NLP for people who like to think for themselves!
She didn’t dither nor mess about. She got straight to the point. She wanted information which she knew she had a right to and she expected me to give to her!
Her email arrived today via our web contact form and read: ‘I am actually getting fear of closed spaces I want to treat myself and help my followers in my sports profession.. many undergoing these symptoms.’
That’s it – exactly as it arrived (apart from her contact details, of course. No attempt to create rapport. No real information. No reason for me to respond. )
The pe2000.com website
The message came via our pe2000.com website which provides free information about how we can manage our emotions and deal more effectively with anger, panic, fears, phobias and so on. Most of the information is based on my experience and observations from working with individual clients as a psychotherapist and with groups as a stress management trainer since 1984.
The information does not require payment nor is it subscription-dependent. It is available to everyone – and has been since I first put it online 12 years ago, when I decided to concentrate more on developing Pegasus NLP. And, judging from the emails I receive and the visitor stats, a lot of people seem to find it useful.
‘Gimme, gimme’….now!
However over the years I have also encountered a minority of what might be called ‘Gimme, gimme’ people – enquirers who believe that I should help them without their having to even be courteous let alone create rapport.
Their attitude is like the three-year old who stomps her feet and demands ‘Give me, give me! I want, I want!’
The attitude goes like this ‘I want something, yeah! That’s good enough, isn’t it – so somebody better give it to me!’ This ‘I have a right to whatever I want’ attitude is one that I’ve come across in the non-digital world, too, and it seems to have become more common over the past decade or so.
NINO in relationships
There is a broadly accepted recognition of win-win (i.e. that if you want something in life you have to do something to get it) which a lot of people seem to have missed out on learning.
Win-win is a value-for-value approach to human relationships and to creating rapport. If you want money you have to work for it. If you want people to like you have to work on being likeable. If you want a favour from someone you have to have developed a relationship with them.
Long, long before the IT and computer acronym of GIGO (garbage in – garbage out) there was a broad recognition of the reality of NINO (nothing in – nothing out) even if this acronym has only just been invented my me… 
NINO means you have to put something into a relationship before you can expect to get a return – or make demands – or claim your ‘rights’. (By the way, check out Stephen Covey’s really wonderful Emotional Bank Account metaphor on Google – it more comprehensively describes the same concept.)
The email I mentioned above is an attempt to withdraw without having first made an investment. I do quite a few of these ‘Gimme, gimme’ demands for guidance and help. I usually I respond – and I’ll probably respond to her too because, after all, she’s given me an idea for a two-part blog article!
(This has been Part 1 – the second part of this article tells about one of my most uncomfortable yet useful lessons in relationships and in business… And it will be online in a few days.)
My previous employer (large US retailer) insisted that all purchasing transactions were on a win-win basis. If you couldn’t get win-win, there was no deal.
In fact the most value was derived from taking the time to understand the opposite party’s position and explaining your own (Different perspectives in a buying scenario) Once the rapport was built, the real benefits usually revealed themselves, as time invested in understanding the other persons perspective allowed for new and different solutions to be found.
For me the difference being talking with someone NOT at someone, which has so many applications -it’s a little scary!
The most striking aspect of the article above for me is the casual reference to the free information on the pe2000.com website, which is only casually referred to.
Observation of other people’s “gimme-gimme” behaviour is usually pretty easy; observation of your own “give-away” behaviour also tends to be easy (for example, the website mentioned above). The two areas that tend to be less directly obvious (for whatever reason) are the ones that are seen as less directly in our own, selfish, short-term interests:
1) My own “gimme-gimme” behaviour; and
2) Other people’s “give-away” behaviour.
A focus on the first can help us (in anything other than the immediately short term) with improving our rapport and relationships with others. The latter can help us develop much greater respect and value for others.
Of course, there will be times when you do “give-away” and the reward is akin to pouring liquid gold into a black hole, but, as long as there are enough people in your life who operate in more of a “win-win” fashion, the odd black hole here and there is nothing to worry about…they all implode in the end.
Interesting comment about the large US retailer, Sarah. A decade ago I was running an on-going customer-focus training with a big retailer in Ireland.
The MD had a bit of a fit when he discovered that I had introduced a similar ‘win-win’ recommendation to the staff – especially to those selling big-ticket items.
He required a bit of convincing – and I did have to slightly water down the message… And I wonder if win-win approach lasted very long after the training ended.
Hi Simon: yep, agree – especially with the final paragraph and “as long as there are enough people who operate in more of a win-win fashion”.
Thing is that the win-lose people are very numerous and I’ve noticed how their ‘grab all you can from those win-win idiots’ attitude has embittered many win-win people to the point where they changed sides.