The Art of Asking For (and Getting) What You Need

By Orit Ramler

A few years ago, I made sure I let my family know that I wanted to really, truly celebrate the upcoming Mother's Day. In my mind, I was expecting breakfast, served in bed, as a perfect start. The day arrived, and, like any other day, breakfast was sitting on the kitchen table. No delivery. No bed tray. Nothing special. Everyone was too busy with sports or homework, and I was disappointed that my special request wasn’t met – until I realized that I had never actually articulated my desires. I had “breakfast in bed” in my head – but the request never made it out of my mouth.

How many times do you make requests that end up in disappointments? Or even worse, you expect something that you never even asked for in the first place? It can be breakfast in bed, asking a co-worker for a copy of a document (over and over again), asking for a report and getting half of the information you needed, expecting others to know what to do without any specific guidance, or getting advice from your boss but not really the advice you needed to get the job done.

As the song tells us, “you can’t always get what you want” – but here are five good tips that can tip the odds in your favor:

1- An effective request requires a committed speaker and a committed listener. Always ask for what you want and how you want it, rather than assuming that it is obvious to others. Make your request clear, and make sure you get the full attention you need. Stop making casual requests in the hallway, while distracted looking at your screen, or “by the way” requests. How you ask for things will determine how you will receive it in return!

2- An effective request must include a clear and shared understanding of your standards for satisfaction.  Share your conditions of satisfaction in order to have your request fulfilled exactly as you expect it to be. Provide all the details you are thinking of, unless it is a situation in which you are flexible and open to surprises. When I asked my son to clean his room, without going into details, he did just that. Later I learned that “clean” meant one thing to me and something totally different to him (hiding things in the closet or under the desk). Yes, after a while, people learn routines and they know how you like your coffee or what you need in a daily report, but until then it is important to be as clear as you can.

3- An effective request must include a clear deadline and a realistic agreement with those being asked. Let others know the time frame to meet your request. Things such as "at your earliest convenience", "as soon as possible" or "promptly" are not precise enough. What seems obvious to you might not be to the other person.  It is always good to pre-establish checkpoints for long-term requests to make sure things are on track.

4- An effective request must include the right context and mood shared by all parties involved. Make sure the right mood is set for your request. It is a fact that the right conversation in the wrong mood is the wrong conversation. It is preferable to wait to make a request than to just make it when the context or the emotions are not the adequate ones. In this case is better to take a break - this could be a request in itself - and come back for a fresh new start later on.

5- An effective request needs that those you are involving are capable of delivering. Verify that those you are making the request from have the capacity to fulfill it the way you expect. Don't just assume; check and verify with them.  This is good practice. If you are asking someone with a broken leg, on crutches, to go to get you a coffee with lots of milk from the busy cafeteria down the block, and bring it to you in the next 5 minutes before your next meeting, you might end up getting a late and cold latte!

The following Mother’s Day, I knew better. Sitting around the table, paying full attention to each member of my family, and in the right mood, I said, "I have a request to make for Mother's Day. I want to have breakfast served in bed on a tray with a red rose, with fresh squeezed orange juice, 2 scrambled eggs, 1 wheat toast with fat free butter. I want it at 9:00 am". Then I checked that everyone's schedule would allow for it, that they understood what I wanted and why it was important to me, and that they were ok with it. Every year now I get my tray in bed, and unless I want something different, I don’t need to request it anymore. The rest of the day is filled with surprises, which is always good too.

I didn’t want to leave my requests for my special day to chance – and now, using these five tips, you don’t have to leave any day to chance.

How Our Words Can Make It or Break It

How Our Words Can Make It or Break It

By Noa Peri-Jensch

Mark Twain once said “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” I think his statement perfectly sums up a recent challenge I had with one particular word.

I was recently exploring the opportunity to partner with a colleague in a joint venture. A part of this offer was to sign a contract highlighting the expectations of our work together. As much as I saw a great mutual benefit in this opportunity, it was difficult for me to commit. I felt stuck in the decision making process and couldn’t identify exactly what was holding me back. It wasn’t until I had a discussion with my colleague that it became obvious to me what was the problem: the word “CONTRACT”. While this word is used in so many contexts, to my subconscious it meant LACK OF TRUST (we have each other’s commitment, why do we need a contract?) and a sense of BEING LOCKED IN that wasn’t very comfortable to me. 

But of course, only my subconscious mind was aware of that. In the meantime, my conscious brain was looking for different excuses of why this partnership was not really going to work out.  When I finally questioned my own emotions and admitted that I loved the potential business opportunity but not the idea of a “CONTRACT”, my colleague offered me an alternative: “What if we call it an “AGREEMENT” instead?”

WOW. I could literately feel my muscles relaxing and my whole body shifting to a spa mode, all because of this new word, “AGREEMENT”. Agreement (I am part of it by choice) vs. Contract (I am locked in). Granted, while the document would be the same, each word carried a different vibe and meaning to me that generated an emotion.

Emotions are caused by our thoughts, and our thoughts are caused by our beliefs and experiences supported by our values. For example, for those of us who grew up reading the Grimm Brothers books, the word “Stepmother” is equivalent to undeniable evil (Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and Rapunzel - these poor kids…Where was Child Protective Services back then?!) However, this is a terrible misrepresentation to the wonderful, most loving and caring stepmothers out there.  It is possible that our understanding of our perceived emotions is based on fiction or beliefs that hold no ground in present time or in our real lives.

