Communicating Compassion

Have you ever been so fed up with the poor customer service at an establishment that you left, even if it meant inconveniencing yourself by having to drive an extra mile or two to visit another location of the same company, or one of their competitors? I have, many times in the past, in fact. I am getting better about it lately, however – mostly, I believe, because I am attracting fewer unruly or unsatisfactory experiences, overall.

I had one occur yesterday, though – the first in quite some time. This was interesting, too, because although I did leave the store without making a purchase, it was not because the proprietor was rude to me. Rather, it had to do with the way he behaved toward other customers.

I won’t pretend this is an easy situation. In fact, having just posted a blog about judgment at Dangerous Tea Party, I am trying to figure out how to utilize this episode as a learning experience without sliding down that slippery slope into judgment.

The Details

As I walked into the FoodMart at a Chevron gas station, the proprietor was shouting angrily at a woman that she needed to “get off his property!” He yelled that he’d already told her to leave once, and she hadn’t left – now he needed her to leave IMMEDIATELY. In my effort to understand, I assessed the woman. She didn’t appear drunk. She had no shopping cart or even a bag with her. She wasn’t dirty or unkempt. Do I have any idea what preceded his angry outburst? No – because I wasn't there to see the precipitating incidient. Perhaps she had tried to steal something from the store. Maybe she’d had an altercation with someone in the shop. Fact is, this angry man might have had a very good reason for his obviously outraged reaction to this woman.


Until he resumed his position behind the counter, that is, to continue collecting payment from the line that had grown while he was outside throwing the woman off his property. He challenged a man in the line, “And you know I don’t want her here, but you bring her here anyway.”

The guy replied, “Hey, I’m just trying to pay for my drink.”

But Mr. Angry Chevron Proprietor was not done. He continued loudly, “No. I said, ‘Don’t bring her here,’ but you did. You brought her back on my property. You know – I want you out, too.” And he started screaming again. “You get out of here – get off my property, NOW!”

My Response

At which point I decided I didn’t need to buy gas or anything else at this particular gas station, so I took my money and went out those front doors, thinking to myself, “I will never do business here again.” But I’m not sure that’s the proper answer either. I find myself struggling with this idea of judging the proprietor – and that certainly is what I am doing, by deciding his behavior was so over-the-top, in my estimation, that I will never shop there again, particularly as I still don’t know what exactly led up to his banning the woman from his property.

I am not a shop owner, so I can only imagine what it must be like to deal with drunks, homeless, addicts, and panhandlers, particularly as they so often meander outside convenience stores and gas stations, accosting patrons and making people generally uncomfortable. These unsightly, unseemly people no doubt have a financial impact on business establishments, as well as influencing the caliber of clientele, and the shop-owners are fully within their right to protect their businesses and their customers.

Poor decision-making never robs
an individual of his or her humanity.

I suppose what I’m hoping for, though, is a little bit of compassion. Having seen many a belligerent shop owner's response to a vagrant, my heart instinctively empathizes with the transient. Now, I am not denying that their choices led these individuals to the place where they are in their lives. They have volition, and responsibility for their decisions. But poor decision-making never robs an individual of his or her humanity. These shop owners have reached such a level of frustration, though, that they no longer can view the drunk, homeless, panhandling addict as a person; they see them only as a problem that needs correcting. And the obvious solution is to hurl them off the property as quickly as possible. I can’t help but think that for some, if erecting a moat or a wall with a sentry on duty wouldn’t adversely affect sales, they would jump right on it.

As I said before, there’s no easy answer here. I must keep in mind the Chevron guy’s desire to preserve a business he likely worked hard to build. But what I also wish is that he could keep in mind the effect his shouting has on both the individual he is confronting, and all the rest of us who must witness the confrontation.

You Don't Have to Be a GREAT Writer to Communicate Well

My particular literary gift is making other people's words sound better, clearer, more professional, funnier, more interesting, more persuasive. "Better" takes on all shapes and sizes because I work with all shapes and sizes of writers, each with varying degrees of skill.

Regarding the specifics of writing skills, a recent conversation comes to mind. I was talking with a woman from a networking group I belong to. She has an interesting product, and an even more compelling personal reason for promoting the product. Such seems to be the case for many in the direct marketing field, as those in other segments of sales. More often than not, people sell products or services they believe in. It just makes marketing easier if you are enthusiastic and engaged in the product or service you're promoting.

