The more comfortable a person is, psychologically and physically, the more relaxed he’ll be and the more ready he’ll be to trust someone else. Showing that you care about a person’s psychological and physical comfort does as much as actually contributing to their comfort. This is one instance where it really is the thought that counts. For instance, you are never going to be able to make someone who comes to your office feel totally at home. However, by making the effort, you do enough to get them to trust you. Your efforts to make other people comfortable may go further than just asking if they want something to drink or if they’d like to use the bathroom. Take the case of Ronnie Taylor.
Ronnie was the thirty-seven-year-old son of one of my connecticut neighbors. He had just taken over the accounting department of a small manufacturing company located in New York’s Hudson Valley. Ronnie had spent ten years at a “big five” accounting firm prior to joining the company. He had been recruited by a schoolmate, whose family were the majority shareholders of the business. The plan was for Ronnie to take over the financial operations of the firm within two years, when his friend was scheduled to take over management. The problem was their plan didn’t take into account the chairman, his friend’s seventy-eight-year-old father.
The older man was willing but not eager to hand over the management reins to his son. However, he was digging in his heels about turning over the purse strings to Ronnie. The more Ronnie told me about the older man, the more it was clear he was deeply proud of his business. Still, his health was failing. He had lost hearing in one ear and was having trouble seeing. But because he was so proud, everyone in the company pretended not to notice. Ronnie and I decided that could be our opportunity. Starting the next week, Ronnie printed out the weekly reports in a larger typeface. When they met together, Ronnie made sure to stand or sit on the side of the older man’s good ear. However, he never said anything about it, nor called any attention to his actions … he just started doing them. After three months the older man had taken to calling Ronnie his “adopted son” and had become the primary advocate of his taking over as chief financial officer
