Your blind spots are killing your business.
Join us to find out why on this edition of the Inside BS
Show. Hey, now I'm Nicki G.
This is the Inside BS Show. Here with me this morning is Dave Lorenzo,
my partner, godfather of Growth. How are you Dave?
Hey Nicki. G I'm doing great in my operator number one headset.
That's right, folks.
Nicola is absolutely killing me today because I'm testing
out a new mic with a well with headphones that we're going to
use when we do live events. So I look like a European soccer announcer,
and so if you hear Nicola just laugh hysterically at any given point,
it's because I look like a total knucklehead with this thing on him.
I'm an air traffic controller directing planes coming into Miami
International Airport. So Nicola,
you said blind spots are killing our business. What does that mean?
That is right.
So let me begin by telling a story that happened actually just
this week.
So someone very close to me has documented
disabilities and associated with those disabilities.
This person has a handicap parking pass in the form of the hangar that goes on
your car.
So this person was going about their normal daily routine and went to a
workout facility to get a workout in to help them improve some of
those issues that they deal with as part of that.
So they park in a parking space that is a handicapped space and they put the
hanger up in the car and moments later before the person even has the
opportunity to step out of the car with their belongings and start walking to
the front of the facility,
someone comes running across the parking lot to make sure that they catch them
while they're still standing outside of their car that just parked in the space.
That person proceeds to ask the person,
I know why they didn't park in the other spaces
gesturing towards the section of the parking lot that has non handicap
spaces.
Person on the receiving end of this responds by asking why that
person thinks they would have the right to question their medical history.
Now the person instead of quietly saying, I'm sorry,
and walking away goes in again and asks another personal question
about the situation. This time,
what they receive is something that they were frankly entitled to,
but they received the feedback that, Hey, by the way,
I'm a disabled veteran.
Now the person is profusely apologizing after hearing that they have
insulted someone who served our country and has disabilities associated with
their service. Now they're so sorry it happened.
Really want to just rewind and take all of that back.
So there's a lot to take away from this. And I share this personal
story because first of all, I'm hearing it.
I was horrified that this happened and this happened to someone that I care
a lot about and it happened unfortunately
by someone who it turns out I know and I serve in a professional
volunteer capacity with very closely.
I am again shocked that it came from the person that I know and
I've interacted with over the years. And I thought I knew very well.
So I found myself in a position having to figure out how to navigate
this situation.
When you provide that type of commentary to
someone in that circumstance,
it is obvious that you've missed something,
that you have a major blind spot.
The blind spot of the person who provided this commentary is obvious
here,
which is they perceive disabilities to only be that which they can see
visually. That is a major issue,
that's a major issue for that person on a personal level because now they've
offended not only the person who they said that to,
but now I have to figure out how to navigate that situation.
But it's also a problem for that person who is in a professional capacity,
who likely has other blind spots in their professional role.
So let me pause here and I'm going to turn it
over to you, Dave, because when this happened,
I reached out to you and we had a conversation about it.
How do we move on from this type of situation?
And you've got to have people in your life that you can have these conversations
with who are going to help you navigate the situation in an appropriate way.
Way. Wow.
So first I want to tell you
how I guess flattered I am that you reached out to me in the first place because
it showed me the strength of our relationship.
And the second thing I want to say is that I
admire and appreciate your vulnerability in telling this story
because I know how hard it is for you to do this.
So with that being said, I think,
look,
it's hard for people like you and me to understand how somebody would do this
because this is the way that you and I are wired is that this would be the last
thing that we would do. I mean, I can't imagine,
and you and I laughed, we had a really good laugh the next day about this.
The first day that you told me, we didn't laugh about it,
but the next day we had a great laugh about can you imagine it's such a Larry
David thing, for somebody to come running up to someone in a parking lot going,
Hey, you like the handicap spot, huh? I see that. Yeah,
what's going on with you? Why would you want to park there? Who would do that?
So what we did,
what I did when we first had this conversation that when you first called me,
I tried my best to just listen and not say anything.
