People Skills Quagmire: When Exaggeration Ruins Everything #PeopleSkills
by Kate Nasser | 2 Comments »
Does exaggeration lead to the people skills quagmire of misunderstandings, deception, and loss of trust? Not always. Yet it certainly can. Here’s when exaggeration ruins everything.
People Skills Quagmire: When Exaggeration Has Negative Impact. Image by vgm8383 via Flickr.
People Skills Quagmire: When Too Much Exaggeration Ruins Everything
Exaggeration is low risk when …
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Your role is to exaggerate (e.g. a comedian.)
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The issues at hand are not serious and still unresolved.
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It does not offend others.
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Your exaggeration doesn’t replace the truth.
Exaggeration Creates a People Skills Quagmire When …
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You do it constantly.
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Situations are dire and people need facts and the truth.
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Your exaggeration contradicts your last exaggeration.
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It demeans and disdains others.
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You do it with malevolent intent.
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You claim there is not such thing as the truth.
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The result is insulting, negative, or disastrous despite your initial intent.
Don’t put yourself in a people skills quagmire. When you are exaggerating, make it clear to others that you are. Exaggeration can be funny. It can make your message clearer. Yet exaggeration can get you into a people skills quagmire that destroys credibility and trust.
From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Related Post:
Business Lessons Learned From Unlimited Extremes
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Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.
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I would add that it’s not OK to exaggerate with helping professionals (coaches, consultants etc). They are there to help but if you’re selling that everything’s great OR everything’s awful it doesn’t work. They’re not working from reality and can take things to a place that doesn’t serve you, your team or organization. I understand that when you’re caught up in a problem, it may not feel like an exaggeration at the moment, but if it’s laying it on thing to consciously or unconsciously recruit people to see things your way, it not helping.
Alli
Hi Alli,
Your example says it all. Telling people everything’s great or awful is a dereliction of responsibility as a professional. Thank you for this addition.
Kate