Just the other night I was watching a Tyrolean woman in Innsbruck (as you do) playing a zither. If you are old enough to know that superb B& W film of the fifties “The Third Man” (and if you’re not, hire it on DVD and watch it) you’ll remember the title music was played on a zither.
It was great; the music was that toe tapping, hum along stuff that you remember with affection.
But the zitherist (if that’s what they call her) didn’t sell the music… she wasn’t enjoying it one little bit! And I reckon that was because she was at the stage of “cautious competence” in her zither playing abilities… she had to concentrate so hard on the work at hand that she forgot to look at us and smile.
How much better would it have been if she’d got to the next level, that of “effortless ease” doing what she did so competently that she made it look easy. And I reckon she could have, all she needed to do was relax and switch on autopilot. She had the technical competence and just needed to leave it to her mental and muscle memories which would take over and allow her… and us… to enjoy the experience.
What’s the lesson for us?
Simple, do we focus so hard on what we are doing that our customer, client or patient doesn’t enjoy the experience?
Whatever we do, we should give the impression that we are doing it with effortless ease because that’s the hallmark of a professional and people just love being looked after by a professional.
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And how do you get to effortless ease? Well, as my old mate, Doug Malouf says “Practice, rehearsal and drill”. We get it into or mental and muscle memories so that we can relax and deliver memorable magic.
So, train you and train your team so that they do whatever they do with effortless ease… even if it’s playing the zither! You can hear “The Third Man” theme here.
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