A friend of mine works in an outbound call center. Her job is to call up potential customers (in a particular country outside India) and sell. She took up this job recently and was telling me about her work. She has not yet made a sale. She told me how rudely some people behave, how they hang up when they hear she is from India.
I thought about her problem. Though I myself dislike the job of selling, this was an interesting problem to me. I told her to listen to the audio recording of successful calls made by others in her company and see what they did differently. She did what I asked her to and told me that she picked up something from the audio recordings that might be of use to her. I also suggested how to handle the issue of xenophobia.
She told me then that she had, earlier in the day, spoken with another friend of hers and told him about her job. That person had told her that he was sure that my friend was good and she would be successful in making a sale the next day.
Now my friend reflected on the call with her other friend earlier in the day and on the call with me. She said she was very happy with the best wishes and hope that the other friend conveyed to her and that she was thrilled with what I said to her.
That set me thinking. What was the difference in what her two friends said to her about the same event? One person conveyed hope. I conveyed a (very rudimentary) plan or an idea.
A hope or faith is largely situation independent. "I hope that your current trouble is temporary. A nice / kind person like you does not deserve this. You will get out of this situation soon. Things will become better" - this can be conveyed whether you lost your job or your wife or you didn't make a sale or failed an exam. It does not need much thought. It needs a good heart. You hear the other person's problem and say "You poor dear, I hope that your current...". The other person feels good and becomes unstressed. He feels that you are a good friend, a person in need. This is a palliative. It doesn't remove the cause of the pain but it temporarily alleviates the pain. A palliative or painkiller has its own use.
An idea or a plan to solve the problem that someone is in needs a lot more thought and ability. One has to understand the problem, the persons involved, their traits and suggest a plan or idea that takes all of these into consideration. A good plan removes the cause of the problem and extricates the person from the problem. Not all of us have this ability.
Now the interesting thing is that many people in difficulties aren't receptive to solutions. What they need is a palliative. And the palliative is so very easy to administer - just a standard set of phrases fits most situations with little tailoring. Yet some of us perhaps waste our time trying to find solutions, often ineffective, because we do not know the specific details of the difficult circumstance that the other person in. This often results in the other person playing the "Yes but..." game. What a waste of time! The soothing words that our mothers said to us when we hurt ourselves are so much better received. Which of us says "Yes but..." to a hope conveyed to us?
Sometimes it's better to keep our trap shut and let our heart speak.
Question to the reader: To which person would you provide hope and to which would you provide a solution (assuming you have the ability to do both)?
Question to the reader: To which person would you provide hope and to which would you provide a solution (assuming you have the ability to do both)?
Men tend to solve problems...women need compassion and empathy....
ReplyDeleteA drought continued for what seemed an eternity, a small community of farmers was in a quandary as to what to do. Rain was vital to keep their crops healthy and sustain the way of life of the townspeople. As the problem became more acute, a local priest called a prayer meeting to ask for rain.
ReplyDeleteMany concerned people arrived at the church and the priest greeted most of them as they filed in. As he walked to the front of the church to officially begin the meeting, he noticed the people were chatting across the aisles about their mutual situation and socializing with friends. When he reached the front, his thoughts were on quieting the attendees and getting the meeting started.
His eyes scanned the crowd as he asked for quiet and it was then that he noticed a young girl about 11 years old sitting quietly in the front row, her face beaming with excitement. Next to her, poised and ready for use, was a bright red umbrella. The little girl's beauty and innocence made the priest smile as he realized how much faith she possessed.
No one else in the congregation had brought an umbrella. All came to pray for rain, but the little girl had come expecting God to answer.
Unlike the young girl in this story, some of us pray but do not expect an answer, because from our stand point the outlook is hopeless and grim. We fall prey to doubt and fear when things change and corrupt our serenity.
I have copy pasted the above... do you see how many and what kind of people are really looking for solutions!!
People who talk about problems and complain can perhaps be termed as being negative and who do not even as in the above story have faith in themselves, and as in your post do not even believe that anyone can solve it. So trying to solve it for them is futile..
I am reminded of Wright bros as i write this and that the leading newspaper called them 2 fools who were trying to lift an object so heavy off the ground.
Such is the disbelief of the masses for a problem or an issue which they have no capacity to solve by themselves.