that...

Words, conversational styles and mannerisms are important. There are people we look forward to talking with and people we don't look forward to talking with. And sometimes to differences are so minor, it's funny - e.g. do you cross the street to get away from me, or call just to hear my voice?

In a Difficult Economic Time Such As This, the importance of good interpersonal skills is even more pronounced than usual. Although, really, isn't it nearly always better to be a person others enjoy being around?

Here, from the recent past, are some special moments from my friends and associates with people we don't look forward to talking with:

One:


Prospect (asks the consultant a technical question)...

Consultant (answering question as simply and briefly as she suspects she really must in this case)

Prospect, no longer able to bear the sound of consultant's voice, or said consultant's response, or maybe suddenly needing very much to go to the restroom... impatiently says, "ANYWAY..."

Ouch.

Two:


We're finalizing a sale, making (maybe not brilliant) points, but points nonetheless.

Prospect: "Okay. Shut up. You've made the sale."

Us: "Oh. Thanks. Gosh."

Three:

Visitor using most sympathetic voice: "I remember when you were younger and had cute little kids at home. NOW what do you do with yourself? Do you ever have any fun?"

Host: "Uh..." (thinking furiously, quite sure he does have fun but suddenly unable to retrieve the Fun File) "Um, sure, I guess!"

Urk.

More don'ts:

-Reminding people they've gained weight or look REALLY tired. Or just looking at them with a strange facial expression that says something like, "I forgot about the way your hair always looks so... you know..."

-Telling people who've had a tragedy that - hey! - you just heard about SOMEONE ELSE who had a tragedy!

-Moping about the economy and making sotto voice helpful comments like, "is it REALLY AWFUL at your company, too?" Try a more subtle line of conversation.

We can talk about the DOs, too, but I bet we're not done with the DON'Ts. Are we??

By the way, you look great! Have you lost weight, or fallen in love?

Learning through talking? Well, this is special.

[caption id="attachment_438" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Your message? Your message, please??"][/caption]

Ever find yourself in a situation where others are listening to what you have to say, giving it credence? Yikes. It's probably even strange for President Obama, and it is certainly strange for me. When I was a little girl, a teenager and an adult, it occurred to me more than once that LISTENING could be a valuable way to learn from others, and so I did, sometimes, figuratively tape my mouth shut and accept input. It sounded something like this: "MMMMMmmmmMMMMM." Listening can be difficult, at least for me.

Now, I can be surprised when what I have to say is regarded as valuable. Wow!! Recently, I began accepting and then seeking speaking engagements. My initial topic promised to be a difficult one - how I successfully navigated this business through the death of its other dynamic partner. Somehow, after a few runs though, I learned to integrate the natural humor in the story (yes, even here there is very funny stuff) and make the speech useful and relatively pain-free for my audience.

Then a surprising thing happened. I found I was learning from these talks. I realized that I had taken the business past the catastrophe but that my work isn't nearly done. A changing business climate awaits and I need to look at how we best come face-to-face with a new world and solve marketing problems. (More on this later, when we have something worthwhile fun to say!)

Another surprising thing happened, when I channeled my odd sense of learning through talking into my consulting work with clients. I began to listen closely to my answers and to challenge them. I started to realize I had new ideas for their work and mine.

Note to self! This has turned out to be a lot of work! I'm no longer nearly satisfied with what I already know. I don't feel like I can skim over difficult questions that may require physics (oooh), learning about new technologies that involve words like "Jaccard coefficient" or involving myself in the types of financial analysis that allow a business to grow and a business owner to take to her bed in a fake swoon, wishing she HAD finished started that MBA.

So, surprise to all you old friends who wished I would JUST SHUSH! Talking has been good for me. Listening is nice, too, especially since I've developed a wicked sore throat.

(Okay, I'm ready to listen again, please get the duct tape...) I'm curious - what's made you learn something when you were not expecting to learn, maybe expecting to teach? And how do you most enjoy learning?

Distraction

I'm not sure if this happens in other fields - I'm guessing it does - but I find that an awful lot of what goes on in the world reminds me of the primacy of communication. Then, when I think about communication, I think about the importance of being logical. Which leads me to the enormous hoopla about executive bonuses, namely, those unfortunately paid by AIG to its people.

It would be easy, speaking of logic, to feel a need to comprehend why AIG sallied forth with a plan that (in retrospect) looks a lot like a greedy company hurling toxic waste at already angry taxpayers. But let's not look back. This is now, and AIG brass have in their fists very nice bonus checks (which some may be loath to return because - of course - they've already committed them to a new vacation home or liposuction for the whole extended family). American taxpayers are madder than wet hens as they gaze at their household bills, their unemployment checks, oh, and let's not forget their 401 (k) statements, now printed on post-it notes due to the reduced number of digits in the account balances.

It's the present that worries me. The new U.S. administration has a lot to do. Most likely (!) we should REALLY tighten up our bonus rules for companies taking tax dollars from annoyed citizens. But we should admit (if sourly) that the estimated $218 million (gulp!) in AIG bonuses is a trifle in comparison to the $XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX* in total loans, bailouts, offerings to the gods and whatever else we're throwing in the fires of the Great Recession. *(I'm looking for a total dollar figure but there are so many choices I'm getting terribly confused). And because we are v-e-r-y busy with important matters, surely we shouldn't act draconian and transparently political and impose a retroactive 90% tax on this AIG bonus money. Pul-eazze. What if these were working class people? Or union members? Who the heck gets taxed 90% on ANY form of income? Sure, we must address the gaping holes we find in our new recession-fighting programs, and there will be plenty of those. I'm saying that this done-deal-already-contracted-already-paid AIG bonus is a foolish distraction at best and a damaging misuse of our government's, news media's and public's valuable focus at worst.

