YEAH. BUT 21 3The Solution
Make it perfectly clear that once you've given an assignment,
there are only two acceptable paths. Employees need to complete
the assignment as planned, or if they run into a problem, they
need to immediately inform you. No surprises. Similarly, if they
decide that another job needs to be done instead, they call you.
No surprises.
Clarify the "no surprises" rule. The first time someone comes
back with a legitimate excuse-but he or she didn't tell you
when the problem first came up-deal with this as the new prob
lem. "We agreed that you'd let me know immediately. I didn't get
a call. What happened?"
DEALING WITH SOMEONE WHO BREAKS ALL THE RULES"YEAH/
BUT. ..WHAT IF THE PERSON you're dealing with violates all of
the dialogue principles most of the time-especially
during crucial conversations."The Danger Point
When you look at a continuum of dialogue skills, most of us (by
definition) fall in the middle. Sometimes we're on and some
times we're off. Some of us are good at avoiding Sucker's
Choices; others are good at making it safe. Of course, you have
the extremes as well. You have people who are veritable conver
sational geniuses. And now you're saying that you work with
(maybe live with) someone who is the complete opposite. He or
she rarely uses any skills. What's a person to do?
The danger, of course, is that the other person isn't as bad as
you think-you bring out the worst in him or her-or that he or
she really is that bad. and you try to address all the problems at
once.