Didn’t PoliSci Teach You Diplomacy?
I was over at my mom’s for dinner when she asked me for advice on what university course would help her coworker be more diplomatic. It took quite a bit of explaining to convince her that university isn’t the place for that, at least not in my experience.
I even took Peace & Conflict Studies which you’d think might cover that ground but no.
My humble diplomatic skills come from 9 years in Guest Services. Even as a Gate Attendant I learned how to spin bad news, prioritize complaints, and assert myself.
Spin
At the employee entrance, “sorry this is a service entrance, it’s not cleared for pedestrian traffic, however the main entrance with all the goodies is just half a block away and the whole way is under shade” goes over much better than “you can’t come in this way”
Prioritizing
At the front gate, “I wish I could help you but there’s a large group of people waiting, they can help you in the booth over there though”
Asserting Yourself
At the front gate, “Please get down from there or I’ll have to call Security!“. Now just saying that doesn’t bolster your confidence, actually calling security and getting some jerks tossed on the other hand…
Then in the booth I got to practice negotiating by talking people out of refunds. This was further refined as a Supervisor. Even my time in the office was a forge of difficult phone calls like the man who demanded money for being put on hold. As an Assistant Manager I often was the final word on complaints and staff issues, only in the rarest of circumstances would I defer to the manager.
University may be good to help you learn to refine your arguments by writing papers but learning how to talk to people is trial-and-error, it can’t be taught in a classroom. Most of what I learnt came from that and listening to my superiors - whenever you have a repetative or boring task that doesn’t require your full attention and if you’re lucky enough to be in earshot of your boss or even just someone more senior than you listen to how they solve problems and try to think what you would have done or said in their place, it’s a great mental excercise and helps you understand what your boss and corworkers have to deal with in their unique positions. Also the customer service training I teach can give you a leg up.
So rather than looking for answers in a classroom I would recommend entry-level work with a company that by it’s very nature has to have a focus on customer service. I would not consider government work or banks to be good examples of this because those environments are generally about enforcing policy, not coming up with creative solutions - their hands are generally really tied so it’s a harder place to start as you’re already trying to sell bad news whereas in more flexible environments compromises are possible and thus make difficult situations easier to resolve.
Of course after such experience you may find a bank or government job to be too inflexible as a result. That’s probably a part of why I don’t want to work at either type of job on a permanent basis, the rigid nature of the workplace which is oftern required lends itself towards inflexibility and stagnation.
“You have to control everything and everyone. You don’t provide an atmosphere of trust, you don’t inspire the crew to want to go out of their way for you. You’ve got everybody wound up so tight there’s no joy in anything.” -Riker ‘Chain Of Command’ (TNG)
