Separating the Zings from the Clunks
by Dan Angelo
Zings are those little moments during the day that bring a smile to your face, while clunks are just the opposite. Life is full of zings and clunks.
That was the message Tami Evans, keynote speaker, performance strategist, author, and actress, delivered during her Main Stage presentation at CAMEX26 in Phoenix, AZ. She also made sure there were plenty of zings in the message by providing a healthy dose of laughter.
“Research has shown that employees who reported three zings to every clunk in the workplace, or life, reported a generalized happier level of satisfaction and fulfillment in their work,” she said. “More importantly, it was linked back to a stable, financial bottom line for the organization. Three zings to every clunk.”
It takes confidence to celebrate the zings and let go of the clunks. That confidence is about tuning into your intuition, which is the ability to understand something immediately without conscious reasoning, according to Evans.
She added that a leader in a campus store should have the courage to know nothing is perfect. Store leaders should also be trying to find different ways to keep things moving forward.
“I know that life is not about unicorns,” Evans said. “I’m not asking you to look for Tinker Bell. I’m just asking that if things look dark and you see someone or something that ignites a spark of levity, don’t snub it, feed it. I call it happy kindling because when things are dark, you can light a spark with that happy kindling.”
Of course, those things are usually easier said than done. So, Evans provided some guidance to find zings and let go of clunks.
“Think of this as a tool you can use whenever you’re making a decision,” she said. “Clunks don’t get smaller, they only grow and get stinkier. Clunks feel heavy and zings feel light, so when you’re weighing a decision that you want to make, go ahead and ask yourself, ‘Does this bring zings or does it bring clunks?’ If you ignore it, it always weighs more.”
Another clunk comes from all those colleagues who could be considered, “Yeah, buts.” That person who hears an idea and always comes back with, “Yeah, but …” The solution to that person is to consider a positive reply instead of just letting the concern stop every great notion.
“This is your tool to use, and P.S., this can work for your staff, too,” Evans said. “Keep track of all your zings and clunks and then let them come up with the solutions and ideas.”
Before getting into the zings, clunks, and “Yeah, buts” of life, Evans reminded the listeners that there are plenty of perfectionists in the world, and in the Main Stage audience. She called herself a “recovering people-pleaser” and perfectionist, which is just part of the baggage that a human being carries around every day.
“We reach a point where everything is going along really well and then suddenly, someone reaches out, usually just before noon, and asks you to do something a little extra that’s outside of your area of responsibility, and without even thinking about it, you say, ‘Yes,’” she said. “And before you realize it, you’re face down in a pile of commitments and obligations and responsibilities and you’re having a panic attack.”
Just politely saying, “Let me get back to you on that,” gives you the time to take a breath, reassess, and be sure that you’re up for another challenge, Evans advised. She then laid out a plan to identify and deal with some of the issues that can make a busy day seem so daunting, calling it her SNAP program, which stands for:
* Say the troubling issue out loud.
* Notice where the issue is in your body, be it your chest, stomach, or forehead, and then you can begin to find ways to control it.
* Assess, whether the concern is accurate and finally …
* Plan an action step to move forward.
“The trick is to take an action step, and the magic about an action step is that you need to take it without attachment to the outcome,” Evans said. “The word I’ve created to define this is ‘detaction’—take action without attachment.”
While she calls herself an employee engagement and levity leadership expert, she’s also a mom with a son who headed off to college recently. She realized a couple of things about campus visits that should be important to every store.
“Swag matters,” she said with a hearty laugh. “And number two is that your store can make or break a decision. Every single school we visited, we went to the store, and it was the way people treated us, the way they welcomed us, and there was a massive difference. So, understand that what you’re doing is working.”
