Recently, I have been working on projects where we keep running into roadblocks. I often find myself thinking about a book I read almost 30 years ago. The author of the book was Stewart Emory and the name of the book is Actualization’s you don’t have to Rehearse to be Yourself.
In this book Stewart has come up with six ways that people used to keep from losing the game. The list is as follows:
- don’t play
- keep others from winning
- don’t complete anything
- destroy the game
- play the nice guy routine
- become a problem
I find that everybody has a favorite strategy they use. This is especially true when we feel that we are out of control or we’re about to have an outcome that we don’t see as being positive. If we learn how to recognize the patterns in ourselves and others that we work with we can take appropriate actions that will keep our projects on track.
For example, if we know our favorite strategy is to keep others from winning we need to let others know in our organization that this is our favorite strategy. This way others in the organization can recognize when the pattern starts and then take appropriate action to keep the negative strategies from moving our projects off-track.
This is also true when we are working with clients or ourselves. Having an understanding of the strategy our clients like to use when they are under stress or are feeling things aren’t going very well is important because it helps us know when we’re pushing too hard or we are moving into a zone that is not comfortable for our clients.
Often our Clients see that our pushing or prodding is going to force them to lose. None of us like to lose. And, if we believe we are going to lose we often will choose one of the six strategies listed above. When one of our Clients adopts one of these strategies, it can often mean we are starting to walk on very thin ice.
It’s important for us to understand that we and our Clients don’t like to move out of our comfort zone. We might see this as being a threat. Threats often translate into no action or negative actions. When we see any of the six strategies coming into play, we know that it’s time to slow down and re-think how we’re working with our Clients. This will help us make sure our actions stay within a zone that will allow our Clients to keep moving forward. Sometimes it’s better to take small steps and spend more time than to just go for the major change out of the box.
It’s the small changes over time that are the lasting ones. The vast majority of our Clients don’t and won’t make major changes. They will make small changes and over time, those changes do add up. It’s also one of the reasons that I think it’s important we’re talking with our Clients about multi year engagements. We might know what has to be done to get a result in one year, but most of the time our Clients are not willing to go along with the speed necessary to make the changes we’re suggesting. Understanding the signs of people believing their are about to lose is important in that it tells us when to slow down.
Although this book is 30 years old it still is as fresh today as when it was first written. I highly recommend you pick up a copy and browse through at least the section on strategies for use to keep from losing the game.
Josh Patrick
Filed under: Ethics, Financial Planning, For Business Advisors, Marketing, Wealth Management | Tagged: Client motivation, Coaching, EST, Stewart Emory, strategic planning