And for the first thing I tried to do was to really understand the feeling
behind the words. And I understood,
and I understand now today even more because I could see,
I could feel the emotion that you felt because I know how much you care about
the person who was on the receiving end of this.
So that was the first thing that I tried to do as somebody that you were sharing
this with.
But the thing I tried to explore with you first after I made sure that you got
your emotion,
that you expressed your emotion to me in a way that made you feel like,
I hope I made you feel like you were heard,
and I was trying to understand what you were feeling after that
was what I tried to do with you is what I tried to do with myself. And it's so
hard when this happened,
is to think about the lunatic who came running up to the person that you care
about, that lunatic. What could that person's mindset be? And I said to you,
how would your feeling about this whole thing change if you found out that this
person had a handicapped child and they struggled to get their handicapped child
in and out of the car because other people were constantly taking the handicap
parking spots? Would that change the way you felt about this?
And your response was, well, a little right, still inappropriate,
still no excuse for what this person did,
but it reframes the way we think about
it. So for me, because I am,
and this is like you and I,
there are a handful of places where you and I are different,
and I think this is one of the places where you and I are different in that
emotion is always my first reaction,
and I don't feel like you feel things any less than I do,
but you're more logical than I am. Your first reaction is not with emotion.
Your first reaction is logical. So for me, what I do,
if this had happened to somebody I cared about and I was there,
one of us would've been going to the hospital because I would've been absolutely
in this person's face saying things that are completely inappropriate to be said
in mixed company,
and it would've been a big problem and the person probably would've reacted
violently to the verbal barrage they would've received from me.
What I try to tell myself in these circumstances is, okay,
let me think about what could have led this person to this completely
irrational reaction. And the only thing that I could think of is, hey, listen,
if this kid had a handicap,
if this guy had a handicap child who he had struggled to
put in and out of a car and he could never get a handicap spot because
people who seem able-bodied were taking handicapped parking
spots,
maybe he would have a visceral reaction to it. It wouldn't
make it right, but it would put things in context.
So when we were having the discussion about this that that was kind of the
context. I didn't excuse the behavior,
but I tried to reframe it from a contextual
place where you could understand where this person was coming from.
And my hope was in doing this,
and I want to hear what you have to say about this. My hope was in doing this,
you can still work with this person. I don't think you're going to ever,
and I don't think you should ever excuse this guy's behavior,
but my hope is that if we recontextualize this,
whether it's true or not,
it'll allow you to at least face this person without wanting to spit in his face
every time you see him. Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
And I'm really glad that that was what you posed to me in
response was what if this was a circumstance,
whether it was a child or was a parent, and it made me think, you know what?
That makes a lot more sense that there would be some underlying issue that
caused that person to approach the person I know in the first place and knowing
that we know one another. So I think that took some of the sting away.
When you hear this, when it's a complete stranger,
I think that I might have a reaction like you, Dave,
if I was there and I saw it,
which is to immediately get emotional and allow that emotion to just
be taken out, certainly
in the way that I would be speaking, not necessarily physically.
So I think that helped to process what had happened and thinking about it a
different way. So sitting back now,
and I think that there's two things that I really want to focus on.
One is when something like that happens,
while it impacts the two people in the situation,
we saw that the person felt remorse for what had happened and realized that
there was a major mistake there.
The person on the other end of that also has to not only defend themselves in
the situation,
but think about the position you've put them in because they're now thinking
about their own disabilities.
They're now thinking about something that they weren't thinking about that day.
And oftentimes you're going to make them feel worse about themselves when
something like this happens.
So there was a lot that happened because of this person's blind spot.
Now this we see, not just in a personal level,
this is obviously a very personal story,
but this happens in business and that's why I want us to talk about the business
aspect of this. If you don't even know that you have these
major blind spots,
you are absolutely causing this type of reaction to happen
as you are going about your work. You may know sometimes,
but you may not know why you're getting the reaction,
but you don't know why because it's a blind spot for you or you have no idea and
clients are leaving you or people you work with are leaving you.