I had once coached a finance executive (let’s call him Mike) in the pharmaceutical industry who was having a hard time obtaining job offers once he had relocated back to the States after many years working abroad. In efforts to fit right back in corporate American culture, he had forgotten the power of words and emotions. Here’s a typical example: Mike would get a job offer and become very excited. He would then thank the HR director and say that he would have his lawyer look into the offer and get back to her in a few days. To his dismay, within 24 hours, the HR director would call back, apologizing that the company had decided to hold back hiring for this position at this point in time or another politically correct answer that basically said: “really? You haven’t even started working here and you are already talking about lawyers??!”    I truly believe that Mike’s subconscious was trying to guide him to act in a way he felt would make him look even more professional and detailed oriented (as the company would have certainly liked him to be), however his words (and choice of tone) would be turning him in the wrong direction. When we talked more about the gap between his intentions and the actual impact, we were able to look at the language he was using and the emotions they would generate in different situations with different people and certain moments.

So how can we make sure we carefully use the right word instead of the almost right word? I guess this depends on the underline values we each hold and the emotional attachment that we place to words individually. I’ve learned that it is a good investment taking the time to understand what does a word truly mean to me and realize that it may hold a completely different meaning to someone else. Pausing to think, seeking for input from others and asking for clarification might be the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

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Balancing Our Heads and Our Hearts

Balancing Our Heads and Our Hearts
by Jane Stein
jane@myjewishcoach.com

Several weeks ago I was facilitating a board of Directors’ retreat for one of my nonprofit clients.  I had invited the Chairman of the Board of a larger client organization, a gentleman who had retired from a Fortune 500 company as a very senior vice president, to do a lunch talk about what he believed it took to build the very best nonprofit board.  In his remarks, he spoke about how when he was working in the for profit world, life was simple…all goals were clearly defined, all decisions were made with his head.  But when he entered the universe of the nonprofits, he found very quickly that all decisions had to be a balance between his head and his heart.

How we handle this balance is different for all of us….a hungry child needs our food banks to have shelves and shelves and shelves filled with food….but for our food banks to have shelves and shelves and shelves filled with food, we need to do a whole lot of food raising and fund raising.  We need our homeless families to have a safe place to shelter….but keeping those shelters safe and actually operating at all, means we need a whole lot of real estate and a whole of case management … and that means we need a whole lot of money.  The children, individuals and families who come to our Jewish Family Services need a whole lot of program and clinical services….and guess what…that means a whole lot of money….and our JCC’s…oy! Do they need a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY!

When we sit on the boards or are a part of the staff of a nonprofit we are a part of a huge continuum of services. We work to lift those in our community up through Maslow’s Hierarchy (you know the one: food, safety and shelter first, and then if you are lucky, one day you can rise up through education and meaningful employment to “self actualization” whatever the heck that is!) If we do not find the balance between our heads and our hearts, we will find that wonderful 501(C)3 that we love so dearly has to close its doors.

Finding this balance is not an option.  It is one of the two responsibilities of Board membership (governance and support). Being the best board member possible means being fiscally responsible no matter how compelling the face of that one more child you could be serving may be. If you have no organization because you had to close the doors, what good are you to anyone?  And being professional staff at any of our nonprofit organizations does not mean working for slave wages, but it does mean working as efficiently and effectively as possible so that every dollar is wisely spent.

I encourage every organization with which I work to understand the mantra “No money, no mission!”  (More on this subject in future blogs!)  And I encourage them all to understand that we choose to work with nonprofit organizations because all of that heart stuff is built right in.

I always believe that our mission when we work with nonprofits, is to help to repair some part of our tired, worn out world.  And of course all of us, representing so many of the very best of the nonprofits in our Jewish world, understand this mission from the very core of our being….we work (for financial remuneration or for no financial remuneration at all) because we so deeply believe that we were placed on this earth to make a contribution to this repair, and to do it under the Kingship of G-d. 

So……does this mean we lead more with our hearts than with our heads?  You bet! 

 

Why Being Spock Rocks: The Power of Not Being the #1

by Donna Schwartz, MyJewishCoach.com 

For many years I wanted to be an Executive Director of a non-profit.  As a person who is very goal oriented, I was always aware of what my next career move should be.  And over the past 18 years I’ve managed to advance my career just about every 4 years.  So naturally, my internal alarm clock started ticking when I had been in my current position as the Assistant Director of my JCC for over 4 years.  After a lot of careful consideration, I’ve come to realize that being the second in charge is the right seat on the bus for me.  Here are the reasons why I thing being in the number 2 seat is the best location:

1.     1. You are not the ultimate authority but you still get to celebrate all the agency wins.  It’s like being the assistant coach of your child’s little league team.  When the team wins you get credit for the win but when the parent of the child who didn’t get to play complains, they go directly to the head coach.

2.      2. Your position can be tailored to your strengths and can change with you as your grow.  As the second in command, I can still do the things I love.  I have a passion for fundraising and throwing large-scale events.  This wasn’t part of my original job description but doing these things gives me job satisfaction and it’s great for the organization.

3.      3. You are the pulse of the day-to-day operations.  Everyday is different and you are the one that everyone usually comes to for help and advice.  The Executive Director’s time is usually very scarce which makes you the go to person for staff.

4.      4. You don’t always to have to be the face of the agency.  As the Executive Director, your job is to shake hands and kiss a lot of babies.  When you are at an event the Executive Director is the one that always has to make the speeches.  As the Assistant Executive Director, you can be behind the scenes and not have to be in front of everyone.

The money and prestige of being number one comes at a price.  For many this is worth it but for me the above reasons out weigh my ego’s need to chant “I’m number 1!”  I’m happy being Spock to my Captain Kirk.