Let Me Try

The man brought his golf shoes into the pro shop to get new spikes. The current spikes were so old, that he couldn't unscrew them. When he showed the shoes to the sales person and asked if the employee could replace the spikes, the employee could have responded "I'm not sure" or "I don't think so" or "Maybe" or "Ugh." But, instead, he responded "I hope so. Let me try."

All 5 of those statements showed uncertainty, but the last one used wording that conveyed a positive nature, hope, and a willingness to take the next step and try.

A customer comes into your store with an item to return that was bought 32 days ago (you have a 30-day return policy). Do you respond with "I'm not sure we can take that" or "Wow, that's really late" or "I hope we can take it back. Let's me see what I can do for you?"

The client calls in and asks if you can expedite the deliverable to them. Do you respond "I don't know" or "That's awfully tight" or "But it's not due for another week" or "Let me check and see what we can do for you?"

The golf spike example is one that requires effort on the part of the employee to accomplish a task. The item return example is one that deals with addressing a potential conflict with policy. The client deliverable example is one that deals with a change in internal timeframes. Although they all deal with different topics, each requires that an employee respond with uncertainty because he or she does not know the answer yet. Maybe the employee can do what the customer wants, or maybe the employee cannot.

We are not advocating that you say you CAN do something when you cannot.
If you did so, you would be promoting unrealistic expectations.

But what we ARE saying is that you can respond with uncertainty and still give hope. You can respond with uncertainty and show that you'll make the effort. You can respond with uncertainty and create a positive climate for the conversation.

Deal with uncertainty in your response with hope and a next step. Give it a try.