High Performing Business – Technology – Delight
Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT
We’ve all seen (and maybe even had) those very ugly reactions to challenges with technology – where even the dog goes running for cover. But I prefer to take responsibility for my reactions, so how I react to any type of technology challenge is 100% within my control. Is it possible for me to be delighted with the technology in my world? More often then not though, I have what feels like the all too standard reaction of absolute frustration whenever I introduce a new technongizmo into my world. I’ve been contemplating why this is so. Maybe it is because I go into using a new technology solution with an expectation that I will be delighted by it – which rarely seems to happen. Often I have such high hopes for new techno gadgets to just have my dreams squashed and feel mislead once again by the marketing hype. I realized though this was all a situation of my own doing. I could in fact choose a much different experience . When I take the time to consider how I feel about various technologies used to in some way “enhance” my life, I find much to appreciate. The new experience is of open minded curiousity exploring how this lovely technology creation achieves it’s mission, for me. Real people with real talent (and real feelings) created this bit of technology. Don’t they deserve my loving thoughts and appreciative feelings as much as I want acknowledgement for my creations?
This Big Easy Smoker helped me learn how to shift my perspective on technology from being frustrated to being delighted. Thank you Dado labs.
A few months back my daughter gave me a smoker called the Big Easy (it’s a radiant heat barbeque grill made by Charbroil). It has a control panel on it that manages the grill through a smart phone app. (She is on the team that created the smart phone app for this grill). She set it all up for me, and it worked great on her iphone. Actually she could see that I was using it wherever she was and would text me something like, “Mom what are you making on your Big Easy?” I never bothered to set it up on my iphone as it worked well enough for my purposes just by pusing the button on the front. I discovered it made the most incredible chicken wings on the planet and it became the only item I cooked in the grill. I am absolutely delighted with this innovative piece of technology. I recently got a second one for another location and even figured out how to use the Iphone app myself – because I was so delighted with it.
Why not approach all technology this way? Find out what it is about the technology that could and would absolutely delight me if I took the time to work my way through figuring out the best way for me to use it? What if I talked with the technical support people as the special souls they are for helping me find my way to being delighted by their technology solution? I’ve tried it on and it’s been an amazing experience. I had to call tech support on a web conferencing system the other day. I greeted the tech support guy by name – “Jonathon, how is it today in your wonderful world of tech support?” He laughed and our call was off to a great start. Jonathon is someone’s beloved child as well so why not interact with him as the special being he is? I mentioned to him the polling feature I found so much fun about the web conferencing service. I then asked him if he could look into something for me about my bill. He became my advocate within the company (I was being double charged). We quickly and very amicably resolved my billing issue.
I’m now approaching more things with this perspective of “how can I be delighted about this?” When I worked in a large corporation there were posters around the facility encouraging us to be tolerant of each others differences. But, do I want to be simply tolerated by others or would I prefer to be enjoyed by others? Of course I would rather be enjoyed! It’s the same thing with frustration vs. acceptance vs. delight with technology. I’ve had my share of frustrations with technology. I can usually figure out how to come to a level of accepting the challenges of the technology, over time. But what if I shifted my perspective and found out how to be delighted with some element of the technology? There are real people with real feelings creating these technical solutions – they are someone’s beloved child and they are doing the best they can. And I do in fact appreciate and am quite delighted by many elements of the technology systems in my life. I feel lighter, more energized and enthusiastic since adopting this new perspective with finding and focusing on what delights me with the technology tools in my life.
