My wife and
I recently had the pleasure of welcoming our first child into the world – a
beautiful and healthy baby girl called Annika. Much like all new parents, we
have been sleeping less, frequently eating takeaways and cutting corners around
the home… all in an effort to stay on top of the priority of feeding and
settling Annika. However, there is now an impending slippery slope to which we
are desperately trying not to yield ...
You may
recall in my previous post that our dog, Charlie, is quite the astute
negotiator. He recognises the value of his concessions (sitting/coming/etc) and
where possible he trades for the reward. In fact, he often won’t come if I
don’t have a treat in my hand or offer the promise of a walk.
I fear
Charlie has taken advantage of the situation at home: he has started slinking
into the bedroom late at night once we are too tired to care and can’t be
bothered to kick him out. ‘Just this time’ we say because
neither of us has the energy to enforce the boundary.
Since the
bub joined us… how many nights in a row do you think Charlie has been in the
bedroom? The answer is, unfortunately, every night. In fact, I
gathered the energy and tried to shoo him out last night only for him to growl
at me! As far as he is concerned, it is now his right to be there with us, and
he expects it to continue.
If you think
about it, we give in often in business, too. The deadline is unrealistic but we
accept it because it is too hard to fight. The customer is being unrealistic
but we give in because we need to hit a monthly quota.
The problem
with this is that our customers and superiors respond to Pavlovian conditioning
just the same as Charlie does. If I fold when pushed on this issue… I’m likely
to fold when pushed on the next. This is a tough scenario to turn around
and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
So before
setting ourselves up on similarly slippery slopes, we need to be aware of
setting bad precedents, we need to be aware of encouraging bad behaviour. Here
are some tips for the next time you get faced with the temptation to
yield just this time:
- Don’t give in and say ‘yes’… especially if you don’t plan on giving in next time.
- Don’t dig your heels in and say ‘no’… people don’t like hearing it.
- Do put a price on demands… the bigger the demand, the bigger the price. If you agree to ‘xyz’, then I can agree to ‘abc’.
Ben Byth – Scotwork Australia
