Making Contact: How To Connect With People

Author

INTRODUCTION:

ARE YOU A GOOD CONTACT HITTER?

contact hitter [kon-takt h t' r]:

1.   In baseball, contact hitters are batters who hit the ball often. A contact hitter might hit the occasional home run but he or she is primarily known for connecting with the ball and getting on base.

2.   In the real world, contact hitters are people who connect well with others. They are skilled communicators, engaged listeners, and they invest time in building relationships.

3.   John Hindle

When I was growing up, my biggest passion was baseball. I suspect this passion evolved due to the impact of my grandfather. Rumor has it that he snuck a baseball into my crib when I was a baby. He loved baseball and, who knows, maybe some magic rubbed off that ball because baseball has certainly been a large part of my life.

It was while playing baseball that I was first referred to as a contact hitter. A lot of baseball players will tell you that hitting is their favorite part of the game; I am no exception. I did not hit a lot of home runs, especially when I was young, but I did not strike out much either. Getting on base by any possible means was my primary objective when I was up to bat. That is how I became known as a contact hitter and I have worn that label with pride.

In life beyond baseball, being a contact hitter is also valuable. I admire people who connect in deep and meaningful ways with others. They are able to both quickly connect with others and are also adept at developing and maintaining long-term relationships. Observing this, I formulated a new definition of contact hitter as someone who makes real and valued connections with people, develops exceptional personal skills, and invests time and effort into using those skills.

I strive to be a good contact hitter by maintaining strong relationships with my children and extended family, my friends and co-workers, members of organizations to which I belong, and people I meet for the first time. If you were to ask my life-time friends who among us has put in the effort to keep us all connected over the years, they would tell you it has been me. I am proud of that effort.

I have been the most successful in my life when the people around me were also successful. Being closely connected to such people has been integral to our respective successes. Whether it was finding or maintaining more customers, motivating a sales force to greater heights, connecting with colleagues to build powerful and dynamic teams, or striving to be a responsible and proactive leader, connections with people were vital to success. Throughout this book, I share my views on how to foster positive connections and, thereby, to become a better contact hitter.

Since I became a professional speaker, coach, and business consultant, it has been clear to me that being a good contact hitter is paramount to success in these ventures as well. Speakers need to connect with their audiences and coaches and consultants need to connect with their clients. Without that connection, there is little chance they will be effective.

It does not really matter whether you are connecting with people in a volunteer organization, with your co-workers, with your family and friends, or with that team or group where you pursue your passions. While there are some differences in how you relate to people in different situations, there are far more similarities.

In this book, you will find chapters on leadership, team building, customer service, and sales. I will also share my views on how to create a positive environment, connect with an audience, and how to develop skills for communicating with others, regardless of how strongly their views might differ from your own.

My hope is that you will find ideas and suggestions on how to connect in a meaningful and productive way with the people in your life. Through the use of stories, I describe real life examples that illustrate my beliefs and provide tools that will help you become a better contact hitter.

John Hindle

Introduction Highlights:

•   I have been most successful in my life when the people around me were also successful.

•   While there are some differences in how you relate to people in different situations, there are far more similarities.

Chapter 1:

Creating a Positive Environment

Whether you are trying to be a dynamic leader, build stronger teams, provide awesome customer service, or you just want to be a better contact hitter with everyone, a positive environment is crucial.

People are keen and motivated in a positive environment. This may sound obvious, but the synergy created when people are positive pushes them to amazing accomplishments. Teams flourish and individuals find that extra gear or untapped reserve.

Most people want to operate in a positive environment and recognize the benefits associated with one, yet their desire does not always translate into action because many environments are neutral, or even toxic. I have witnessed and worked in sick company cultures as well as exciting and dynamic ones. People entering those environments may have a good attitude initially, but it is the environment that brings out the best, or the worst in their attitudes and behaviors.

It is possible that a person with a positive outlook can become drawn into a negative vortex if one exists. If that happens, performance is compromised. It is very hard to create a positive environment by yourself.

I know that has happened to me. In a positive place, I looked for an opportunity to contribute. In a negative one, I looked for a way to hide, to do the minimum, or to simply get through the day. It was frustrating to realize how my behavior changed in negative situations and how it affected my effort. Eventually, my solution became obvious – get out of that environment!

Some important ingredients of a positive culture make all the difference between a thriving environment, an environment that people dread, and every other environment in between those extremes. If you want to be a good contact hitter, it’s important to understand what these ingredients are and to foster them. Everything that follows in this book is written to help you accomplish that feat.

Investing Time

I worked for a great manager when I was employed by the government. He was not the best because he allowed his staff to be slackers or scored us big raises. He was a hard worker and I appreciated him because he created an environment that encouraged everyone to have pride in their workplace. People were eager to contribute. I learned a lot from him about being a leader.

How did he accomplish that difficult task in a government department? For one thing, he was a great contact hitter. Some days he just walked into the office in the morning to check in and connect with the staff as they arrived. He asked people how they were and he really wanted to know. It was very real. He was very real.

