Coaching Churches

We are all familiar with the metaphor of making emotional deposits and taking withdrawals from another person both personally and professionally.  When you end up taking more than you give to another person you end up with a negative balance and believe me there are serious fees and late charges involved.

Stephen Covey in his great book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gives us six ways that we can make sure we are making deposits on a consistent basis with another person:

1.      Understanding the Individual—really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit.  You simply don’t know what constitutes a deposit to another person until you understand that individual.

2.      Attending to the Little Things—the little kindnesses and courtesies are so important.  Small discourtesies, little unkindness’s, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals.  In relationships, the little things are the big things.

3.      Keeping Commitments—keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal.  In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then not to come through.

4.      Clarifying Expectations—the cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.  That’s why it’s so important whenever you come into a new situation to get all the expectations out on the table.

5.      Showing Personal Integrity—personal integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits. One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present because that builds trust with those who are.

6.      Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal—when we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need to do in sincerely.  Great deposits come in the sincere words we share with the people we have hurt.

All of us at some point in time will have conflict and disagreements with someone else either in our personal lives or professionally at work.  These situations can be painful at times but seeking resolution is the only way to maintain positive momentum in your life.

There are at least three critical steps that you must take if you want to restore the relationship and move forward in your own life.

1.       Own Your Part—In every disagreement there are always two sides to the story.  I have never known a situation where there was not some responsibility for the problem with both parties.  If we think the other party is the major offender then we tend to wait for them to make the first move.  Instead we need to take whatever percentage of the problem is ours even if it’s minor and do what we need to do to admit it and ask for forgiveness regardless of what the other person does.

2.      Talk Person Privately—Most of the time when we are having problems with another person we tend to go to other people first and complain or try to find emotional support.  What we should do is go privately to the person who offended us first and tell them in a respectful way why we are offended and give them a chance to respond.  When we are talking about someone else to another person rather than talking to them the situation will only get worse.

3.      Give Benefit Of Doubt—When we sense that a conversation is not going well and we can tell it may hurt us we have a decision to make.  We can either assume the worst about the other person’s motives or we can believe the best.  Many times if we can give them the benefit of the doubt at this critical moment then even though it may still hurt there will be no lasting damage because we give them a pass because we trust their heart.