Thinking for the Client

There is a joke about a woman who explains to her doctor that she hasn't visited him for a long time as she has been feeling ill recently. Likewise, I haven't written anything on this blog for a while because I have been too busy working. At home, too, I've been busier than expected. I never thought a five-year old's birthday could make one feel so tired! Our son turned five at the beginning of this month, and we decided to take all the stress and organisation out of it by having the party in a place called Gibon, which is a large indoor children's adventure centre not far from where we live. My wife phoned and made all the arrangements, booked the Scooby Doo Room for the time and day we wanted, in the name of the Birthday Boy, and asked for an animator, a person who would lead the party and give the fifteen five-year olds tasks, run games, and generally ensure the parents had less to do with the children. She left her name and number as contact details.
A few days later, she received a call from the centre's manager, who said that they had noticed the bay's name was not Polish, nor was my wife's surname, and wanted to know if we would prefer the animator to speak English.
If you think about it, the manager did not need a large amount of detective skills to see an Irish first name, and that one of the mother's surname's is Irish, and conclude that the child probably speaks English. I'm sure that our son was the only Sean among the Jaceks and Macieks and Olas and Julkas in Gibon's history of birthday parties, so it didn't even require careful checking for the name to jump out and be noticed. However, what the manager did then was simple, yet rare and greatly appreciated. she took the initiative of contacting us and asking if we wished something different from what we asked.
My son speaks Polish (better than English, to my frustration), and all of his friends are Polish, so an English-speaking animator wasn't necessary, but before the manager phoned my wife, we didn't even know that it was possible to hire one. Often, if you don't know that the possibility to have something exists, you don't ask for it.
A colleague once told me of his visit to a dentist. He had booked the visit to get a filling for two of his teeth. After she had finished the job, he mentioned that he felt pain in a different part of his mouth. She replied that it may be due to the cavity in a tooth on the other side of his mouth. My colleague asked why she hadn't filled that cavity while she was working on the other two, to which she answered that he had booked the visit to take care of the other two teeth, which she had filled, and as he hadn't complained about the pain before, she didn't think he wanted it done.
I know teeth are more serious than a five-year-old's birthday party (except to the five-year-old!), but this example shows the contrast between thinking a little bit for your client, showing initiative -however small- and doing what you're told. I have no problem in recommending Gibon for any child's birthday party, but I'm not sure if my colleague would recommend his dentist.
Once again I seem to have written about Client Management rather than Communication, but the fact is that the little piece of empathy shown when talking to someone will help create, or build, the connection during the conversation. If both parties continue to imagine the situation from the other side, the working relationship becomes better and better, and before you know it, your conversation partner is telling everybody to take their five-year-old to your place. Make sure that's what you want, though!