Learning not to shout

I once had a teacher who made it his mission to never shout (lets call him Mr W). He would stare down situations which would drive lesser Academics to despair with a steely determination not to lose his cool. When his colleagues would have resorted to chastising and blasting students, he managed to achieve the net result of quality teaching delivery without ever threatening his presumably single figure blood pressure readings. It is surprising how regularly I have considered this small stand in the tumultuous seas of adolescent learning in the days since I was taught by this man. I can only assume that there was some inherent resounding logic which has encouraged me to carry his mantra to this day.

It led me to thinking about the amount of noise in our normal operating environments. Industry will tell you that if you aren't shouting louder than your competitors then you are likely to fall into the oblivion of customer indifference. I propose to you an alternative. Perhaps you shouldn't be shouting at all. Perhaps you should instead be choosing a quiet room where you can make your pitch to the customers in a natural, reasonably paced tone of voice which expresses not only your company mission but your natural predisposition for doing Business. Nobody wants to sit in a meeting room with white noise and megaphones in the background, so why do we put up with it in the sales and acquisition process?

There is a great blog (and organisation) which embodies the mantra of shouting smart, not loud. 37Signals (http://37signals.com/) provide a range of web-based collaboration apps for Businesses to handle their operations. Even more practical than this however is their blog, 'Signals versus Noise" http://37signals.com/svn) with excellent day-to-day tips on tackling life's little challenges without ever losing your cool.

Whilst there will always be competition in your chosen sector of Business my message is this. You can easily spend infinite amounts of resource and energy competing in an escalation of One-upmanship with your competitors. However much like a heated legal battle where the only winners are lawyers, you might find that the only people laughing in the aftermath of the battle are Google with their Ad-words and third party marketing organisations with ever inflated budgets.

Instead why not try to take the example of Mr W and keep your voice quieted. If you happen to stroll into a crowded, noisy room, why not step back and review. Would you be better off changing your spots and entering another room where the background noise is a little less debilitating.

If only it were so easy I hear you cry! Well I appreciate that every Business would probably love to find a quiet room full of receptive punters, however just acknowledging that they exist is the first step towards capitalising on a less frantic revenue stream. A slightly unfortunate illustration is Jamie Oliver's most recent Social Experiment with school drop outs being educated by national experts in various disciplines (http://www.jamieoliver.com/news/jamie-sends-last-chance-teens-to-his-dre). A great idea you might think, unfortunately however the majority of episodes to date have essentially seen an intellectual heavyweight being battered into submission by mobile ringtones and playground banter. The two parties are no longer communicating, they are simply shouting past each other, with the net effect being a train wreck of frustration and wasted energy.

So what can be done to avoid a similar situation in your Business? Well my argument would be that taking a moment to re-open your ears and acknowledge the cacophony of noise around you is the first step towards finding a lucrative Business niche where you no longer fight competitors, you instead pass right through them only to find their vocal protests fading into a distant hum.