Personal Touch

A manager was struggling with one of his staff. He had tried his standard approaches for bringing him on board and failed. He asked me how he should handle the problem. Should he fire the recalcitrant? After all, his usual techniques had not worked. I asked the manager to show me his key ring. I selected a key and queried, “What does this open?”

“The door to my car.”

“Will it also unlock your wife’s car?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, it’s a perfectly good key. We know it works. Why don’t you just junk her car and get another one that will open with this key?”

People are different, so we can’t expect everyone to fit with the way we see things. Instead, find out what will unlock each person’s resistance to the new idea.[*]

To convince ...

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