This is an off shoot of my normal topic "Coaching" but I just had to write about this. I was staying at the Hyatt in Chicago with my family and WOW do they deliver first class customer service. I was behind a lady who was just drilling a young lady behind the desk working for the Hyatt for a situation where it was no longer possible to even change. The young lady handled it great! Why was I in line? Well I put a soda in the refrigerator in the room and did not see the sign that said "Don't' put your own soda in this unit or you will be charged ". As I proceeded to take the soda out I knocked over every item in the unit and these units now have sensors that track if things are taken. So guess what due to my poor awareness (I have a.d.d) I now had charges for probably about 8 items I did not even drink. My wife said "now we are going to get charged for all this you knocked over" and I replied "I’ll bet you we won't get charged a dime" I went downstairs and waited in line. I noticed this customer really berating this poor lady as I stated earlier so I got in that line. Why? It’s easy! See, people want to get angry and when we get someone who is really nice "sadly" we stand out. As I approached this young lady I could see she was not up for another customer battle so I started with "Guess what I am wrong and suffer from a.d.d" She smiled and laughed out loud. I told her what I did and said I respect whatever decision you make. She took the charges off immediately. She smiled and sincerely thanked me for how nice I was ... translation most people are not. I do not have the corner on the market of being nice but our actions create reactions in people. So how does this translate to coaching? Think of the following situation:

Case Study # 1: Manager tells an employee what they did was wrong and not the way they would handle it.

Case Study # 2: Managers tells an employee they appreciate their effort in attempting to handle the situation and asks what they do differently next time to create a more successful outcome.

Case study # 2 has a manager being nice and using language that is more upbeat and forward thinking and will prompt the employee to be more comfortable in their pursuit of creating better performance.

We are all Pavlov's dogs because when something happens we all have conditioned responses. When something goes wrong we want to correct it or even get angry. When we do with other people how do they react? Happy? Wrong, it creates a negative reaction in them as well. I knew going downstairs if I was respectful and polite I had a better chance than complaining that the sign on the refrigerator was too small meaning I would have already been transferring ownership of my mistake to the Hyatt when the sign was very clear.

Let me give you another example. I coach youth sports. The guy I coach with always laughs because before every game I joke with the refs. Why? Because normally the only time they hear coaches is when we are complaining about their officiating. We never do that and its funny parents come up and always ask what are you guys talking to the refs about? Do you get it? The refs talk to us while they ignore other coaches who just yell and complain. We have had refs come up to us and say how much they like officiating our games. Why? Because we're nice!

When you coach and engage with other people make a REALLY deliberate attempt to be nice even when things don't go as well as you would like and watch one of Pavlov's dogs react with a smile!

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