[MUSIC] So let's talk about the bad example first. So in that scene, we basically see a manager who asks what else is going on. The employee tells her what's going on but the manager completely invalidates it. She says, well, it's not really what you think, don't worry about it, I'm sure they didn't mean it. So in that moment where essentially watching trust get completely eroded in that relationship. The managers says, I think you should just let's it go and Elaine says she'll try. But you can just tell that Elaine is not impressed with this response. Elaine is probably going to be much less likely to share any concerns with that manager because she knows she will just feel dismissed. Based on the conversation, the manager saying that, you'll get better with the new system. She might even think that this manager agrees with the other employees. This is something to be very aware of as a manager. When someone brings a problem to you, you've got to remember, you don't have to fix the problem. But you certainly don't want to be dismissive. What you want to do is help your employee understand what they're thinking and see if that's really where the work needs to be done. If there is an egregious issue going on at work, of course you want to address that as a manager. But if we just have someone who's not sure how to speak up or defend themselves, this is a great skill set for her to develop. If you assume you need to fix the problem, you might not want to and then you'll end up being just like this bad manager. Where you sort of dismiss it. Instead, try to find out what they're thinking about on cover how they might be able to retool their perspective to get a different result for themselves. If it is significant enough issue then of course you can do something to address it as a manager. So now let's look at the good example. The manager first asks the employee to explain what was going on. The employee told her, well, they're saying these kind of things about me and my skill set. Maybe I should go to the training again. And then, the manager asked with a few additional questions. What do you tell yourself when this is happening. Why does this bother you? What we do, when we ask those questions is we find out about what the employee is thinking. We learned the circumstance is the colleague said, maybe you should take the training again? What we find out is, that Elaine interprets that to mean, I'm not doing as good of a job as I could or should be. The manager points out to her that even though the colleague is the one who said, maybe you should take the training again, the employee, Elaine, is actually believing her and that she's not doing a good enough job. So that becomes her thought. The circumstance is an employee, saying you should take the training again. And Elaine thinks I'm not doing as good of a job as I should be. Then, the manager said, how do you feel when you think that, when you believe that? Elaine said, well, I feel disappointed. And then, the manager asked, well, what do you do when you feel disappointed in those meetings? And Elaine said, well, I shut down, and then the result is very clear. I'm not participating, I am letting myself down. I'm not doing as good of a job as I could be. The originating thought proves the result's true or vice versa. So then, the manager does a really good job of helping the employee recognize that she's believing something and it's not just that the employee is speaking. As many of you might know I do a lot of work around dealing with difficult people as well as coaching. Dealing with difficult people is a unique art. Because what we want most when we're dealing with someone who is difficult, is for them to change so we feel better. But what we know for sure is that people don't change unless they want to. We have to really be prepared to know that people will say things at any given time to us. And that isn't something we can control, what we can control as this manager points out is what we want to believe about ourselves, or who we want to be in it. What the manager is doing here, is doing a little bit of heavy lifting. It's helping the employee recognize there is something else she could choose to focus on instead of what the other people say to her. As long as we put our goal of other people changing out there and that's how we're going to make ourselves feel better is when they change, we're not going to get what we want. But if we can decide well you know what people are going to say stuff. On any given day, someone is going to say something to me, but I get to decide who I want to be in that moment. That's so much more empowering. Once the result has been identified, we then see the manager go backwards through the Thought Model by asking the question, what would you like your result to be? Elaine said, well, I don't want it to bother me and I'd like to speak up. And what do you need to do to do that? She said, well, I probably would need to prepare, I would need to practice. The manager said, okay, what do you need to feel to take that kind of action to be prepared? And she said, confident. Then the coach asked her, what do you have to believe, what do you have to think, that helps you feel confident? And she said, that I'm taking steps to learn what I need to learn. Which is It's true, right? We've already seen that Elaine is putting a plan in place to develop that skill set. This is an example of using the Thought Model to uncover what is causing the employee distress or discomfort and affecting performance and their behavior. And then, helping them to walk back up the model from the result to get to a new way of thinking to help them get a different outcome for themselves. Lastly, this manager offers to role play. How could you say those things? How could you have a response prepared for the next time someone says something you're not comfortable with? I love that the coach says, you know what? Role playing is so important because if you've never said something before how can you expect to be an expert at it? We have to recognize that as managers we can't just tell people to do stuff because if they've never done it, how would they know how? So this scene was an excellent example of how the Thought Model can first be used to help someone identify their thinking and the results that they are getting and are not happy with. And then, use it to help someone identify the result they would like to have. And what they ultimately have to think in order to get there.