So we should focus on how can we help people work through identifying what
their blind spots are so that it stops hurting their relationships?
One way for me is making sure that you work with people,
you surround yourself with people that can help you identify those.
There has to be someone in this person's life close to them that knows this is
an issue that has seen this before.
This doesn't just happen once when you have a blind spot.
It's something that is reoccurring and you've got to have people you trust
around you to recognize it so that they can approach you in a way where you're
going to be open to the conversation about changing it.
So it's funny you say this, I had somebody in a session I did,
and we were talking about how to develop relationships and get the best out of
people.
I make them go through selecting an avatar at the beginning of the session and
I'm teaching them about leadership influence and they're going to try and
influence a certain person to behave differently.
And the avatar that this woman selected was a bookkeeper who works for her,
who has a terrible attitude and doesn't respect her. And I said, okay,
so you want to influence this person. How does this behavior manifest itself?
And she said, well,
when I try to get her to do things differently that are more efficient and more
effective,
she responds with disrespectful language,
bordering unprofessional,
and I'm really having a hard time getting through to her.
And I said, tell me about the interpersonal dynamic. She said, well,
the person's older than me and she gave me the family makeup of
the person and everything. And I said to her, alright, what have you tried?
And she told me that she's tried to sit down and coach and counsel her and have
conversations. And I said, tell me how those conversations go. And she said,
I say to her, you're behaving this way. You need to behave this way.
Please do that. And I said, okay.
So we go through the entire program and my at the centerpiece of my program is
empathy.
So we're getting toward the end of the program and the person who's the leader
of the group says to me, I need you to go back to this person.
He mentions her by name. He said,
would you walk her through her case study step-by-step with the core values
that you've talked about today in terms of demonstrating them to build a
relationship? He said,
because I want to make sure that she has a way to deal with this person.
This is a real tough issue she's struggling with.
So we come back from a break and I said, okay, so-and-so I said her name.
I said, let's walk through how this is going to work for you.
And we get to the part about empathy. And I said,
what do you think you could do different leveraging empathy to rectify the
situation? And she looks at me and I said,
what if there's something in this woman's life that has
caused her to act with
transference or act with projection and project
someone's bad behavior onto you?
And that's what's causing them to act this way. I said,
suppose this woman at a previous job had someone who's younger than
her or who had the same personality type as you do,
who is younger than her backs,
stab her and get a promotion that she felt she should have gotten. And now
you're her boss and she's projecting that behavior onto you.
I said,
or what if she has a personal life that is so horrible and
so miserable and she's abused by someone to the point where
she feels like she has no control in her personal life and the only place she
feels like she can exert control is by pushing back on you at work?
How would that make you change your approach? And she said to me,
oh my God. She said, if that were the case, she said,
I have friends who are abused. She said, if that were the case,
I would sit down and ask her why she's behaving this way and what I could
do to change my approach so that we could both
get what we were looking for out of work. I said, really? I said, okay.
So just imagine that that's what it is. Just put that into place and
adjust your behavior accordingly. And she said, well,
I don't know if I'd feel comfortable doing that at this point. She's like,
I feel like I should have done that months ago. I said, okay, well,
here's what you can do. I said,
you can ask her to put herself in your place. I said,
go to her and say, here's the outcome we need to get to.
What do you recommend we do to get to that outcome?
So I need this amount of work done.
Her biggest thing is this person's taking eight hours to do four hours worth of
work, and the controller was in this role before she became the controller,
and she's telling her, I used to do this job in four hours.
I can't believe you can't get it done in four hours. I said,
what if you went to her and you said,
we need to get this job done in a maximum of six hours. How can we get
there?
What can I do to remove barriers to help you get there?
How do you recommend we get to doing this job in six hours?
I said, if you reframe the discussion and say, put yourself in my spot,
my boss is coming to me for more productivity.
The C F O is coming to me for more productivity,
and I need you to get four hours worth of work done
in addition to what you're currently doing.
