Life in the DIS-Comfort Zone!

Have you ever noticed that there is a relationship between exercising your brain and the break-down of your comfort zone? Or maybe it’s more that as we learn new things and begin to integrate them into our lives those new ideas tend to push us out of our comfort zone and into a new way of looking at the world. I went to a seminar today – The 2008 Powerhose Sales and Networking Event put on by Colleen Francis of Engage Selling (http://www.engageselling.com/) and I found myself rubbing up against the rough edges of my comfort zone. This was not a bad thing!

I run a business. I am a mediator and a trainer but I am also a business person whose primary role is to create business opportunities for myself and those who work for me to use our mediation and training skills to help our clients. I have been told that I am good at what I do – as a mediator and a trainer and I freely admit – I love what I do. However, I have also come to realize that if I want to continue to do those things, I need to become a proficient business person who can generate the volume of business that will create the opportunities I desire. This means learning to write proposals, develop marketing plans, hire staff, read financial statements, meet clients and close deals. I can pay others to do many of these things but even if I am not the person actually doing the work, I need to understand enough of the business side of things to make sound decisions, know when I am getting good advice (and when I am NOT) and to strategically take the business in a direction that will maximize its success (client service and satisfaction, profitability and fun) for those of us who work here!

As I listened to the various speakers Colleen lined up for our learning pleasure today, I found myself reflecting on where I am today compared to where I was when I started this business in 1996. I had found a profession that I fell in love with and which provided me with the opportunities to get paid for doing what I would love to do! What more could anyone ask for… however, the business reality was an unexpected adventure.

Mediation can be a tough profession – clients are typically upset with each other (and that often carries over to their relationship with you, the mediator), every case is different so the ongoing learning curve is steep and constant and your professional reputation often hinges on the level of success you achieve in your first few mediations – no pressure there!! All of that I could handle – I actually found myself thriving on that… but nobody told me when I started in to this that I would also have to learn to sell.

The sales profession is not an area that I have much experience with – at least not in the formal sense of business selling. While I believe that we spend most of our lives selling – our ideas, agendas, goals, expectations and plans – to those we interact with, our families, co-workers, bosses, neighbours, team mates etc. over the years I have convinced myself that I cannot sell. And that is a disaster for a business owner. If you believe you can’t sell, how can you market your products or services to the clients who need them? How can you create enough business to make your company financially viable let alone profitable? And ultimately, how long can you stay in business without the capacity to generate new clients and keep the old ones.

So several years ago, I came to the conclusion that I either had to master this selling thing – or go out of business and go back to a T-4 income working for someone else. Now I have been self-employed long enough to know that it would not be easy to make that transition and that I would have a significant level of pity for anyone who had the misfortune to become my boss… because I have honed that entrepreneurial independence that does not ‘fit’ well with the title ‘employee’. So my latest learning journey has taken me into business and sales focused learning opportunities. And today I have learned a few more tools to add to my sales repertoire. I have learned that:
- Selling is about consistently doing the small things that may seem unimportant – but mean the difference between a good sales person and a top sales performer. Things like emotionally engaging with your prospective clients and staying in front of your clients – on a regular basis
- It’s important to know your market and your audience – who is that ideal client and – in particular, finding ways to market to women and men that suit the female and male style of doing business
- I need to know myself – where is my brilliance and how can I market that brilliant expertise to the people who will be most interested and who need it
- I need to become a visible expert in the areas that reflect my brilliance – so that my ideal customers find it easy to find me
- I need to convince myself to let go of the areas that I do well – but less brilliantly so that I can leverage my time and energy to make the most of the top talents I have…
- I need to find creative ways to bring the services I offer to the clients who need them – in a timely, consistent and cost-effective fashion
- I need to stay connected with the world of technology so that I will know what is available, how things are changing and how I can use these new tools to my business advantage
- I need to be prepared to make the most of the adventure of learning, failing, falling and growing so that at the end of the day I can look back and say with a huge smile and in all honesty – ‘That was a fun and exhilarating ride – and I would do it again in a minute!’
- And mostly – I need to believe in myself and surround myself with those whose success I can learn from and whose positive energy will help me to stay focused and on track in order to achieve the success I desire

Much of this is way out of my comfort zone – but one thing I have learned from 12 years in this business is that the farther out of my comfort zone I move, the greater the opportunities I encounter and the more I learn. So as my Grandmother once said “Keep learning – don’t ever stop - because the day you stop learning is the day you die. Even though your body may still be moving, your brain will be gone.” Thanks Grandma… I plan to do just that!