As a marketing advisor who enables my clients to use their writing to promote their goods and services, my natural first question to my friend was, "Have you ever considered writing an article about your involvement with products that promote a healthy environment for kids?" Her response to me was one I hear again and again – and the very reason I have a thriving practice:

"I can't write at all."

Let me offer various translations of that for you:

• "It's been a long time since I've written anything and I'm just terribly out of practice as a writer."


• "A long time ago, someone told me my writing wasn't very good."


• "For a long laundry list of reasons, I lack confidence about my writing."


• "I have great ideas, but it's impossible to get them out of my head, down onto paper."


• "I always get writers' block every time I try to write something, even an e-mail."

Almost anything but, "I'm atually just a terrible writer."

And even terrible writers can still have fantastic messages. One of my longest-term clients is one of the worst writers I've ever known. But he's brilliant and has an amazing amount of information to share. Most importantly, though, he recognizes his weakness and hires someone (moi) to compensate for his deficiency in the area of written communication.

The truth is that most people just need more confidence and more practice to become better writers. Writing is like most skills: if you don't use it, you lose it – at least to a certain degree.

Another way to become a better writer is to become a better reader. Study writing that appeals to you, paying attention to sentence structure, word choices, cadence, tone, etc. Practice mimicking that author's style with your own writing.

There are hundreds of books and tools out there to help you, as well. Just Google "book" and "become a better writer" and you will almost immediately have more resource choices than you could ever hope to read in a lifetime.

One last way to make writing easier for you, if it's the writing part that has always been a struggle for you, is to dictate – speak instead of write. Services like www.idictate.com and www.copytalk.com offer unbelievable steals on dictation services that arrive in your e-mailbox like magic. So think about talking your next book or article, instead of being fearful of that blank page.

Whatever you do, make sure you share your message with the world. You were blessed with talents and skills, and part of honoring your human contract is by using them as widely as possible.

Understanding the actual request

How often do we hear a question or receive a request and completely misunderstand or miss the point?

This happened recently in my Toastmasters club. We had a request to make a presentation to a group of employees for a local company about how the participants could improve their public speaking skills.

Understandably, our leadership saw this as a great opportunity to promote Toastmasters, an organization whose mission is precisely that — to enable individuals to practice and perfect their public speaking skills. However, the request from the company was not for us to come in and sell Toastmasters to their employees. It was to teach them some public speaking basics.

Public speaking basics include such things as:

• Knowing your audience
• Knowing the goals for your presentation (persuasion, entertainment, damage control, sales, motivation, etc.)
• Writing your speech out ahead of time — but focusing primarily on the opening and conclusion — that it's OK to extemporize the middle
• Knowing that sometimes you just have to throw out the speech you've prepared and wing it — if it's not working, the subject is not fitting the audience, you've lost them and they are falling asleep, etc.
• Understanding how important rehearsing ahead of time is Remembering to BREATHE while you're up there
• Mastering use of the space
• What to do with your hands
• The importance of vocal variety
• How to incorporate props approriately
• Trying to work without notes as much as possible
• Remembering to have fun — if you're bored, scared, or nervous, your audience will sense that and you will be much less effective

In our enthusiasm to demonstrate our Toastmasterability, we came close to missing the mark entirely. Although I believe that we should not miss the opportunity to make a pitch for the attendees to think about joining a Toastmasters club — or forming their own internal club — I believe that should be only as a small segment at the END of our presentation. The thing is, if they want to know more about Toastmasters, all they have to do is visit any meeting. A Toastmasters sales pitch was not their request and it should not be our sole focus.

How often, though, do we do this in our businesses and in our lives? It's sometimes hard work to understand what people want when they ask questions or make requests — but if we want to be the best communcators we can be, we must get to the core of the actual question and answer that. To do otherwise convolutes the process and can lead to some sticky situations and, in the case of personal relationships, potential hurt feelings.

Three basic rules of communication:

1. Say what you mean.
2. Make sure you understand the question that is being asked.
3. Speak your truth (with honesty and integrity, always).