So you got to get the current work you have done in six hours
at a maximum. What can we do together to get there?
If you take that approach and you reframe the discussion and say,
what's going on and how can I help make this happen?
Here's the thing that you put yourself on the same side of the table.
How can you and I together make this happen? It makes things different when it
comes to a blind spot at work. Now, your situation that you open the show with,
you're certainly not going to sit down and coach and counsel guy who approached
the person you care about in the parking lot.
But what you can do is you can get him to put himself in the position
of the other person and say, what if a person is really disabled?
And you've just brought back all kinds of memories of how their
disability came to be by asking them why they were parking in that parking spot,
how would you feel? And that will correct the person's behavior moving forward.
Hopefully they will never do that again. So role reversal,
turning the tables is a good way to get people to see the opposite
perspective and hopefully, hopefully correct the behavior moving forward.
But I would start with saying, Hey, how do we get to this place?
Tell me what's going on that made you behave this way so that you can first show
that you're empathetic and that you understand.
Yeah, I think that is a great suggestion, Dave,
especially if you're in a workplace.
You have to continue working with person who you're having that issue with and
helping when you understand what is underlying
that behavior that's going to allow you to break through. You've got to,
and we've talked about empathy before,
you have got to really get to know people,
what's going on in their lives so that you can be empathetic so that you
can help them get through that,
and you get through that so you can be in a better place simply reacting to it,
which is another choice,
not a good choice that you could take to approach the circumstances is going to
lead to a lot worse of the situation that could entirely blow up.
You're there, you're having to work with someone. You're saying, well,
you're just not getting this done. I know this can be done in four hours.
That's going to lead to a very hostile relationship between you.
And this may be someone who just has an issue going on personally that you don't
know about that can be rectified,
and that person can be a great and longstanding employee.
This is why it matters,
getting to know the people that you work with and helping work through those
circumstances. And if you can't work through it after getting to know them,
then it's not a good fit for the long term.
But it's the ability to recognize that is what we're talking about here today.
This is a way that you can recognize that and get to the bottom of it so that
you can make that change so you don't have that situation reoccurring,
and so that you're not continuing to face a blind spot that you may be having.
My mentor, Alan Weiss has a saying that stays with me all the time,
and he says, in a not so kind and nurturing way,
stop assuming that people are damaged. He said, very few people,
less than 5% of people are actually damaged.
Their behavior is caused by something.
If you understand what's causing their behavior, you don't have to accept it.
But if you understand what's causing their behavior,
it puts the whole situation in context.
So as much as we'd like to assume that the lunatic that ran up to the person
that you care about in the parking lot was some sort of a mental patient,
he's not because you work with this person,
he has no mental defect whatsoever. There's got to be something.
There's got to be something in his life that caused that.
And in that session that I ran this week,
the woman wouldn't have hired this bookkeeper if she could detect that there was
some sort of mental defect or damage with her.
So there's something that's causing the behavior,
get to the root cause of the behavior, address it,
and then if the behavior doesn't improve,
you need to take remedial steps after that. Remove the person from your life,
fire the person from work, do whatever you've got to do.
So in terms of takeaways from today's show, Nicki G,
what should people take away from the show if they recognize a blind
spot in another person, who they work with, who they want to coach out of it?
How should we proceed?
First, do not immediately react emotionally.
I know that is hard. Just take a step back,
have a conversation with someone you trust. Think about what happened,
realize that there may be something else there that you need to think about and
explore. So that's number one for me.
And number two is when you identify what that is,
take measured steps to get to the underlying issue so that you can better
understand it, so you can better address it.
I like it. Very good. This is the Inside BS show. My name is Dave Lorenzo.
I'm the godfather of growth, and she is.
Nicki G.
So we're here every day. You'll notice this is an audio show.
So the way the show grows is if you share it with other people.
So if you know entrepreneurs or professionals who are in your life who want to
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making their business more valuable, share this with them.
It's good karma for you,
and you may just change someone's business and someone's life until tomorrow.
Here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life. See you tomorrow.