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The Real Deal


You walk into a store, at the front an employee spouts the
same greeting to every customer: "Welcome to the Fabulous
Store -- Where YOU are important!"

You call a business, and the staff rattles off the
latest company-speak in a blur. "Thank you
forcallingthegreatshopwherewereallytaketimeforyou..."

You see an "old friend" in the airport and exchange
pleasantries. "Well you just look so great, I can't even
believe we have not seen each other in, what now, it
must be 8 years..."

How often can you tell if someone really means it? I
suspect most people are highly accurate in assessing if
someone is "faking it" emotionally. We might not know
exactly what someone else feels, but we can tell something
is not right.

The dissonance -- the feeling that you can tell someone's
"faking it" -- reduces trust and connection. It increases
anxiety and concern -- so stress goes up, relationship
quality goes down. The effects are powerful in our
individual lives, and cancerous for organizations.

As individuals, we can use the "faking it" dissonance as a
measure of the quality of interpersonal relationships. If
the relationship isn't "real," it probably is not very strong.
Some people have told me they struggle because they are
often misunderstood -- that people think they're faking it,
but they think they're being real. I wonder if that comes
from not allowing yourself to fully experience emotions,
or from expressing them in atypical ways?

At an organization level, "faking it" has serious bottom-
line implications. If "faking it" leads to distrust and
disengagement, companies where people aren't "real" are
losing customers, investors, and employees.

Many training programs try to work around the dissonance
by prescribing a set of behaviors that will create connection.
"Smile, use the name three times, ask one question, touch
your own right cheek and nod your head, then shake hands."
I suspect companies are reduced to providing cookie-cutter
formulae because they have not been able to get employees
to actually, authentically, care.

If most people can tell the "fake" from the real anyway, how
much value is there in the formulae? It may be a larger
challenge, but the results will be far more impressive if a
company invests itself in understanding what's keeping its
people from genuinely connecting with customers.

Perhaps the climate is focused on command and control rather
than relationships. Perhaps the managers don't care about the
employees. Perhaps the employees don't have the skills to give
time to customers. Perhaps the level of stress and chaos
prevents people from letting down their guard.

Whether you are developing EQ for yourself or for a big
company, start paying extra attention to The Real Deal.
- How often are you saying one thing but feeling another?
- Do you really fool anyone that way?
- What are the costs and benefits?

I'd appreciate hearing your ideas of how to teach and support
people to actually care rather than follow the formulae.

Smiling and meaning it,
- Josh

Joshua Freedman

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This is an EQ Reflection from Six Seconds. Please forward and share
-- and keep this part too:

©2003, Joshua Freedman
Josh is a leading expert in teaching people to apply and enhance
their emotional intelligence (EQ). He works with organizations
and individuals around the world developing EQ programs that
increase accountability, motivation, and purpose. Read about his
speaking at http://www.jmfreedman.com -- and for more about
emotional intelligence, visit the Six Seconds EQ Network: http://www.6seconds.org .

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