The Conflict Resolution Workout:
1. What habits have you acquired that are keeping you stuck in your comfort zone?
2. What is the cost to you of being stuck there? in your personal life? your business / work life?
3. Who or what has the capacity or ability to nudge / push / fling you out into that discomfort zone where learning and growth take place?
4. What is your personal learning plan for the next week? 30 days? 90 days? 1 year? long term?
5. What is your personal action plan for the next week? 30 days? 90 days? 1 year? long term?

Ruth Sirman, CanMediate International, is a professional mediator and trainer who teaches the same skills she has used since 1996 to help groups resolve conflicts in government, corporations, communities, churches and schools. For more information, check out her website at http://www.canmediate.com/.

Is Your Conflict BlueprintTM Working For You???

By Ruth Sirman, CanMediate International

As I was growing up there were many times when I found myself thinking “If I was a mom, I would never do (or say) THAT to my children..”. And then one day when I actually had children of my own and things were not going well, I opened my mouth and out came all those things that I had naively sworn I would never say. It was not one of my more ‘stellar’ moments and when I realized what had happened, I was devastated. How could I have inflicted on my wonderful innocent children the same hurtful words that had been said to me? And to be honest, it happened not once but many times throughout my parenting years.

Well, life goes on and my children appear to have survived those days – and I did too. However it started me wondering why rational and intelligent adults can find themselves saying and doing things that are not particularly wise, logical or helpful. As a professional mediator, I often work with people struggling to deal with the difficult and stressful situations in which they find themselves – at home, at work or in their personal lives. People will describe their reactions during the conflict and then say things like “Once I thought about it, I realized that I could have done things differently and it would have changed everything”, or “I always avoid conflict – and then I kick myself later for not standing up for myself”, or “I know fighting doesn’t solve anything but when my buttons get pushed, I just react”. So why do we get caught up in these habitual reactions that often do not work rather than doing what we know would be more constructively helpful?

Humans are creatures of ‘habit’ - actions or thoughts that are ingrained in our behaviour patterns through repetition. The more often we think it or do it, the more deeply embedded it becomes in our personal operating procedures. So take my beliefs about conflict and add my habitual behaviour patterns in conflict situations and that creates my default Conflict BlueprintTM that drives my instinctive (and often involuntary) responses to conflict when it erupts.

So where did this Conflict BlueprintTM come from? The short answer is that it has been carefully developed over the course of our life time. As we move through our lives we learn from each conflict situation we encounter. Each entry is carefully filed away in our brain and contributes to our Blueprint – either positively or negatively (or both!). Children are influenced primarily by the key adults in their lives – and each adult has a Conflict BlueprintTM that they will selflessly (and often unconsciously) share with the children in their care. Children are fast learners and don’t necessarily pick up on the habits and attributes adults would prefer them to choose!

However, our Blueprint has only as much power as we choose to give it and if we don’t like it, we can change it! So if I have habitually avoided conflict, always given in to the other person or aggressively defended my point of view and I now realize that this is not getting me the results I want – I have the power to make changes to that blueprint. Awareness of its existence and the ability to critically analyze it and decide what to keep and what to change is the first step. This means accepting that I choose my actions and behaviour – in all situations. This can be a tough pill to swallow, because it’s so much easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility myself. The second step is to honestly (and objectively) assess what beliefs and habits are operating. This means being totally honest about what I do – not what I’d like to believe I do. Step three is to create new and more constructive habits and beliefs and put them into action. This is tough to do and requires determination and focus plus a willingness to invest the necessary energy to change long-standing habitual patterns. A supportive counselor or mentor can help create a realistic action plan and provide support and accountability!

In our current world, the ability to resolve conflict effectively is becoming increasingly recognized as a valuable attribute. If your Conflict BlueprintTM is supporting you in your efforts to resolve conflicts constructively, then it is actually supporting your success. If not, then change is possible and it may be helpful to remember that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again – and expect different results!!

Ruth Sirman is a professional mediator and trainer who teaches the same skills she has used since 1996 to help groups resolve conflicts in government, corporations, communities, churches and schools. For more information, check out her website at www.canmediate.com.