THE GOLDEN RULE UPGRADE
How many of you consider the Golden Rule to be an important element of your personal ethics and try to be guided by it in your relationships?
Why do you choose to live by this ethic?
Have you ever considered the possibility that it may be fatally flawed?? Has it ever occurred to you that practicing it may actually cause as much or more harm than good?
The Flaw:
Most other people are NOT like me in most ways.
What if they do NOT want to be treated
the same way I want to be treated?
What are some of the potential hazards or damages that could be the consequences of practicing the Golden Rule?
The Golden Rule is not wrong; however it only applies validly in a limited scope of situations. (Analogy: Newton’s Theory of Gravitation vs. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity)
The Upgrade:
Do unto others the way they want to be done unto.
Corollary 1:
Communicate with others in a way they can hear and understand. NLP principle: The meaning of a communication is its meaning to the receiver.
· This is responsibility of communicator!
Solution: Know your receiver or audience.
§ Do your homework
§ Start with more questions than statements – and listen to the answers.
§ Pause and allow of time for response and to read verbal and non-verbal communication for impact and understanding
§ Use Active Listening
Corollary 2:
Interact with others from the perspective they currently hold (even if different from yours - and even if you strongly disagree with and want to change it).
· Acknowledge and seek to understand their current paradigm and values - from their own point of view and prior to judging - in order to connect with and truly engage them in open, cooperative, mutually beneficial interaction.
· Translate your message into the language they speak.
· Show how seeing or doing things the ways you recommend would be in accordance with their current values, rather than yours, and would create results that are currently important to them, rather than you.
Applications:
· Being powerful leaders and managers
o Manage individuals in a manner that fits who they uniquely are and brings out their best.
o Reward people with things they value and recognize them in ways that they can appreciate.
o Coach people to use their own most effective approach to getting things done – avoid micromanaging.
· Selling and marketing with greater impact
o Connect with prospects in a mutual exploration of achieving mutual profit, rather that convincing them to buy from you.
o Communicate value propositions and benefits based on what’s important and valuable to them, rather than recite a generic list of features.
o Build personal rapport and relationships with prospects, rather than mere transactions.
· Conceiving, starting up, and growing a new business enterprise
o Design your business concept, products, and services to match the needs, values, and contexts of your investors, customers and clients. Business people who are guided in this only by their own likes and values risk being their only investor/customer/client.
· Leveraging diversity as a business asset
o Look for the value in what you don’t like and for the new learning or insight in what you disagree with.
o See differences as adding to your set of resources (tools, capabilities, ideas, variety of contacts, and solutions).
o Plan and build a structure for, full participation in communication, strategy and decision-making.
· Having better love, friendship and family relationships
o Try the “What Feels Like Love to Me” Top 10 List.