by Ken Vincent, Featured Contributor
Some years ago the company I worked for sent all the management personnel for three days of psychological analysis.
The first day of my session a young analyst presented me with a glass half full of water. She asked me whether the glass was half full or half empty. I said no.
After a long look she asked how I could say that when clearly 50% of the glass had water in it.
My answer was that I didn’t know for a fact that the water was 50% of the volume of the glass, but in any case the glass was full. It was half full of water and half full of air. She left and was replaced by what was evidently a more senior analyst. After the first question they didn’t know whether I was an optimist or a pessimist, but I was clearly deemed to be a problem.
From childhood through formal education we are programed to focus on the obvious. That follows us into the job world. Our training and orientation courses are designed to get the trainees to focus on the material presented, or the obvious. We treat out customers the same way.
How can we get 100% from out employees when we are teaching them only the 50% that is readily seen? How can we understand a customers needs and desires when we are focusing only on the obvious?
True, we can’t see the air in the glass, but we know it is there. We can’t see the interests and motivations of a guest or an employee unless we accept that they are there and make an effort to get past the obvious.
Your competitors are dealing with the obvious. Shouldn’t you be trying to go beyond that? How do you do that? How do you get to the ½ that is unseen? What methods do you use to find the hidden part of your employees or the unspoken desires of your customers?
