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With customer demands and service expectations stronger than they have ever been before, have we lost the ability to say NO to people? Do we even know how to say NO to our family and friends anymore?
Blogger: Leah Calnan, director at Metro Property Management
As the world moves faster and people want more of you, we are constantly feeling the need to please and keep everyone happy. But at what cost? Is it a financial cost? Is it a loss of time? Could it be a loss of control? Or have we lost the ability to know our own limits, or worse still, have the people around us lost the ability to know boundaries?
When did it become okay to call someone during dinner or after 9pm at night? When did people’s expectations shift so dramatically that it allowed them to make calls at 7.30am and then get annoyed because the person doesn’t answer or isn’t available?
I don’t know about you but it’s at that time I am getting myself ready for work and the kids ready for school.
Could I suggest you take the time to record a full day of events and the amount of times people ask you to do something. See how many times you say YES versus NO. You might be surprised, shocked and maybe even a little annoyed with yourself.
Perhaps this stems further than just our clients and customers. What about in the younger generations? Is society the way it is nowadays because people under the age of 25 have never heard the word NO? Now I appreciate this doesn’t apply to everyone, but you would have to agree with me that it probably applies to about half of them. Maybe saying YES all the time is just easier. Maybe with so much available at our finger tips, why do we need to say NO? Could that explain where the lack of respect comes from for not only the next generation but for the people around them every day?
Isn’t it funny that something like Facebook only has a ‘like’ option - which is really a YES key isn’t it? Where is the NO option? Maybe we should have an option of poor behaviour, poor choice of outfits, poor language or poor form!
I think we can still provide great service and teach both people around us and our children amazing things even when we have to say NO sometimes. NO teaches us far more than YES does. And after all, it’s a word that perhaps needs to be used a little more within our day-to-day lives.
I will leave it for you to think about.
About Leah Calnan
Leah Calnan is one of the industry’s most accomplished property management experts. With 20 years experience in the field of property management, her dedication and passion to the industry is second to none. She is the sole director of Metro Property Management, a business which leases and manages just under 2,000 properties in over 170 suburbs across Melbourne. She has won numerous industry awards, she is a qualified industry trainer, the current chairperson of the Property Management Chapter at the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) and in 2012 released her first book Simple and Successful Property Management.
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