I just got back from a short vacation at one of the most remarkable places I’ve ever been. I’m not saying exactly where I went, but suffice it to say, it was paradise. As is inevitable when traveling, I did see a few instances of people acting with a sense of entitlement along the way, including:
- A guy at ORD who left his McD garbage on the table for someone else to clean up.
- The guy who tried to take 3 of the resort’s 8 daybeds… for his party of 5 people.
- The guy who introduced his 6-year old daughter to me and my kids on the beach… and then left her to play in the ocean surf near us while he went for a jog.
Now, I have no idea what the guy at O’Hare was thinking, but “inferiority complex” comes to mind. Maybe he should have come to this resort with us… he would have met people (not us) paying $17,000/night for a private beachfront house. (Yes, you read the number correctly.) That would have put him in his place. Then again, maybe putting him in his place would have reconfirmed his assholitic tendencies when in the company of so-called “lesser men.”
The daybed guy argued that since he was paying for two hotel rooms, he should be able to grab multiple daybeds. The head chair/daybed bouncer explained to him that he, along with the aforementioned $17,000/night payers and everyone else, were all on the same don’t-be-a-schmuck plan when it came to grabbing beds, and that 5 people didn’t need seating for 12.
And the guy who left his daughter? He didn’t get far. I caught up to him and explained the concepts of “undertow,” “mouthful of seawater,” and “there’s no lifeguard on duty” until he came back.
Yet, these instances were the exceptions.
I witnessed some truly spectacular service, multiple random acts of kindness, and general rule of goodwill on this trip, which was nearly always returned. And based on my observations these past few days, I found that there’s a way to often stop entitlement before it starts. Here’s what it takes to diffuse the ugly:
- Proactive kindness. Being nice to someone often elicits a reciprocal response, especially if they were expecting a fight.
- Training. Smiling in the face of selfishness does not come naturally.
- Genuineness. Proactive smiles only work if you believe there is something truly good in the person.
- Consistency. When your genuineness is tested, you don’t falter.
- Speed of action. Problems are addressed immediately, before they linger even for a moment.
- Realism. The moment you realize you won’t get through to someone, you don’t get upset, you don’t ask why, you just walk away.
- Speed of thought. Doing all this means being direct and decisive. That not only takes training, but mental agility, too. You have to be able to draw connections, as the daybed bouncer did when he reminded Mr. I-paid-for-two-rooms of Mr.-I-paid-for-a-friggin’-house.
Entitlement is out there. Are you ready to put it to rest?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Enjoyable post!
@Joe—Enjoyable comment!
Thank you!
i’m big on #1. it is disarming, plus it’s just plain fun to make it one’s mission to crack some curmudgeon’s steely, rude surface.
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@Fran—The irony is that you often ruin the curmudgeon’s day, simply by taking away the fight. And anyone who’s day is ruined by an absence of bombast deserves to have their day ruined… don’t you think?
Re: #1 ~ people reflect what you project. Saw that proven countless times during many years in the retail trenches (you wanna talk about entitlement? oh, the stories I could tell…). But that’s almost beside the point, as you rightly suggest with #3: it has to be baked-in, not bolted-on. If you have #1 & 3, the others often follow seamlessly, effortlessly, almost automatically.
It’s like when somebody does something heroic, then says, “aw shucks, anyone would’ve done the same thing.” Not quite true. Anyone with the *same habits* of thinking and acting generously, selflessly? Yes, they probably would’ve done the same thing.
@Ken—Great point. I’m thinking that enough training can start to cause #3 in someone from the outside in, even if it wasn’t there to begin with. Sure, some people are born selfish, but others learn that behavior or have it conditioned into them. And if that’s true, then the opposite should be true, too… I hope!
I believe L&D can do a lot of things, but I’m not sure that this is one of them — not the on-the-job kind of L&D, anyway. That’s probably why so many people say, “hire for attitude, train for aptitude.”