Eureka Moment: How to Magnify the Effect of What You Say #60

After all, all art is experience. Hello and welcome to this Eureka episode of The Company Doctor. Before we dive in, just a quick note from me to say that in honor of this being our 60th episode, Gary and I thought it was high time that we launched a Company Doctor newsletter. The first one will be sent out with our next episode, so you have 2 whole weeks to go to thecompanydoctor.com and sign up to receive it. We're even throwing in a free gift with newsletter number 1. Now, on with the show.

Eureka! Eureka! This is actually, uh, it's a double eureka, isn't it? Because we did a— did we do a little eureka last week? A recent eureka?

Yeah.

No, we did the hunting one.

We did do one recently, but they're good. They're proving popular.

They are. And the reason they're popular is they're like— we call them expressos. It's like It's a 10-minute episode. Go and take a coffee, listen to this, put it into practice. Boom. It's a coffee hit.

Yeah. And a nice surprise at the end, which is always, hopefully always good.

Yeah, we'll see how it goes. And George, you realize, are you going to say, you're going to say the same? This is episode 60, right?

I was going to say the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was thinking, does it, does it count? Because it's a eureka moment. It's a coffee. It's an espresso episode.

Absolutely does. Of course it does. Even the trailer counts, by the way. So we get more downloads of the trailer than anything else. So absolutely. So here we go. Title of this Eureka moment is How to Magnify the Effect of What You Say.

Nice. I like that. It's exciting because it's one of those things which, you know, in the working environment, you can— that can be quite tricky.

It can be a difficult thing to do. I was thinking about this in all environments. So have you ever been in a situation where you tell someone something and they just don't listen to you? Yes. You give them some really good advice and they're nodding and they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they absolutely don't listen. You're in that situation. Absolutely. And it's kind of the same with kids. You tell, you know, parents tell their kids stuff and they don't listen. And then I know a friend tells them like, oh yeah, Auntie so-and-so told me this and they went off and did it.

Yeah. And it's really annoying when they listen to other people and not you.

So this is for— this advice is for kids, for someone at work. Yeah. If you're a manager, definitely for you. For your teams, you, and for customers. Absolutely. This advice that we're going to give, the Eureka, is good for all of that stuff.

And it's sort of, it's about making sure that the person that you're talking to and the person you're advising is like, the message gets across.

Yes, but it's slightly more complicated than that because if people, as we declare what this is about, it actually works in reverse. Remember Snakes and Ladders?

Great game.

A lot of the time people's actions and the way they they cover things, makes them go— do you go down snakes?

You go down snakes, right? Down snakes, up ladders.

You go down that snake. Yeah, you're going down the— they slip down, they slip down the snake, don't they? You slip down that snake. And when I explain it, you'll realize how often people are slipping down that snake. But what we're going to do is get you up that ladder, turbocharge you up the ladder. That's what I want to do here.

And in terms of slipping down the snake, what does that look like in a work environment? What sort of thing do you mean?

Okay, well, it's like, think of it as shooting yourself in the foot. Here's an example, right? You're in a meeting and then, you know, there's been some, you know, difficult conversations about something that you want to get agreement on. And of course it never does. Anyway, everyone's very polite in the meeting. When they come out and they go, you know what, George is an idiot. Yeah, yeah, he never gets it, blah, blah, blah. And, and that person probably feels really good about that because they kind of took the upper hand. They told everyone George is an idiot. And they not only did they not move further forward, they actually went backwards.

Right, I see. So by doing that, they're going down the snake.

They shot themselves in the foot. They're going down the snake. Yeah, absolutely.

Good example.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll tell you what, I'm going to uncharacteristically explain the eureka moment earlier on and then— okay, yeah, it's a complicated one, but when I say it, people are really going to get it. Everyone's going to be nodding on this one. And the, the eureka moment— we even halfway in, we're not even halfway in, I'm just going to do it anyway. The eureka moment is this. The eureka moment is edification. Okay. Yeah, exactly. It means absolutely nothing, does it? What does edification mean to you, George?

All I know of edification, if something is unedifying, then it doesn't look good. You know, if you're walking around really drunk or something, or if you've done something wrong, you know, you do something like, uh, not very nice, whatever, it's unedifying to see.

I think you're halfway there. When you look it up in the Oxford Dictionary, it doesn't help at all. It never does actually, does it, when we look these things up?

No.

The improvement of the mind and understanding. I mean, absolutely probably means that, but that's not what I mean by it. It's more what you said. Yeah. The implication is this. Imagine, yeah, I'm going to start with the management story because I think it lends itself well to that. I use you as an example again. So I go, right, we're in a team meeting or I'm one-on-one with someone and I say, or maybe there's, I'm with one other person and I say, yeah, listen, George is so good.

That's more like it.

Isn't that? Yeah, exactly. George is an amazing editor, you know, and I'm speaking to someone else like a colleague and I say, if you want to learn the trade, George is your man. You should basically hang on to his coattails because he— what he doesn't know about editing, no one knows. How does that make you feel? Pretty good. Yeah, good, right? You were really puffing your chest out and we're not even doing it for real, but you are good.

