If you have ever used online sites to sell unwanted items, you know that sometimes it’s really straight forward and other times it is not!
I was trying to sell a bed base for my Mum. It had never been used as it was in her house when she moved in and she already had her own beds.
I put it up for £25 as that would pay for a nice lunch with Mum or a few coffee and cakes.
Straight away someone was interested and I arranged to meet them so they could pick up the base from the storage unit. I drove over to meet them and I waited 25 minutes, after the agreed time, but no show
I appreciate things can change but I had other things to do and I was wasting precious time. I didn’t get an explanation and certainly no apology, which made me a little angry, but at least I have some wood for the fire now!
I like, and expect, people to do what they say they are going to do. It’s one of those things on the top of my list of values. I understand things can change, so cancelling or postponing things may have to happen, but it only takes some communication to let someone else know.
Trust takes time to build and I think that, through demonstrating basic principles such as credibility and reliability, these can prove to be vital when building relationships. I think people respect you more if you do what you say you are going to do and avoid letting people down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect and have messed up in the past, but, nowadays, I don’t tend to agree to do things if I’m not sure i can actually do them, and my tolerance with others who ‘talk the talk’ is quite low.
As carer’s for young adults, this is one of the first conversations we have to ensure a successful placement. If we agree rules, boundaries and set expectations, we have a greater chance of success with each person. It allows us to have an adult to adult conversation if the rules start to bend too much.
My business partner and I, have developed this over our 9 years together and have had moments when we wished we’d discussed things in a little more depth prior to making some decisions!
If you were to identify all of the people, around you or important to you, and rate each of those relationships out of 10, what would the scores be? I am sure some would score higher than others.
If those same people rated you, how would you score?
What could you do to improve the relationship? It might just be a quick conversation…