I am sure every business person has experienced some level of awkwardness from running into someone who several months (or years) ago they left an assortment of different messages with on a business deal they were working on and got no response from any of the messages. Yes, it happens and sometimes there are some obvious real life reasons for the disconnect of communications. Then, again..there maybe other things behind why the business relationship went south. This awkward, sometime embarrassing, situation could have been avoided if another level of relationship building communication was used during the initial stages of the association.
What causes the awkwardness of this encounter comes from not knowing if the non-response to the messages was due to it being the recipient’s way of blowing the other person off or if there was a technical issue keeping the message from being delivered..something like an earthquake knocking their house out into the Pacific Ocean…or something like that. Anxiety naturally builds towards the excuse they are going to give and how they will handle an unexpected run-in. If this has not happened to you, well, it will eventually, especially if you are like many other business people who use only email and other electronic methods of communications to keep up with business dealings.
Possible Reasons
I am sure there are legitimate reasons why email messages are not received. Having ones Spamware set to it’s max of scanning could cause the deletion of important emails. In the analog environment, many people will leave a voicemail. Logically, the lack of response to a voicemail message could be related to ones voicemail box being full or even worse, phone company may be experiencing dropped messages. Again, both of these possibilities of missed communications could develop into a business deal or personal relationship disconnecting.
However, in today’s business world many of these cases of missed communications are the result of the recipient intentionally ignoring the messages he/she receives from someone. Yes, many people use the logical happening of Spamware as the resolve to what they say happened to the email and the full voicemail box would be the reason for what happened to the voicemail when in actually the messages were blatantly deleted: read and deleted; listened to and then deleted or any other form of avoidance to the communication the recipient chose. Either way, it was their way of ignoring the deal, or more probable, the person instead of confronting them to say ‘Thanks, but no thanks’. In these people’s minds the ‘White lie’ keeps them from appearing negative. Easily leaving the resolve of this belated encountered to a remark like …
“OH, my spamware must of ate it..” or ”I have been having trouble with my voicemail lately..that dam AT&T.”
Smiley Face at All Cost
The appearance of being negative is totally traumatic to some people. Sidestepping anything requiring negative action is becoming an obsession with some people. Why? Many of the smiley faces do not know how to confront mistrust in others in a positive way.
In my mentoring and coaching sessions I am hearing from more and more people who want someone else to be the bad guy in their business relations. I spend hours finding out why someone takes the road to avoidance of a unpleasant situation before I can get to what is causing the negativity in these people’s business lives. The feeling of being rejected or appearing to be a ‘meanie’ is petrifying for these people. I’ll leave the therapy for this condition to the doctors, but what I find is causing most of these people’s disconnects from communications has to deal with Distrust.
This method of non-communication to avoid saying ‘No’ is growing and increasing to such a point today that business people are assuming if they have not received a response from their communication within 24 hours they are being blown off. BUT, are they? There is always that question lingering.
The avoidance of appearing negative is causing problems in the business world. The realities of business cannot always be painted with a smiley face which disturbs the smiley face people. These bright eyed individuals deal with business’s pleasantries well by not dealing with reality and to circle themselves with others with ‘Positive Only’ attitudes. These people will miss out on a lot of great deals for the sake of staying away from saying ‘No’. However, there are other more obvious situations causing business communication disconnects.
Distrust as a Rule
Business is moving faster and faster each day. Deals (very profitable deals) are being missed because people would rather default to saying nothing as their form of rejection, or decline, of the offer, than make a response to close on not making a deal. Then, on the other hand, there are deals being missed and business relationship being tainted because of a legitimate reason caused by communications actually being broken. For the lesser technically inclined broken communication probably happening to them frequently.
Generally the way these situations begin is with a business person meeting another and a deal is developed. A message will follow via email. The pleasantries of productive information start flowing, ideas start bouncing and then..what happened?…no response!.
Does this mean the person is still thinking about the deal? Does it mean they are out of the office? Does it mean they are not interested any longer?
Then the person initiating the last communications starts to feel, ‘Did I just get blown off?’ ‘Did the spamware kill the business deal?’
In some cases the disconnect did have a legit reason, but in a growing number of cases I have reviewed recently the last communication had nothing to do with the reason for disconnect. What caused the pullback was based on how the relationship, the discussions, the meetings and side bar conversations were handled. If the conversations were only conducted via the sterile environment of cyberspace the disconnect is usually made from the basic instinct humans have of the fear of the unknown. Some people distrust anyone..and in some cases..anything. The internet, email and phones calls does not provide enough trust for the distrusting.
The distrust developed in most of these situations has to deal with the two parties not knowing each other very well. If there was no effort to making an ‘in person’ communication then ignoring the deal usually is based on not really knowing who the person is they are dealing with in business.
Sometimes, even after a phone call,or several phone calls are made, knowing who the person really is still is not certain. What helps the most is finding away to physically meet for the purpose of getting to know each other. Statically, a person is more apt to raise the level of the business relationship once they physically see the person. Video conferencing, phone calls and all of the latest gadgetry invented to bring people together online will never satisfy the human instinct of physical presence. Humans can tell more about a person from their body language than from their written or even spoken language.
This basic instinct to trust only what can be seen holds true for the smiley face people as well. After they have spend time in a none threatening environment getting to know someone better they learn how to say No with a smile.
Real Solution
However, there is still no certainty all the ‘eye-to-eye’ meetings will develop trust in someone. Well rehearsed presentations and silver tongued sales people can still do a good job in displaying trust when there really is some deception going on. Sometimes more time has to be spent building a business relationship in a situation that has little to do with talking business.
The BEST tool I have found for checking out a person’s intentions is Business Golf. It is a character evaluator. If you play golf you understand what this is about. If you do not, then you need to learn to play golf to fine out how powerful Golf is in revealing the characteristics of the person who is going to blow you off or go into a deal with you.
Don’t let the spamware and voicemail deletion rational waste your time in thinking that someone is going to contact you back. Get out and play golf with the person..if they don’t play golf, invite them to a golf school so they can learn. If they still insist in not playing or learning golf..then that could be telling you something. Business Golf is the best investment anyone’s business can make and it will save you from those awkward gathers where you feel you have to say…
Say, I never heard back from the email message I sent you..or message I left on your voicemail.
…sometimes the answer to this remark could lead to distrust.
Let me know how I can help.