To this manager, everyone’s contribution was valued. He did not pretend that he knew everything about everyone’s job; he looked at his role as facilitating the work for everyone. He believed in supporting those who worked for him and investing time in his team members. If someone needed help, he was in a position to know when that help was needed.

Note that I said investing time, not giving time. Giving time implies that your own time has so little value you can freely give it away. Similarly, taking time implies that you might begrudgingly be taking time from something else.

Investing time in people confirms that it’s a valued expenditure and a clear choice you have made. That’s the proper way to look at it. Connecting with others is an investment – an investment that pays huge dividends in performance, and it’s integral in creating a positive environment.

Investing time in people can take many forms. It can be as simple as checking in with them from time to time and finding out how they are doing. It can be showing an interest in their personal lives or doing them a favor.

I have, at times, made stronger connections with people by helping out their family members than by actually helping them personally. Giving an interview to someone’s child for a school project, picking up a player’s wife at the airport because he had not arrived back in town in time to do it himself, or treating visiting family members as special guests are all examples of how I built strong connections between myself and my staff.

You can also invest time in people by standing beside them while they celebrate their achievements or reflect on their failures. If people know you are there regardless of what happens, you will have a strong connection with them. There are many ways to connect with someone if you invest the time to do so.

Another important component of a positive environment is having people who care about those around them and both the task at hand, and achievement of the ultimate goals. Truly engaging people requires effort on your part. You need to know where people are at if you want to be part of their growth and energy. That can only happen if you invest time in your relationships with them.

Don’t you appreciate people who always seem to be able to make you feel welcome? I’m sure you do, so it makes sense to emulate them by making others feel welcome. But what happens if you’re busy?

Busy people often shut themselves off from others. They are simply too busy to concern themselves with connecting with others. It can seem like a major imposition to ask them a question, even when they are the only ones with the answers.

Some busy people say they have an open-door policy, but they don’t make it feel very open when you try to get in. Having to struggle to make contact is not welcoming and does not promote a positive environment.

I have learned that no matter how busy I am, I need to make time for others. I have also learned if I say I have an open door to my office, I need to make sure it is always open. Good contact hitters find a way to connect with those around them no matter how busy they are.

It’s true that some projects are time sensitive or are such that key people cannot be interrupted for a period of time. When working on such projects, communicate the sensitivity of the issue to those around you. People will appreciate the communication and understand the parameters you are working within. It will help them understand why your door is almost closed – temporarily. Without this communication, people will make their own assumptions about your behavior, which will likely include a belief that you are not interested in communicating with them, yet they will not know why.

At the same time, no matter how hard we try to live by these ideals, we all need reality checks from time to time. When I am tired or the work is stacked up, I have a tendency to be abrupt with people. I may not listen very well or make that investment of my time in those who need it. But, over time, I have improved and continue to do so.

Sometimes, to reinforce the lessons learned along my journey, I think back to a story that occurred in 1997.

Jeff Zimmerman

A gentleman called me late one day at the office of the Winnipeg Goldeyes Baseball Club when I was the general manager. It had been a long day and I was a little worn out. The voice on the phone said, Hello, Mr. Hindle, my name is Jeff Zimmerman and I would like to play baseball for the Goldeyes.

So would a lot of guys, I abruptly blurted.

You have no idea how many calls we received from players with little or no baseball experience but who wanted to play the game professionally. Regardless, that was not my best effort at being a good contact hitter and, after an uncomfortable silence while Zimmerman was probably deciding whether or not to hang up, he proceeded to tell me he had been a pitcher on Canada’s National Team.

Oh, I retorted, you’re a real baseball player.

Then we had a great conversation as he filled me in on his pitching career. I immediately contacted Baseball Canada to check on some of Zimmerman’s pitching statistics. The person who answered the phone in the Baseball Canada office checked the rosters of the National Team in the applicable years and told me no one by the name of Zimmerman was on them. I thanked him for the information and thought to myself, Some guys sure have a lot of nerve. They’ll say anything to get a shot at pro baseball. Did Zimmerman not realize I would figure him out?

I headed home but I could not stop thinking about Zimmerman. He had sounded so sincere. I decided to invest a little more time and called one of my baseball contacts who had been a coach of the Canadian National Team during the years in question.

He lit up when I mentioned Jeff Zimmerman. Zimmerman had pitched three years in the National Team program and had had a great deal of success, including a memorable game he pitched against the mighty Cuban National Team. Zimmerman had not been exaggerating; if anything, he had been humble.

As it turned out, the person in the Baseball Canada office had been looking in the files of the Junior Canadian team, for which Zimmerman had never played. Thank goodness I invested the time to follow up.

The rest of the story is history. We signed Zimmerman and he had a phenomenal year with the Goldeyes in 1997! At the end of that season, he was signed by the Texas Rangers organization. His meteoric rise through the minor leagues and on to the Texas Rangers roster sounds more like a movie than a real-life story. It culminated in 1999 when he represented Texas at the Major League All-Star game at Fenway Park in Boston.

A few years later, at a Baseball Canada fundraising dinner in Toronto, Zimmerman told a packed crowd that he owed me a debt of gratitude for having given