But, you know, thanks. Yeah, I prefer that to George is an idiot. I prefer this part of the conversation.

Exactly. So, so for you, you puff your chest out, you feel really good about it. Yeah, but more importantly, the person that we're in our 3 conversation is gonna— is gonna— when you say something about editing, what they're gonna do, they're gonna listen. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna listen, right? Yeah. Whereas if you told them— I've now leveraged you, I've magnified you— whereas if you told them about editing, blah blah blah, they might listen to you, but they probably won't.

Yeah, right.

I'm a nobody, but I've said that you're really good and now they're going to listen to you more. That's edification going up the ladder.

And I suppose they'll listen to you more as well as in if they— Yeah, yeah, they'll listen to me more and they'll listen to you. So everyone.

Exactly. Because I look like the authority by saying you're really great.

Yeah.

And this is—

That's a good trick.

It's a good trick. And people who are in sales will be thinking, well, I think I do that with customers. You absolutely do. So you bring the big boss in to see, you know, for the big deal. You bring the big boss in and you say, here's George, he's the manager of the section. You know, we've managed to get hold of George and spend some time with you because you're a really important customer. And now they listen to you, right? And then you say, Gary's amazing in his job, you know, and we've heard really good things about you. And now it goes—

everything goes up. Yeah, it goes up. Yeah, that's interesting. And I think, you know, you see people do this naturally, socially as well. I've seen people do this and it may not be natural, it may be contrived, but, you know, that sort of lifting other people up. Which therefore puts you in a good light as well.

Yeah, exactly. So it's in all walks of life. I'm using the manager as an example because it's where it goes wrong. Because the problem is in the management team, say there's 8 people in the management team and 2 people are doing it and everyone else isn't. It doesn't work. And here's an example. So the reverse of that, which is unfortunately the majority, and I think that's the issue, is that someone would just make a little jibe. 'Yeah, George, you know, yeah, he's actually— I can't believe he's on time today, he's normally late.' Yeah, well, that's very true. But, um, what have I done now? How do I make you feel? You've— you feel—

you don't put yourself in a very good— you're not casting yourself in a good light, are you? Sort of say, you know, you're positioning yourself as someone who talks behind people's backs, or it's nasty. And it's so much more common, isn't it? As you say, it's, it's a lot easier to be that way than it is to to lift people up.

But here's the snake, right? So now George is late, he's always drinking, blah, blah, blah. Now when— and you know, I don't big you up about being the superb editor, by the way. You're not always drinking, but I don't big you up as a superb editor that you are. Now when you give advice, what happens?

Well, well, people aren't going to listen to me.

Or here's Sloppy George. We're not going to listen to Sloppy George, right?

He's drunk and he's late.

So, you know, those two examples of when I picked you up, you know, I'm not making it up, I'm just maybe turning up the dial just a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Versus— and this is the issue— so when you point, when you've got your finger pointing at someone else, you've got three fingers pointing back at you. Yeah. Now you've given permission to everyone else to diss you, and it's a slippery slope. You're all going down the ladder. Oh, let's kick—

sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's such a small thing, but it makes a massive difference. Yeah.

And when you think of it that way as well, it can, it can change an entire team's morale and I guess almost efficiency as well, because everyone's working on the same, working off the same sort of page, and everyone's— it's a big old love-in where everyone respects each other and listens, then great. But if everyone's constantly driving each other, then it's no good for anyone.

But yeah, and it's more serious. I think it actually dismantles the effect. So if you're, let's say you're in a leadership team and there's, you know, 6 or 8 of you, even within your team, it's going to make effect how you work as a team. But more importantly, the people that you manage, you know, you just go out and go, oh yeah, you know, we've had one of those management meetings, but you can ignore it. You know, they always talk about things and nothing ever happens. It's kind of a throwaway comment because it makes you feel good in front of your team. Yeah. What it's doing is dismantling the effect of your leadership.

Absolutely.

Immediately dismantling it.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And also for new people, new starters to jobs, you know, but nothing worse than when you start a new job and people are sort of, you know, down on whatever it is, or sort of, as you say, making those sorts of comments because you think, oh God, this isn't a very sort of cohesive— this isn't a— it's not a good unit. So yes, this is, this is a good tip, and I've never told—

this is a good tip. Edification. Go up the ladder, don't go down the slippery snake. You can use this with your kids. Like, if you, if you've got kids and Mom says something and Dad says something else. It's a classic example of de-edification. We talked about teams at work, we've talked about customers, but, you know, just with colleagues, you're much better off having a conversation and saying good things about people. But if everyone's doing it, I'm not saying faking it, and all of a sudden it lifts everybody up and people are more open to listen to. If you want someone to listen, edify someone else and let them say something good about it, and then people will listen more. Boom! Eureka!

Eureka! We've done it. Well done, Gary. That was excellent.

Slightly early declared, but you know what? I think it works.

We don't play by the rules here.

We break rules.

Thank you very much, Gary. That was fascinating as always. And thank you all for listening. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll see you next time.

See you soon.