Meeting the Needs of Others

My son Lachlan is very driven by the need for Safety and Security. As long as he feels safe, he’s happy, confident, and at peace with himself and the world around him.

If at any time he does not feel safe, he becomes difficult, nagging, he loses confidence in himself, and is generally not very nice to be around.

Let me give you an example of how this plays out. Lachlan dances 4 days a week for The Edge. I do most of the driving back and forth to get him there (Peter does some too – thank you sweetie!).

Lachlan needs to get there early. I like to get him there on time. I mean, we drive up to the door at exactly the time he is meant to be there – it’s how I operate, I run everything to the wire, BUT he is NEVER late. He is ALWAYS on time. There are times when I can’t understand why he is freaking out, calling me, sms-ing me and hassling me about hurrying up to pick him up from home to get him to dance when I know exactly how long we need to get him there on time.

What I occasionally forget, and have just reminded myself, is the importance of meeting the Needs of others. It’s one of the key things I teach about building trusting relationships. Find out what the underlying Needs are for the people you want trusting relationships with. Find out what the important ones are, the drivers, and meet those Needs for them.

For Lachlan, I know his driving Need is Safety and Security. He feels safe when he arrives 15 minutes early for a class, not right on time. If I want a calm, loving and trusting relationship with him, I need to meet that for him.

This week he was 15 minutes early for dance. He’s happy, and so am I.

Can you forgive and still not trust?

I was reading a blog post called Unforgiving and Unforgivable which was exploring the concept that men are more unforgiving than women. It poses the observation that in the event of infidelity or betrayal, a man would end the relationship, but those same men expect forgiveness if they were the ones who committed the offence.

What I have found interesting myself in exploring the whole concept of trust and forgiveness is this:

1. Women care more about trust than men
2. You can forgive someone and still not trust them. Women tend to do this more than men. Just because she has ‘forgiven’ you does not mean she trust you.
3. Men and women will move on from a relationship only when they believe their Needs will be met elsewhere. Men are more confident that they can find other ways to do this. Women will stay in a relationship that is ‘bad for them’ because, in some way, it is meeting a core Need for them (e.g. the relationship may be meeting their financial needs and they do not believe they can meet those themselves.)
4. A breakdown in trust is the biggest killer to relationships

Women care more about trust than men

It’s true, and it came out loud and clear in a survey entente conducted with over 600 people.

If you had 20 women customers, and you did something to break down their trust in you, even if they liked you as a salesperson or customer service person, 19 of them would not deal with you again!

If you had the same situation but 20 men, 16 of them would not deal with you. That’s still terrible, but seriously, if your customer base is women and you do not have a program in place to ensure everyone in your business knows what trust is and how to protect the trust of your customers, you have missed the biggest risk to your business.

Likewise for your female staff, your female business partners, investors, and every other stakeholder group in your business.

And of course, the same thing applies in your personal relationships.

Men, listen up! If you want a happy wife, daughter, female employee, customer, or shareholder, you need to know the truth about trust!

Sometimes the relationship is just not meant to be

Peter, my husband, had an interesting experience the other day in talking with someone he was hoping to work with. This person (let’s call him Bill), had done some work for Peter once before and it had ended badly, breaking down the trust Peter had in Bill.

In this instance, however, Peter was prepared to give it another try and I reminded him that he needed to talk to Bill first about his ENPs – what he Expects from Bill, what he Needs from Bill and why, and to make sure Bill could make Promises to meet those. Peter did this, and also explained how fragile trust is, how it broke down before, and said that he wanted to rebuild the trust by starting again.

Before Peter could even get to the stage of finding out Bill’s Expectations and Needs, Bill began to back down on the whole idea of working together, something he was keen to do only moments before.

What happened? Because the Expectations and Needs were out there, clearly stated and Bill knew that if he did not meet those, Peter’s trust in him would break down, he wasn’t prepared to make any Promises, In fact, he said straight out that he couldn’t Promise that.

Peter and Bill decided not to go ahead with the idea of working together.

Now that is a good outcome! Why would I say that? Because, had that discussion not happened, Bill would have, once again, begun working with Peter, and would definitely have let him down, not turned up, been late, and so on – a repeat of the problems they had before, because he wasn’t prepared to change. Knowing this upfront has allowed Peter to choose someone who can Promise to meet his Expectations and Needs.

You’ve just gotta love ENPs!