Be Adorable

Yesterday someone called me adorable. During a business conversation.

My immediate reaction was to be both quite pleased and taken aback. Quite pleased because it’s always fun when a wonderful woman says such things to me. Taken aback because it was during a business meeting. Even more taken aback because me…adorable? I think of puppies and small children as being adorable.

After a few seconds of reflection I asked her what she meant by adorable as I couldn’t remember anyone ever calling me adorable, even my mother when I was a small child. Certainly not in a business context. It was intriguing as I began to understand what she meant by adorable. It reinforced my belief that too often we jump to the wrong conclusion due to cultural misunderstanding.

Language, or more directly the meaning of the words, flows from cultural background. Different cultural background, different meaning. Different meaning, misunderstanding. Misunderstanding…need I go further?

As we talked about adorable I discovered she meant something that I would never have put in the adorable box. Adorable was her word for describing something she had noticed about me. It is her way of describing my ability to connect with a variety of people with wildly different backgrounds, experiences, and education. Most impressive to her is my ability to travel the world and fit in wherever I find myself.

We went on to discuss how this comes about. Observation and listening, modeling behavior, openness and friendliness, helping out. Stepping into their world rather than expecting them to step into yours.

It got us thinking about the importance of being adorable. The importance of being open to others coupled with the flexibility to really hear their them and understand their world while staying true to yourself and always walking your talk. Quite a difficult thing for many. It’s so much easier to stay in your bubble and expect others to adjust.

Soon we were sharing stories of the value of this skill in business, and other, interactions. We talk about how odd it is that so many don’t understand the power of connecting on a personal level and the good things that come from it. Conversely, we shared stories of the leaders we know who don’t have a clue how poor they are at really knowing what their people are thinking. They completely miss the power of adorableness.

I am technologically incompetent. I mention this so you will understand why immediately following talking about adorableness we used her computer to do a call with AT&T. Part of the reason for our meeting was for her to order me a new iPhone Super and do a whole collection of things I don’t understand including ensuring I could keep my grandfathered unlimited data plan. We huddled around the computer in a loud Wegman’s, her doing the talking, me kibitzing since I have no idea what the two of them were talking about.

We wind up with a perky AT&T lady who keeps laughing at our side dialogue while she does whatever she is doing to make all this work. We have one problem after another including that AT&T has no way to ship the phone to an address that includes C/O as in care of someone not me since they won’t ship it to my post office box and UPS is unwilling to stop leaving packages sitting in my driveway which doesn’t seem the best place to have my new iPhone sitting…especially if I am away for a few days. (customer service in both these cases is a story for another post)

Finally they get it all straightened out. We are ending the call with everything done successfully. I am relieved and amazed. As she says goodbye Ms AT&T is laughing as she says… “you two are just so adorable'”.

Be Adorable

Pay Attention • Add Value • Have Fun