It's a Team's Life

Dissenters

Much time is spent on the negative instead of the positive feedback or even our own good feelings over something we have accomplished. With social media when we do something the feedback is almost instantaneous.

During the past couple of months some of what I have seen posted has made me scratch my head wondering where these folks got their "facts". Here are a couple of the really bizarre:

We do not haul freight as we only go from show to show
We do not own our truck

I could spend time arguing these facts online or I can spend my time more wisely continuing to lead by example and be of assistance to others when asked. We strive to be the best that we can be in our field of Expediting and in this niche of trucking we often achieve less miles, less weight, for more money. It is all about customer service and the ability to provide solutions to a customer in need of special services.

This blog of Seth Godin's helps me to stay balanced and focused on what I can change and not waste time when someone wants to become "squeaky" over something that is not true or not possible to do in a straight truck.

Taken from Seth Godin's daily blog:

There are always dissenters for every statement, for every life change, and for everything written. How much time is wasted trying to make the 2% agree with us or to get them to understand what we are saying.

The 2% who misunderstand you

Sometimes, it's essential that you be completely understood. That every passenger knows where the emergency exit is, or that every employee knows how it is we do things around here.

But most of the time, if 2% of your audience doesn't get the joke, doesn't learn what you seek to teach them, doesn't understand the essence of your argument, it's not the problem you think it is.

Sure, the 2% who are under informed can write reviews, tweet indignantly and speak up. You know what? It doesn't matter that much.

If you insist on telling everyone on the airplane precisely how to buckle their seatbelt (!), then yes, of course you're going to not only waste the time of virtually everyone, but you're going to train them not to listen to the rest of what you have to say.

If you insist on getting every single person in the room to understand every nuance of your presentation, you've just signed up to bore and alienate the very people you needed most.

When you find yourself overwriting, embracing redundancy and overwhelming people with fine print, you're probably protecting yourself against the 2%, at the expense of everyone else. (And yes, it might be 10% or even 90%.... that's okay).

When we hold back and dumb down, we are hurting the people who need to hear from us, often in a vain attempt to satisfy a few people who might never choose to actually listen.

It's quite okay to say, "it's not for you."