Platinum is everyone’s best friend

EntreGurus-Book-The Art of People-Dave KerpenTODAY’S IDEA:

 “The Platinum Rule always trumps the Golden Rule.”
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen

We all grew up being taught the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” However, it’s very likely that at some point you did something that you thought was genuinely good and it turned out to be a mess. Yikes! Welcome to the world and to the human race. What about when someone did something that they thought was great and you were not so pleased? Ugh.

What’s the lesson here? Empathy. Dave Kerpen hits the nail in the head: “Everyone is different, and the truth is that in many cases what you’d want done to you is different from what your partner, employee, customer, investor, wife, or child would want done to him or her.” In light of this, he coined the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as they would want done to them.”

This is the proverbial walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, yet it is so important and so true. Not until we see someone else’s perspective can we understand them. We yearn to be understood and appreciated: let’s do the same for others.

ACTION:

On any given day there are things people do that aggravate us in minor or major ways; and there are always things we do that aggravate people to a certain degree. Let’s keep this wonderful quote by Stephen M.R. Covey in mind:

“We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.”

Hmmmmm, see the difference? Next time you are aggravated, stop and think what the intention must have been—or ask if you get a chance—and you’ll see this makes an enormous difference. Likewise, when someone doesn’t like something you did, try to explain the intention behind it and you’ll likely see the situation defuse as the other person sees where you’re coming from.

Slowly but surely, the empathy muscle will start building up when you see things from this perspective. This way you’ll also be able to take a proactive look ahead and figure out what other persons’ want or need and apply The Platinum Rule.

While this is not a recipe to avoid making mistakes, when you take a more empathic and compassionate look at our fellow human beings, you’ll see that, for the most part, we are all doing the best that we can with the mental toolkit that we have at our disposal at any given moment. 

What tips can you share about empathy? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to know!

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

TODAY’S IDEA:

EntreGurus-Blog-Why 5 TimesTo get to the root cause of a problem, ask WHY five times.

I’ve read this idea in many books, and it’s brilliant! I believe it first started in the manufacturing plants of Toyota in Japan, and it soon spread widely, because it can be applied to virtually any situation, any industry, and even to personal issues where we need to get to the bottom of something.

The idea is as follows: to get to the root cause of a problem you need to ask why (an average) of five times to uncover the issue. For example, let me share a case with which I was familiar:

Problem: It seemed that an outreach campaign for a gym was not working: people were not going into the gym to use the equipment that was being promoted.

Why #1: Why are people not coming into the gym to use the equipment that is being promoted?
Answer: Because people don’t understand how to use it on their own.

Why #2: Why don’t people understand how to use the equipment on their own?
Answer: Because it’s a very particular kind of equipment that requires guidance at first to learn how to use it.

Why #3: Why don’t we offer the guidance that people need at first to use the equipment?
Answer: As a matter fact the gym offers appointments for people to come in and have their questions about the equipment answered.

Why #4: Why aren’t more people requesting to make an appointment to come in?
Answer: People do make requests to set up an appointment, but they are being turned down because trainers don’t have the time.

Why #5: Why don’t trainers have the time?
Answer: Because management never checked with them or their schedules before creating the campaign and simply expected trainers to handle the additional flow.

As you can see, it’s like peeling layers of an onion to get to the core issue. Now we see that the campaign is indeed working because people are requesting appointments to come in, but the gym—at its current staff levels—is not being able to handle the new-client inflow. It’s now up to the gym’s management to figure out the best way to solve this based on the information uncovered. Good thing we asked five times, we wouldn’t have known all this had we stopped at the first why!

This is a very simple but truly great method to get to the bottom of things. If you need more than five, keep asking why until you get to the core of the problem, that’s the only way in which you’ll find out what it is. Then you can move on to solve it, which is the best part!

ACTION:

Share this method today with your colleagues, clients and loved ones. Try testing it out on simple things and you’ll see how rewarding it is to solve some of those mysteries. Think about a problem that you faced in the past and mentally apply this method to see how you would have arrived to the bottom of it. Next time you need to solve an issue where the root cause is not clear, remember to use the five whys; and when you do, please let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear how it worked out for you!