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"After several sessions of this course, I realized all too well where I
had made my mistakes. I called another meeting and this time I
asked where they felt their problems were. We discussed each point,
and I asked them their opinions on which was the best way to
proceed. With a few low-keyed suggestions, at proper intervals, I let
them develop my system themselves. At the end of the meeting
when I actually presented my system, they enthusiastically accepted
it.
"I am convinced now that nothing good is accomplished and a lot of
damage can be done if you tell a person straight out that he or she is
wrong. You only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and
making yourself an unwelcome part of any discussion."
Let's take another example - and remember these cases I am citing
are typical of the experiences of thousands of other people. R. V.
Crowley was a salesman for a lumber company in New York. Crowley
admitted that he had been telling hard-boiled lumber inspectors for
years that they were wrong. And he had won the arguments too. But
it hadn't done any good. "For these lumber inspectors," said Mr.
Crowley, "are like baseball umpires. Once they make a decision, they
never change it,"
Mr. Crowley saw that his firm was losing thousands of dollars
through the arguments he won. So while taking my course, he
resolved to change tactics and abandon arguments. With what
results? Here is the story as he told it to the fellow members of his
class:
"One morning the phone rang in my office. A hot and bothered
person at the other end proceeded to inform me that a car of lumber
we had shipped into his plant was entirely unsatisfactory. His firm
had stopped unloading and requested that we make immediate
arrangements to remove the stock from their yard. After about onefourth of the car had been unloaded, their lumber inspector reported
that the lumber was running 55 percent below grade. Under the
circumstances, they refused to accept it.
"I immediately started for his plant and on the way turned over in
my mind the best way to handle the situation. Ordinarily, under such
circumstances, I should have quoted grading rules and tried, as a
result of my own experience and knowledge as a lumber inspector,
to convince the other inspector that the lumber was actually up to
grade, and that he was misinterpreting the rules in his inspection.
However, I thought I would apply the principles learned in this
training.
"When I arrived at the plant, I found the purchasing agent and the
lumber inspector in a wicked humor, both set for an argument and a
fight. We walked out to the car that was being unloaded, and I
requested that they continue to unload so that I could see how
things were going. I asked the inspector to go right ahead and lay
out the rejects, as he had been doing, and to put the good pieces in
another pile.
"After watching him for a while it began to dawn on me that his
inspection actually was much too strict and that he was
misinterpreting the rules. This particular lumber was white pine, and
I knew the inspector was
thoroughly schooled in hard woods but not a competent,
experienced inspector on white pine. White pine happened to be my
own strong suit, but did I offer any objection to the way he was
grading the lumber? None whatever. I kept on watching and
gradually began to ask questions as to why certain pieces were not
satisfactory. I didn't for one instant insinuate that the inspector was
wrong. I emphasized that my only reason for asking was in order
that we could give his firm exactly what they wanted in future
shipments. wanted in future shipments.
"By asking questions in a very friendly, cooperative spirit, and
insisting continually that they were right in laying out boards not
satisfactory to their purpose, I got him warmed up, and the strained
relations between us began to thaw and melt away. An occasional
carefully put remark on my part gave birth to the idea in his mind
that possibly some of these rejected pieces were actually within the
grade that they had bought, and that their requirements demanded
a more expensive grade. I was very careful, however, not to let him
think I was making an issue of this point.
"Gradually his whole attitude changed. He finally admitted to me that
he was not experienced on white pine and began to ask me
questions about each piece as it came out of the car, I would explain
why such a piece came within the grade specified, but kept on
insisting that we did not want him to take it if it was unsuitable for
their purpose. He finally got to the point where he felt guilty every
time he put a piece in the rejected pile. And at last he saw that the
mistake was on their part for not having specified as good a grade as they needed. |