It is one thing to consume the fruits of immediacy. It’s one thing to produce within contexts made possible by immediacy. It’s another thing entirely to change the infrastructure of interactions, large and small, that allow you to generate immediacy for others.
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Some systems are set up to segment clients and customers and to solve problems following a one-size-fits-most logic. Others are front-loaded to treat clients and customers like learners entering a classroom with a caring and effective instructor who seeks to build understanding in students (i.e., clients and customers) early and often, to try to head off problems and misunderstandings before they derail ultimate understanding, and to create abundance.
This abundance fuels ongoing feedback, input, lasting engagement, productivity, joy, investment, and full enrollment. Your clients and customers keep showing up because they want to, not because they have to. They become fans, with all the loyalty that implies. What we know about teaching and learning validates experiential practice as a means to building understanding (in one’s self, in someone for whom you are responsible). If you want someone to understand something – whether it be entrepreneurship or a product or a service – don’t just tell them about the work but have them experience it, even if this experience is messy or leaves open loops.
You may want to provide something to your customer right away, but your customer may not be ready to receive it. Someone may have feedback for you, but if you’re in the middle of a stressful stretch of work, you might want to delay its delivery for a few days. Sometimes it’s your turn to use the road. Sometimes you have to hold off. What’s critical, for immediacy to flourish, is to resolve issues by thinking about eventualities before they happen. To work out solution, pass them around and test them in the real world. Get what you need, when you need it. Give others what they need, when they need it.
Instead of encouraging teachers to teach reading by offering their students descriptive lessons, prescriptive strategies, or graded assessments to point out all the ways in which they did not read well, there’s a better way, a more delightful way: to help students actually perform the act of reading more often.
Many adults look back on their educational pasts with at least some degree of scorn for the ways in which they were graded and sorted. The ones who earned very high grades and seemingly benefited from the system will sometimes say that they “knew how to play the game” or just “grinded it out.” They rarely say, grades were good because they allowed me to pursue my interests, enhance my strengths, and generally become a creative and autonomous person. The ones who earned low grades, too, rarely cite grades themselves as a motivator. If anything, low grades work to cut off learning that is only flowing at a trickle with which to begin.
Sellers, trainers, service professionals, or leaders should take note, though, because it is quite possible that you operate in a world where you, yourself, dole out something akin to grades in a way that shuts down something akin to learning. It is quite possible, in other words, that you are sidestepping your client’s, customer’s, or team’s curiosity or intrinsic motivation. As a result, you are missing the chance to enact meaningful change in their lives and in your business. Delight, as we have noted, is not always easy. It sometimes involves trudging along a trajectory that, ultimately, adds significance, relevance, or meaning to a task, product, training, or exercise. It exists, and should be sought, because it speaks to a consumer desire – to locate elements outside of products and services themselves that complete the experience of using these products or services. You are not simply offering goods or services; you are not simply solving problems; you are also helping consumers feel good about the company behind the product or service, behind the solution.
Delight, as we have noted, is not always easy. It sometimes involves trudging along a trajectory that, ultimately, adds significance, relevance, or meaning to a task, product, training, or exercise. It exists, and should be sought, because it speaks to a consumer desire – to locate elements outside of products and services themselves that complete the experience of using these products or services. You are not simply offering goods or services; you are not simply solving problems; you are also helping consumers feel good about the company behind the product or service, behind the solution.
Learning important things is not easy; learning important things requires effort; learning important things is ultimately worth the effort since doing so leads the learner-practitioner to not only acquire knowledge and skills, but also to tap a vein of meaning that can be self-reinforcing over time.
You may want to provide something to your team member right away, but they may not be ready to receive it. Someone may have feedback for you, but if you’re in the middle of a stressful stretch of work, you might want to delay its delivery for a few days. Sometimes it’s your turn to use the road. Sometimes you have to hold off. What’s critical, for immediacy to flourish, is to resolve issues by thinking about eventualities before they happen. To work out solution, pass them around and test them in the real world. Get what you need, when you need it. Give others what they need, when they need it.
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