I like the idea of highly bonused AIG executives graciously returning the money. But whether that happens or not, let's move forward with the business at hand. Let's not spend too much energy and time chasing a couple of hundred million dollars that, even though it sounds like a lot, in the end will mean Very Little in the face of the Very Much we need to fix.

How a workaholic handles a holiday week when everyone else is out playing.

In short? Gracelessly. Let me tell you about my experience just two short weeks ago, while so many happy parents and kids were enjoying a February vacation romp.

(Not that I'd know anything about being a workaholic. Surely not.)

But WHAT IF I were a workaholic, sitting at my desk that vacation week, and had sent out, oh say 137 emails regarding upcoming projects, and NO ONE ANSWERED?

What if it were only Monday and I had checked off everything on my digital To Do list for the whole week because I hadn't had any pesky interruptions?

I began thinking, "I know it's school break week, and it's all about the kids and Florida and the Caribbean and skiing. And Disney World. But gosh, didn't anyone bring their Blackberries?"

[caption id="attachment_405" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Can you find the business tools in this photo?"][/caption]

But now I see the world differently. Next week, I myself am taking a break and checking out the beaches of warmer climates. I'm going to try something new. Even though I'll  have my laptop, and my cell, I'm going to act (at least some of the time) like I don't. Ah.

It may take a day or more for me to get back to you. Well, unless you say it's urgent.

Necessity

[caption id="attachment_396" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="You're prepared for all contingencies... right?"][/caption]

A saying from a friend: "The best boat pump in the world is a sailor with a bucket... in a very leaky boat."

So true. In the last recession, spanning the years 2000-2001, our company started out with several sales professionals. We ended the recession with just one... that ONE was me. I believe I represented the sailor with a bucket. Who more than the owner of my small company, after all, knew how much bailing how many sales were required? This time around, the entire van Schouwen Associates staff is truly engaged and actively involved in seeking and leveraging all opportunities. In other words, we have more sailors with buckets now. This is better.

Of course, I keep making the mistake of looking at the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is one global representation of the water level in our collective economic boat. The DJIA is currently under 7,000, pretty dismal, eh? I hope by the time I hit the "publish" button for this blog entry, it has gone back up. (Really, aren't we running out of patience for this?)

You know best what bailing your own boat means to you. Perhaps, literally, it means your job isn't what it used to be and you need to... sorry... BAIL and get a new one. (Okay, I won't play with the word "bail" anymore, really. Don't go. I'll say "necessity" instead.)

For our company, necessity means we continually strengthen our prospecting and outreach efforts - something I think we're good at anyway - because we need to keep the phone ringing. To accomplish this, we're working our butts off. Not to put too fine a point on it.

Impersonal? Are you kidding?

A glance through my last couple of weeks' email dispels - at least for me - the widely held concept that email has depersonalized communication, harshened our tone, and further isolated us from one another. Oh, sure, "you've got mail" on your screen is not the same as a perfumed note with dried violets inside (but how often did you ever get such a thing even in the "good old days" of snail mail?)

In my email, here are just a few happy examples received in just in the last few weeks:

From one high school friend to another, copied to a whole group of us scattered around the world, solace upon his losing a much-loved job (this was accompanied by an excellent essay on why and how he should consider self-employment):
To quote David Brown, "the rest of your life is the best of your life".

A coworker from 25 years ago connected with me through email and shared these thoughts on children - his range from adults to a toddler, so he certainly knows:
When you have kids you get to watch how nature and nurture interact to make a whole person with his or her own quirks, strengths, weaknesses and, of course, with everything that makes us all human together.

And from a member of my book group, a heartfelt sentiment about middle age:
I can't remember s**t these days.

I hear from someone in my family, or an old and new friend, nearly every day in part because no one needs a stamp to get in touch. And because email is easy and quick. That's fine. Their emails feel to me as personal and wonderful as any note or card in the mailbox, plus simpler for the sender to accomplish than a phone call when time is short or schedules are odd. Email me anytime.

Cataclysms, unexpected turns and renewal

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Were you looking for logic per se?

Here's guessing: 2009 will be a year during which more people than average experience life upheavals. With hundreds of thousands of layoffs, companies closing and money shrinking, it seems obvious that security elements of our lives are getting trampled. In a new book, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas by Matt Miller (jokingly characterized in one review as "Commie Pinko Socialism") Miller proposes that we can't expect what we've come to expect (health care from our employer, cradle-to-grave work from same said employer, etc.) and proposes new solutions. Government solutions, largely.

That's one look at cataclysm, unexpected turns and renewal. Some of the change I expect to see, in myself and others, will be from within. Frankly, I've had a window-view of big change as of late - I lost a husband - a good one! - to heart disease suddenly in 2006, and my two young sons have done what young sons often do - they went off to college and life, calling and emailing me remarkably often but nonetheless no longer daily eating my hotdog casserole (recipe not necessary) or savoring my daily advice on Girls, Grades and Grammar. That was big change in my book, and I'm slowly following it with big renewal - closer ties with old and new friends, new love, a new blog (this one! this one!) new speaking engagements, and an updated love affair with boats. Plus, less visibly, a new viewpoint. A few examples: I can now imagine being released from a job (although since I'm self employed I can always have a job, just maybe no pay). Or ending a relationship (personal or business) that makes one feel uninspired or less than worthy. Or perhaps exchanging a spacious home and an hour-long commute for an apartment in town from which one can walk, or bike, to the office. These days I can imagine not only the fear, but also the eventual liberation that a once-unwanted change could bring. Fear and uncertainty aside, I finally see that big change can mean new opportunity - the cliche "when one door closes one door opens" is sometimes true.