Perception bends to strains of paradigm jazz

``Finally . . . I turned to him and said, `Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you could control them a little more?' The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly: `Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either.' "

-- Steven Covey, describing his experience on a subway car in ``The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People''

It was a quiet corner of a quiet restaurant near Boston Common. I'd chosen that lonely spot to better prepare for a business meeting later that afternoon. That's when a man entered, with four children who proceeded to scream and run about while he talked on his cell phone. I tried to block them out, but my concentration faltered and, with a sigh, I looked for a table to which I could relocate.

As I passed by the seemingly oblivious father, he put his phone aside and stopped me, saying: ``Sorry about my kids. We just came from the hospital. Their mother died this morning. I guess we're not handling it too well."

I offered my sympathies, but noted something about his manner that seemed incongruous. I said, ``You know, it's quite a coincidence -- there's a story in Stephen Covey's book `Seven Habits' that's just like this, but on a subway car."

The man grinned and pointed at me energetically. ``Yeah, exactly. That's where I got the idea. I use that story all the time. Everybody lets my kids run wild, and it's amazing how often people offer to buy lunch."

Isn't that something? I wish that scenario actually had happened.

I offer that three-part tale as an example of ``paradigm jazz." It was Stephen Covey who popularized the notion of ``paradigm shift," letting his readers feel the shift, going far beyond those creepily cute drawings that can be seen as two different subjects. I believe that one story was what made ``Seven Habits" so successful, humanizing the author, perhaps even making readers embrace the book despite its being, taken in full, unreadable. (I once suggested that I'd never met anyone who'd read an entire Covey book, which generated contemptuous letters from Covey fans, but no assertions of completion.)

By taking Covey's situation, shifting it again and again, we get beyond a mere paradigm shift and into paradigm jazz, where you start to experiment with ways to influence how people view a situation.

What got me thinking about playing with perceptions was talking with HVAC contractor (that's heating, ventilating and air conditioning) Bill Stribling from Birmingham, Ala. I had told him how a builder had set me up to pay more for remodeling by telling me how well-paid and loyal his team was, contrasting them to the day-labor helpers the competition used. I came to realize that much of his success as a contractor came in constructing a mental picture of the two groups of employees and then concluding by giving me his (high) price and saying: ``Your house. Your choice."

This prompted Stribling to explain how he trains his men not to criticize the workers who preceded them. He said: ``I tell my guys to say: `The fellow who did the previous work for you was really good. He just made one little mistake.' "

What difference does that make? ``A lot of guys come in and criticize everything done before, making it seem like the previous guy was an idiot. So that makes me better than an idiot. But if I compliment the last guy, and then find a mistake, now I'm better than a good technician."

In other words, you get a choice of being better than someone lousy or better than someone good. The choice rarely comes down to a lie versus a truth; rather, it comes down to which truth is most useful. That's paradigm jazz, the chance to get paid for creative playing on perceptions.

Your reputation. Your choice.

Dale Dauten is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at dale@dauten.com.