“Attitude” is a funny thing. We often talk about attitude, refer to it, judge it as “good” or “bad”, and yet it is very difficult for us to really get our arms around what it really is. In situations involving persuasion, tact, diplomacy, etc. we are all aware there is a right attitude for the situation and a wrong one. If we ask twelve people “What is the right attitude for selling?” we’ll likely get a dozen different answers. And ultimately every one of them is potentially right. And wrong. The only sure judge of the right attitude is whether it worked in the sense that it produced the outcome/relationship you expected. But the same attitude won’t likely work the same way every time. So it is important to have more distinction around this idea – more understanding of what “attitude” is, how it comes to be, and how we can control it.
Attitude is complicated. There are numerous components that make up any person’s attitude – each component overlaying and coloring the others resulting in a singular “Attitude” that those around us perceive. Arrogance, authenticity, confidence, interest, defensiveness, pessimism, passion, doubt, nervousness, exuberance, optimism, etc. might all contribute to what somebody perceives as your attitude. I’ve seen plenty of customer facing situations where a person had 9 out of 10 components of their attitude just right… but a slight dose of condescending disrespect or arrogance or disinterest in what their counterpart was saying spoiled everything that they were trying to accomplish in the meeting.
Attitude is tough to coach as well… that is unless you possess some fundamental tools for discussing it. The associated video on this blog page is an excerpt from one of our workshops that deals with attitude in the context of our interpersonal communications. The video will provide some understanding about attitude and how we can control it. Please take a look and let us know what you think by leaving a comment or pressing “Like” on the video’s YouTube page. By the way, there is more information about the video and the workshop on that YouTube page. Thanks!
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