Vision and Happiness

 

There I was, having a nice talk with my previous manager about life in general. At one point the conversation hit on back when the branch first opened and our culture and how happy I was when I moved into the branch. I cannot remember why the next comment came out, but here it is: “I already knew your vision.”

What is that? And why is that tied to Happiness?

Uhm… Vision, as in Mission & Vision Statement 101? Yes, that’s the one. As in “describe your future state in five years. Where will you be doing what you do?” That sort of vision. You have some personal version of that, everyone does; or at least I hope they do. How close you come to that vision is pretty much how happy you are.

On top of that, there is also a persona that is presented in your workplace. In fact, I am pretty sure that there are some people with personas that are tailored to the social or work occasion. Woot! Not me, thanks, I am trying to have only one vision.

Moving forward, I think I see where having personal and professional visions that match pretty closely could be an important factor in “how happy am I?” answers. Don’t you like it better when things line up neatly? On a business angle, your general happiness in terms of workplace/profession satisfaction will therefore occur when the company vision and execution of that vision come closest to your personal vision.

How well does your personal vision line up with your work? How does that equate to happy for you? It might be that your vision and your execution of that vision serve as a change agent for the good in your culture. Is your vision causing parts of your life to be unhappy? Could it be that the mismatch between personal and work is too large?

There is a solid connection between employee satisfaction/happiness and ability to deliver to their customer. And create happy customers. Who comment to other people they know. Which generates the highest ROI of any sales/marketing plan ever. I will wait right here for you to finish reading.

Well, that’s nice, but what about your vision?

So, great question – and here it is – both personal and professional. I think the professional vision is an outshoot of the personal.

“I want my customer so happy they talk about us on the golf course”

And I will close with this L.P. Jacks quotation that I like:

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”

YMMV

Is your Brain Engaged?

 

Have you ever been in a meeting when someone spouted out some ridiculous drivel that was just stupid? Or worse, it was wrong technically. Even worse, it was you! And the customer knows it.

If you are lucky, you can just say “oopsie, that was just wrong of me, how stupid I am, ha ha.” And you get away with it. Unfortunately, “get away with it” is a total gamble, and is successful about 1 time in 9 or 10 thousand.

So, what can you do?

Plan ahead. Practice. Plan what? Practice what? Easy.

First choice: keep your mouth shut! And then, your second choice in responses should be to rephrase the question or inquiry and ask if you understand correctly. You do remember classes on active listening, right?

Your second planned response needs to be phrased in such a manner as to elicit a business or technical response from the customer. Depending on the type of meeting, maybe both.

But, hopefully a lengthy one so that you can get your brain fired up. Your response to the customer question needs to be something like “I am not sure that I understand your question – can you help me understand how you got to that point of view?”

You need to have practiced these two items so that you are comfortable with them. You need to sound smooth. Practice with your spouse. Practice with your cat. Practice on yourself while brushing your teeth. You will look a tad strange talking to yourself, but you need to practice! If you are like me, then keeping your trap shut will take more work. I am sure that my SO appreciates me practicing that particular skill.

Whatever you do, do not ask the customer a question that is phrased in Boolean logic. We will wait while you go Google that one.

Here is the point – you need to be prepared with questions that demonstrate a knowledge of your technical area and concern for satisfying the business requirements. Yes/No questions don’t get you there. Getting the customer to pour out their soul does. And gives you an opportunity to get your brain into gear before engaging your mouth.

Remember two things: Luck is preparation meeting opportunity. Make sure you are technically prepared and be able to demonstrate some business awareness.

And open what you have two of, and close what you have one of.

YMMV