Do You Tell the Truth, or Do You Tell People What They Want to Hear?
Well, I’ll be the first to admit that I love it when someone agrees with me. It's wonderful when my own opinion is mirrored and a lovely, agreeable conversation ensues.
Guilty as charged.
But when it comes right down to it, I want people first and foremost to be honest with me. I don’t want to find out that someone agreed with me just to make me feel good. I’m a big girl and I can handle a differing opinion, so long as it’s presented in a respectful manner.
The truth is especially important to me when I’m paying for someone else’s professional advice (someone who presumably knows far more about the topic than I do). I want that person’s honest opinion, no matter how brutal it may be. Of course, I also want to see that they’re able to support that opinion with facts or lessons from past experience, but ultimately the last thing I want that person to do is to agree with me for the sake of agreeing, or worse, for the sake of gaining my business.
When a customer or client comes to me, I assume that person wants my honest opinion and my no-nonsense, professional advice. Ultimately, that’s what they’re paying me for. Yes, sometimes I’m the bearer of bad news. It comes with the territory, especially in this market. But I consider it part of my job to deliver this news regardless of what my client is hoping to hear from me.
I choose my words carefully and attempt to deliver them gently, but my words are always what I believe to be the truth.
How about you? -- (Better tell the truth. Honest Abe is amongst us *wink* )
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