“I couldn’t believe that Steve got this guy to go to the hospital. We had been trying to get him to go for about 20 minutes and then Steve just steps in and…"
I get that sort of thing a lot. The providers I work with are often amazed that I can get difficult patients to comply with transport or treatments when they had previously been resistant to those ideas.
How do I get people to agree to the things that I request of them? Would you like to learn my secret? Here it is.
If you want to get things from people, you need to shift your focus onto what you give them.
That’s the special ingredient, the “secret sauce” if you will. While everyone else is focused on what I got from the patient, I’m focused on what I’m giving them.
Would you like to be more influential? I can help you start right now. Beginning immediately, start giving people gifts. We are hard-wired to reciprocate when people give us gifts. It’s hard-wired into our human DNA.
When we receive gifts, we start imagining ways that we can give something back. We are far less likely to conflict with people who freely give us valuable gifts.
Now I don’t mean that I want you to run out and go shopping. The social gifts you’re going to start giving people are completely free. They are also rare which makes them all the more valuable.
Here are a few gifts that you can start practicing giving people. The better you get at giving these gifts, the more you will find your influence will grow. The very next chance you get, try giving some of these things away:
1. Attention
Paying attention to someone is harder than it may sound on the surface. We actually rarely give another individual our undivided attention.
Even in our most valuable relationships, we tend to divide our attention between the person who is talking to us and our smartphone, our to-do list, our pre-formulated responses and a million other things we tend to devote mental energy toward instead of really paying attention to the person who is speaking.
2. Empathy
It’s a powerful thing to be able to tell another person that you not only understand what they are saying, but that you can understand why the world might look that way through their eyes. When we are able to make statements like, “That must have been awful” or, “I can imagine that must be difficult,” you are referencing how the world must look and feel through their eyes and experiences. Empathy is a powerful gift. It immediately focuses the conversation back on the person speaking.
3. A genuine smile
We use our smile so infrequently in EMS. Perhaps it’s because we take our jobs so seriously. It’s true that we have a serious job, but it’s rare to encounter a patient who couldn’t benefit from a genuine smile.
I imagine myself in a dire situation, perhaps trapped in a vehicle, injured, scared and in pain. I would hope that the emergency provider that crawled inside the vehicle with me could give me a kindhearted smile and a calm introduction. Your smile is a gift. You can do the same.
4. Respect
When we get caught up in our authoritative roles in EMS we can lose sight of the need to treat the people we serve with respect. Respect is demonstrated when we approach our patient with a sense of reverence and honor for their role in the emergency.
We exist to serve the citizenship. The patient is our central priority and for that, they deserve our respect. Respect is a gift that we give our patents the moment we encounter them. But it also extends to their homes, their property or their individuality (whether they are present or not.)
5. Dignity
Recognize that there is tremendous value in being a human-being. The value of the patient is the value of our service. (I, for one, feel our service is extremely valuable.) When we recognize that the individuals we serve are inherently valuable we see our obligation to preserve their dignity. In our rush to provide urgent care, dignity is often one of the first things we disregard.
When the patient feels stripped of dignity, simple gestures of kindness, a reassuring hand, the respectful use of a name, a warm blanket or bringing along a favorite pillow, can go a long way to give that dignity back.
Are you ready to see your influence grow? This is a just short list of the gifts that you can start giving people to help develop your influence and rapport. Before you know it, people will be amazed at the things that you get from some of your most stoic patients. But you’ll know better.
This article, originally published on December 26, 2012, has been updated.
