Communication Key: Play the Player, Not the Cards

Quick question: Which of the following words best matches the description, “Violent”?

• Strawberry Shortcake
• Brad Pitt
• A Bull Fight

If you said, “Bull Fight,” congratulations! You understand the rules of logic and know how to make sense. Unfortunately, you are also doomed to fail if you ever play the board game, “Apples to Apples.” At least, you are doomed to fail if you play with my friends…

If you are unfamiliar with Apples to Apples, you can read the description here (otherwise just scroll down):

I played the game recently with a group of friends, and at one point I felt like a guest at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Up was down, left was right, and logic was right out the window.

The game starts. The adjective card is “Funny.” I play “Knock-Knock Jokes.” The judge immediately removes my card. The winning card? “Carl Sagan.”

What?

Next turn. Adjective card: “Relaxing.” My card: “Jamaica.” Winning card: “Dandruff.”

What??

The situation devolved to a point where I employed the strategy of playing cards from my hand at random, without looking, since I clearly had no idea what I was doing (I still didn’t get picked).

The final blow came when the adjective card was “Deadly,” and I played “A Car Crash.” Seems like a good fit, right? That’s deadly, right? Right??

Wrong. Very, very, very wrong…

The player who was the judge immediately eliminates, “A Car Crash,” by saying, “too literal.”

Um…I…I don’t know what to say…

She went on to pick something random, like “Celine Dion.”

(Too be fair, I couldn’t disagree too much with that pick. You wouldn’t either if you watched this clip:  Celine Dion Tops Herself in “Worst Cover Song” Contest)

At this point I’m pretty sure I actually heard the logical section of my brain pack its bags, lock the front door, leave his wife a “Dear John” letter, and drive off into the sunset, leaving me with just my confusion and indignation.

Once my world stopped spinning and I came to my sense, I figured out what I was doing wrong:

I was playing the cards, not the people.

Big mistake.

Over the course of the night I got better when I finally figured out what people seemed to like and dislike when it came to answers.

I started playing the person, not the cards.

The game is obviously designed to be completely subjective; it says as much in the rules: “It’s Ok to play a red apple card that isn’t a perfect fit. Judges will often pick the most creative, humorous, or interesting response.”

Oh. Well that would have been good to know. This may be one of the drawbacks of having your competitors explain the rules of the game to you…

By only playing the cards with no consideration for who the judge was, I was losing very badly.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Ha! You’re an idiot. Of course you’d have to take into account the personality of the judge. That’s obvious!”

Sure, obvious now, in the cold light of day when viewed as an outside observer. But during the game, it took me a while to move on from my, “best answer” strategy to my, “best answer for each person” strategy.

While it may make perfect sense in the context of a party game, the same issue exists in the real world: people try to apply a standard formula or system that applies to everyone they meet, even though everyone is different.

My problem in the game, and many people’s problem in the real world, is trying to apply an objective strategy to a subjective situation.

In the Real World

If you’re doing something completely objective, like assembling a futon or fixing a car, then sure, there is a “right” way and you don’t need to worry about the idiosyncrasies of the various people involved.

However, when you are engaged in an activity that requires you to interact with other people, applying a “one size fits all” mentality is a recipe for failure. Some of these activities include:

• Leading or managing a team
• Delivering great customer service
• Teaching students of any age
• Selling products and services to prospects
• Working on a team project

In those situations, it would be stupid to ignore the person and simply follow a specific set of steps or policies (i.e. just “play the cards”). In all of those situations (and more) you need to adapt your approach to get the best results for all involved.

On paper (or the computer screen) this sounds as obvious as saying, “in Apples to Apples you have to play the person, not the cards.” But how many times in the real world do you see people and organizations trying to ignore the person altogether?  For example:

• Employees enforcing overly-rigid policies that annoy and alienate customers
• Salespeople following scripts so closely they never really connect with a prospect
• People using conversational “flow charts” to navigate interactions
• And so on

All of these tools are ways of removing the “burden” of thought and adaptability from interactions.

