What do poopy diapers have to do with emotional intelligence? In this episode, I’m going to share the three steps of The 5-Star Approach in the context of a poopy diaper. Enjoy!
Tyler Small: What do poopy diapers have to do with emotional intelligence? You'll find out in this episode of Hacking Emotional Intelligence, I'm Tyler Small, and let's talk about poopy diapers for a minute. Really the purpose of this episode is to explain in some detail, the Five Star Experience.
[00:00:21] And I've been teaching people how to use Five-star Experience for years now. And I've found that there are three steps that are pretty simple to remember. I started out with seven steps, narrowed it down to five. That was still too many. People, couldn't remember five steps I've noticed in several of the books I've read.
[00:00:43] I'll go to other people who are experts in the area or people who've worked for the company that have produced the framework. And I'll say, Hey you remember this, this book that, and they'll say yeah. How many, how many steps are there?
[00:00:54] They're not sure how many, what are, do you remember what the steps were? And they don't remember the steps. So five is too many, right? Five is too many. There's also, there's a lot of research on there's a famous article seminal article in cognitive psychology. It was it says the magic number seven, the magic number plus, or minus two.
[00:01:12] And that basically in the short term memory, people have a very difficult time remembering any more than seven. And sometimes they can remember as many as nine. Sometimes not that many that's in the short-term memory. So if you're learning about something and you're trying to encode it in long-term memory, Then just the fewer, the better.
[00:01:33]So the three steps that I've come upon that I've revised and evolved and tweaked and just refined are Open, Deliver, and Follow-ups. Those are the three major steps to creating a Five-star Experience. So Open goes like this. And while I've coached leaders and I've applied these steps myself in work environments and corporate environments, I'm going to share them in terms of the poopy diaper, which is one of my wife's favorite Five-star Experiences.
[00:02:09] And so I'm just going to go through, I figured it would be a little easier to remember, and maybe for some of you who have. Who have had younger siblings or who have had children or who have a little nephew that you have to change his poopy diaper, or that makes poopy diapers that you want to run away from as fast as you can.
[00:02:26]I want to give you this this example of how to create a Five-star Experience for a person in terms of changing a poopy diaper. This is what I've done with for my wife many times. And I'll explain it. Now, but first I want to talk about why would I want to change a poopy diaper? I love changing poopy diapers, but why would I want to do that?
[00:02:47] It's because it's one of my wife's favorite Five Star Experience. Five Star Experiences build relationships. One star experiences tear down relationships. They destroy relationships. Two-star experiences are damaging for the relationships. If you can imagine. That it's like an emotional bank account.
[00:03:03] I think that's from the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There's this emotional bank account that exists. And you can either make deposits into the emotional bank account or where you can make a withdraw and in a relationship where you're having consistent experiences with the person you are either depositing or withdrawing.
[00:03:25] Now a one-star experience one and a half to two and a half star experiences. Those typically are making a withdrawal four star experience, a three and a half star experience even is making a deposit. A three-star experience may keep it more or less the same, but a Five Star Experience makes an enormous deposit.
[00:03:41]People may not notice a three and a half star experience, a three and a half star experience could be at a tiny imperceptible deposit. But a Five Star Experience makes something that's memorable, something that's magical. Phenomenal. Fantastic, amazing. Those are the words that describe a Five-star Experience as that.
[00:04:01] That's what we want to focus on. And me changing a poopy diaper for my wife. She absolutely loves for many reasons. She doesn't like the smell. She doesn't like the sight of looking into the grime there. And she doesn't like. The having to wash your hands again in the day she washes her hands a lot.
[00:04:20] During the day, she likes to be a very clean person and she gets cracked skin, especially in the wintertime. She washes her hands too much. It cracks her skin and of course that's painful. So that creates a one-star experience. And when I changed the diaper, it saves that whole cycle of hand-washing was she absolutely loves.
[00:04:37] So she's got her unique reasons. Everybody has their unique reasons for for valuing a specific Five-star Experience in there. They're different for everyone. Everyone has a different high priority list of Five Star Experience. And so that's why it's super important. Ask go through this first step open of, Hey, what can I do that would make a Five-star Experience for you?
[00:05:01] Now, let me and my wife's answer often is you can change this poopy diaper. Okay. So in the workplace, people are going to say things like you can. You can be on time to meetings or you can you can turn in your report on time, where, or could you set up a meeting with
[00:05:16] so-and-so
[00:05:16] It's so hard to schedule a meeting with them.
