I am taking a complete deviation from my usual approach to Blog in this one. So far I have been writing blogs which have been driven from professional experience. This is my first one where my blog was driven by my personal experience and how things can be managed in absence of any influence. Also highlighting the social carelessness from society which I unfortunately don’t have a control but unfortunate.
Third week of January-13 brought sever snow and bad weather to UK. Most of the travel was severely restricted across board with London tube taking its fair share in creating disruption for normal public. First day of snow was largely melted but prepared ground for further snow to stay. On second day afternoon garden had sufficient snow for kids to have fun with snow. When they were running on the snow they observed something strange, there was a cat with her mouth stuck in a cat food can. They called me up and my first response was to try finding out cat’s owner. As she was in my garden there was a high probability of owner being on same street. I tried few houses , in this process couple of people joined me in “owner search”.
ð This is very similar to situation which may of you might have encountered in your workplace where the system owner is searched when there is an issue with the system and in most of the cases you will find that owner have moved on. At that point the system problem becomes your problem.
As me and couple of my neighbours could not find the owner, cat with mouth stuck in a cat food became our responsibility. As within a professional organization we deliberated what needs to be done to help poor cat. What we did was similar to what I do every day identify (issue or opportunity) and resolve by implementing a solution.
We initially called up RSPCA but being a weekend with heavy snow we were asked to leave a voice mail which we did. There was no hope of getting a response back soon so other options were put on the table which included simple one i.e. to keep trying to reach RSPCA to bring a cutter to cut can open none of them were feasible as none was sure of cat situation within can and can’t guarantee success.
As in all cases when a solution for a problem not owned by any is not found you will lose support with people walking back their business as usual. The same happened with my situation all neighbours left in next 15-20 min , for different reasons J.
ð This is similar to situation you might face in a business/technical environment where colleagues who get-together to help the person with orphan system problem is abandoned when no solution is in sight.
An extension of power, influence is the mechanism through which people attempt to change behaviour or attitudes without the apparent exertion of force, compulsion or command.
Appeal to value – when I had no other option but to continue with my search, I tried met police non-emergency number and found to my surprise that in police catalogue “dog in distress” is supported but “cat in distress” is not supported. At this point my natural influence skills which is used extensively in professional world i.e. influence without authority or power kicked in. The only natural option was to “appeal to value” , I appealed to person on other side on value of a life even if it’s an animal and found the person agreeing to the value and started search together for a solution. I have to say once the metpolice executive was on my side to save the cat. He was fantastic.
The process used was :-
1: Establish credibility – Made sure that executive trust me and able to make credible connection.
2.Frame for common ground – “appeal to value” was key to build a common ground.
3.Provide evidence – Provided evidence on the state of cat
4.Connect emotionally – love for an animal’s life was good enough to connect emotionally.
We continued our search for help and kept trying for RSCPA and found a local vet as well. Both local vet and RSCPA finally agreed to support us in spite of adverse weather. For next 10 min it was an anxious wait for someone to arrive. A rescue arrived after 10-12 min, which was fantastic given the road conditions.
They took the cat away and hopefully she is recovered fully. This was a great implementation of professional learning in a personal life scenario. Special thanks for Met-Police , RSCPA and local Vet to save this Cat….
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