A Real World Example

For example, you know what I hate? When I go to Barnes and Noble (a store I love) and I ask the person at the information desk if they have a book and what section it’s in. They look it up, and if they have it, you know what they do? They walk me to the section and look for the book for me.

Great customer service, right?

Not for me. I hate that. I can’t really explain why, but it kind of creeps me out, like walking into a bathroom and seeing a bathroom attendant, or listening to a salesperson repeatedly uses my first name to “build rapport.”

I’d rather they just say, “yes we have it, and it’s in the Psychology section on the second floor.” (What I find doubly interesting is that I would say that every time I’ve been walked over to my section and we have looked for the book, I’ve found it before the employee. Every time. I don’t know that that means anything, but it’s weird).

This is a simple example of a corporate policy some bigwig put into place to demonstrate B&N’s great customer service. This also means they’re playing the cards, not the person.

A simple compromise would be to have the employee say, “yes we have it, and it’s in the Psychology section on the second floor. Would you like me to show you?”

Simple, polite, and it gives me the ability to say “no, thank you.”

The Franchise Model

The franchise business model (heavily espoused and explained in Michael Gerber in his best-seller, “The E-Myth”) is to create a system so detailed that you can employ people of the lowest possible skill level and still deliver a consistent product.

Here’s how Gerber describes it:

“The Model Will Be Operated by People with the Lowest Possible Level of Skill. Yes, I said lowest possible level of skill. Because if your model depends on highly skilled people, it’s going to be impossible to replicate. Such people are at a premium in the marketplace. They’re also expensive, thus raising the price you will have to charge for your product or service. By lowest level of skill I mean the lowest possible level necessary to fulfill the functions for which each is intended. Obviously, if yours is a legal firm, you must have attorneys. If yours is a medical firm, you must have physicians. But you don’t need to hire brilliant attorneys or brilliant physicians. You need to create the very best system through which good attorneys and good physicians can be leveraged to product exquisite results.”

I think there’s a lot of merit to many parts of the E-Myth approach (such as figuring out and systematizing aspects of your business that you do repeatedly). I don’t, however, think human interaction is one of those areas.

The problem in the modern world is that the internet has made it so that the lowest possible skill level is a computer. If I want an automated, predictable response, I’ll just surf to a website and order my product with a few clicks of my mouse.

The only way to compete will be to actually make employees think and give them the ability and permission to do so!

In his book Linchpin, marketing expert, speaker, and thought leader Seth Godin responds to Michael Gerber’s E-Myth model:

“Here’s the problem…If you make your business possible to replicate, you’re not going to be the one to replicate it. Others will. If you build a business filled with rules and procedures that are designed to allow you to hire cheap labor, you will have to produce a product without humanity or personalization or connection. Which means that you’ll have to lower your prices to compete. Which leads to a race to the bottom. Indispensable businesses race to the top instead.”

This is not to say that systems are bad. They are useful tools. But, the ability to interact and truly serve customers in the manner they need and want is the one advantage you and your organization will have in and world that’s getting smaller, flatter, and more automated every day. To create systems so regimented that they take away that one advantage is madness.

Using the Apples to Apples lesson, the organizations that thrive in the modern world will be the ones where employees “play the person, not the cards.”

The Takeaway

There’s nothing wrong with systems, procedures, and scripts. But those are tools, and they must be used to support the individual, not take their place.

Whether you are the person doing the work or the one in charge of others, remember:

• If you’re leading, lead the people as individuals, not as one entity that must be treated uniformly.
• If you’re in sales, understand each prospect, don’t slavishly stick to a script.
• If you’re in customer service, listen and connect to the customer, don’t apply one standard response to everyone you meet.
• If you’re speaking, understanding the needs of your audience, don’t repeat a canned presentation over and over.
• And so on…

In short, not matter what business you are in, play the person, not the cards.

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