[00:05:18] Could you get that meeting set up or could you could you prep an extra slide for the deck that we need to present at our next meeting? That could be a Five-star Experience? Depending on where you work, this could look very vastly different and and it's just so important to not just assume what the other person's Five-star Experiences are going to be, but to ask them to use that open step, to open up your mind to their perspective, what they care about most and to ask what can I do to make a Five-star Experience for you?
[00:05:47] Otherwise, another question to ask, let's say you're working on a project or you're already in a meeting. You're framing the meeting, talking about the purpose, the scope of the meeting, how long it lasts. Hopefully, how long you're hoping to finish it. If it's shorter than the, a lot of time there.
[00:06:02] And then asking, what can I do to make this meeting a Five-star Experience for you or this training, this presentation they may want certain questions answered that you haven't prepared for. So that'll be great to know when you're opening up the meeting, when you're going through that open step.
[00:06:20] So open with my wife. I might be working downstairs in my office, come up to the main floor where the kitchen and living room and play the kids, do a lot of play it there. And I might say, Hey, I've got two or three minutes before I need to prep for my next meeting. What can I do to make a Five-star Experience for you?
[00:06:39] Peesh She goes by Peesh that's her nickname Peesh okay. Change the diaper. I've opened, right? She's agreed that this will be a Five-star Experience if I'm able to complete it. And we know the criteria. I know the criteria is that I need to change the diaper over the tile floor, not the carpet.
[00:06:55] We don't want poop in the carpet and that I need to get them nice and clean and get the new diaper on. Take the time to make sure it's fitted properly and will not allow spillage in any direction that everything's going the right direction. And then I need to when everything's cleaned up, I need to get the poopy diaper and put it not in the house, then the house garbage, but in the garage, in the small, special poopy diaper can in the garage, I need to make sure that lid is firmly closed around it.
[00:07:23] So that it won't stink up the garage and that's the poopy diaper change. That's the expectation. So I go through, I do the whole thing. I meet all the check boxes and I might check in a five stars. Huh. So I, in the beginning you may just say is this a Five Star Experience for you? How am I doing?
[00:07:40] Is, am I missing anything? And as we've done this so many times, I've condensed it to Five Stars. And if I happen to be too close to the carpet, or if I look away and Moses is putting his hands in it, our little, our fifth child, baby Moses sometimes likes to get curious with his self there.
[00:07:59] And so if that's making a mess, then of course that's not going to be five stars. If he's spreading it around, or if someone else is walking through the mess that's of course the problem. So I don't mean to be too graphic, but this is a memorable open deliver, deliver. I'm doing all the things that I said I would do.
[00:08:18] I'm meeting the criteria. I'm going through her list of expectations in my mind. And as I execute the project, the task, and then finally in the end is follow up, open, deliver, follow up. The third step follow up is very simple. I've packaged up the do diaper. I've got it on him. It's well-fitted I've got the pants back on.
[00:08:41] If there's socks and shoes that they're back on, I've disposed of the diaper in the proper location. The lid is down. Hands are washed everyone's clean and smelling, great. And I can check in one last time. Peesh, how many stars would you give this experience? Five. Great. Five stars. If there was anything lacking, I go back and either fix it, or I note it for next time.
[00:09:05] So if you went in and you prepared the slide and you said, here's the slide, is this a Five-star Experience for you? I got the slide ready. I want to make sure that it's up to your expectations. Remember it's not a pat on the back. It's a checking in to ensure that you're nailing it on the expectation.
[00:09:21] Did they say, Oh, I needed this week's numbers, not last week's numbers, or I needed the test data from B group, not A group. And so you have the chance to confirm that you're delivering what they expected and to then to adapt it or fix it or go back and revise. Or if it's too late, it's water under the bridge, then make a note for next time.
[00:09:42] But do whatever you can to fix it this time to make a Five-star Experience out of it this time. That's the followup step. Later on, you'll want to go through all of the experiences that you've created since you've met last and go through and go down the list, say, Hey, what else can I do?
[00:10:01]Here's what I've been trying in order to meet your expectations in order to build our relationship. What else can I do here? Were these all Five-star Experiences for you? So going down the actual list as another thing, and then asking them to rate the relationship overall since last time you met that, that little piece is something I'll talk about a little bit more in the next episode.
[00:10:23]But that's the follow-up steps. So open, deliver, follow up three steps you can use in any situation, in any industry, in any relationship inside, work, outside work, even with poopy diapers, I'm Tyler Small, and this is Hacking Emotional Intelligence. Have a great one.