Zoo Keeping – The Bureau Way
There are no difficult customers – there are just different customers.
When communicating to your team, your staff, your family and your customers your job is to understand their style and needs as quickly as possible. Thus the role of the zoo keeper is paramount.
So what do I mean?
You will meet many different people in your life and whilst there are thousands of personality profiling tests most of us do not have the luxury to test them one and then wait for the results to be analysed to recognize their particular style. So to make life easier I created a system that involved just four animals and by watching and listening really carefully – which is what I call being in the room – you can identify which animal they might be.
When zoo keepers feed the animals with the appropriate food they get amazing results and can practically get the animal to do whatever is required. So you will have some people who are playful, who don’t listen brilliantly, who are persuasive and a bit all over the place and we call them the monkeys. The reason this article might not be as structured as it should be is because the author is a monkey!
The reason is well written with correct spelling is because Alison is an elephant! She is cautious, she is formal and will think things through before committing to an answer. Don’t rush the elephants especially when ordering food at a restaurant – they will often say “leave me to last.”
You will then have another group of people who won’t believe that they were not categorized first who are matter of fact, know what they want, quite demanding and would much rather be right than happy. These are naturally the Lions and provided you do not make them look silly they will perform amazingly.
Last but not least are the caring, nurturing and supportive people who make up the dolphins.
They want harmony and peace around the table and will be very trusting to start with but let them down too many times they could turn into a shark.
So from today observe, listen, watch and start treating the animals with the respect they deserve and become the effective zoo keeper.