Chapter 1: Lessons Learnt From Loading The Dishwasher
Dishwasher Diaries: Human characteristics & tips on building rapport
I have been thinking about writing a lot recently. What exactly I would like to write about and the value I could provide. If you get absolutely nothing from this article, my only hope is that it has made you laugh with how pathetic it was, or at least my odd relationship with dishwashers.
So let’s begin.
In these stories I am dubbing the ‘Dishwasher Diaries’ I am going to cover some managerial approaches I have come across when loading the dishwasher, breakdown their advantages and disadvantages as well as give you some tips on how to deal with them.
Chapter 1: The Dictator
My first encounter with the dishwasher dilemma was in childhood. I grew up in a happy (and very sarcastic) family of comedic humans in the UK. My father was the quiet(est) one of the group, but where he was not quiet was on his opinions of how the dishwasher should be loaded. He took a ‘my way or the highway’ approach, and when his strategy was overlooked by less caring members of the family (myself included) you could see the rage building behind his eyes in a way I have only seen in cartoons when someone turns bright red, their head becomes a veiny bulge and steam shouts out of their ears.
This was my first experience of what I like to call ‘The Dictator’ approach. It is a style that I have had the pleasure of experiencing through friends, bosses and even lovers.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that there is a perfect approach. Each of the styles I will cover in these short stories has it’s place dependent on the situation you are dealing with. What is powerful about this one is the conviction with which the individual has absolute certainty in their approach. They tend to be efficient in getting the task done and because of their burly approach, I have previously found them being successful in mid-management corporate roles.
The downside of course is that they tend not to be open to suggestions, feedback or constructive guidance and they rarely give detailed explanations of why they see things their way, believing that they have got to where they are by doing things the ‘right’ way.
“Why the hell should I listen to Alice in customer service who has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. She’s only been here for 2 months” - I’m sure that some of you can relate to this.
So, how do you deal with this?
The main issue here is their relationship. Neither person really knows or understands the other, so the only real dynamic which they share is one in the workplace. The vulnerability to identify here is that 'The Dictator’ sees only the benefit they provide, so suggestions without context that directly impacts them will always land on deaf ears. The second issue is the environment. The workplace is their domain, “You are in my house now” springs to mind.
Now, we know there are 3 things we need to include in our approach for maximum effect:
We need to learn more about the persons motivations, ambitions and what they are currently trying to achieve.
The suggestion needs to be focused on explaining the benefit it provides to the person we are speaking with.
This needs to be done on mutual ground, outside of their domain.
Coming back to my analogy from earlier, my father’s motivation for being a dictator over how to load the dishwasher was because he wanted to lower the amount of times it was used to save money. His ambition was to have us do it in the same way he did and he was currently trying to achieve this by force.
I found this out while we were out for a walk one day when I started to press him on why he gets so angry about something which seemed so irrelevant (to me at least). After a couple more questions digging past the template answers most people give in the first instance, I started to understand where he was coming from. If money was tight, that affected the whole family. Using anger to try and make us do it was obviously not working, so I suggested that I would work on a plan and get back to him with my ideas. He agreed.
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In the next chapter, I am going to cover another approach I have come across when loading the dishwasher and I have called that, ‘The Surface Cleaner’.
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Finally, I want YOUR feedback. I plan to continue to relentlessly plough my stories into your inbox for the foreseeable future. The most important thing to me is that it is providing you with value…and a giggle or two (even if it is at my expense).
Do you have a ‘Dictator’ in your home, workplace or friends list? Are YOU the Dictator? What type of managerial style do you think ‘The Surface Cleaner’ has?