JephMaystruck.com

To many times in our lives we give in to frustration.  Life throws us a curve ball and we back up in the batter’s box or completely give up our entire at bat because we’re frustrated.

Frustration is a funny thing though, it stems out of confusion and misunderstanding, and can grow to be an insurmountable demon.  But the best part is, it doesn’t have to.

Recently working on a project, I could see a growing frustration on faces and the general atmosphere just wasn’t right.  When I spoke with both parties involved I could understand where the frustration came from.  Within one conversation we had agreed that the frustration was due to a lack of communication and could easily be interpreted as a challenge.

Our world would be much better off if instead of getting frustrated with a problem, we look at it as a challenge.  Challenges get you going, they’re the fire under your ass, they’re the reason why sports are so interesting and they could be your solution if you are feeling frustrated.

So what do you do when you’re feeling frustrated?

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Yeah we get it, everything we do is marketing ourselves yadda yadda yadda.  But what do you do in awkward situations where there is a bit of tension built up?  You know, those situations where it could end up good or bad?  How do you get the other person on your side and trusting you?

Joke around with them.  Humor relaxes people and says “hey, I’m not nearly as bad as you think I am”.

Example 1: I play hockey, I usually hate refs in hockey, I usually yell at refs in hockey, not this time.  For the first time ever in my life that I can remember, while sitting in the penalty box, quite angry at the ref to say the least, he made a joke about what I did to get the penalty.  I had no choice to laugh and to start liking him.

Example 2: The Pastor at my church has a great sense of humor, after the service you can’t help but smile and laugh with him while he makes his remarks as everyone is leaving the sanctuary.  You feel a different connection with him because he makes you laugh.

You don’t have to be a comedic sensation, that’s not what I’m after, but if you can smile and make a comment that gets a laugh out of me, we’re already connecting on a different level.  A more humorous, enjoyable, trusting level.

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A good friend of mine’s Father taught at the University of Regina, Al Derges was one of the best professors, ever.  You can even see for yourself here, an almost perfect rating on RateMyProffesors.com.  My time spent at University had very few memorable classes to say the least, but Al had more than one exceptional class and this one had some significance for me recently.

Pygmalian in Management was a Harvard Business Review article we were to read and write a response to.  It’s a great story and I encourage you to read it but the moral is “a manager’s expectations are the key to a subordinate’s performance and development.”

What we expect out of people is usually what we get.

I coach volleyball, high school senior boys.  When I go into a season I expect the best from them, nothing less.  This year we began the season with only one returning player, so we were a very young team, if not the youngest in the league.  Rebuilding year everyone thought, I’m sure even some of the players had thought that as well, but not the coaches.  The head coach and I decided that we were going to set goals as a team this year and expect nothing less but 105% of effort to get there.

Our season was far from perfect, finishing fourth place over all, we went into quarter finals as slightly favored to win, we did.  Semi finals we were under dogs, we won.  Finally we made it to the city final, fourth place up against the first place team.  The team knew what us coaches expected out of them even though we were a long shot to win.

On the back of our team room, sticky tact to the door resides a piece of paper stating our goals, one of which was to win city finals.  We did.  Even losing the first set and coming back from a deficit of six to one in the final set, our expectation of the team to do better than anyone else would expect won us a championship.  I don’t take credit for the win and it probably was a host of other reason WHY we won but I am positive that we never would have got anywhere if we didn’t have such high expectations of the team.

The next time your staff underperforms or you’re looking at how to motivate someone, stop and instead of studying them this time, maybe look at YOUR expectations of them, it’ll be interesting what you find.

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