While money is important, this kind of thinking is needed more than money.

In the workplace, we usually encounter two types of people.

Those who, no matter what kind of organizational change, leadership change, or job reassignment they undergo, are always quick to gain the approval of those around them.

The other type is the one who, no matter how many resources and support they have, often makes people worry about not wanting to work with them.

What is the problem with the contrast between the two?

Today, let's "see the story, understand the thinking" with Ms. Jiang Ji.aojiao~

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Before answering the above questions, let's read a short story~

Xiao He is a colleague of mine who has worked for less than two years but has been promoted to the top. Many colleagues in the department privately discussed that the leader was biased, but then a new leader was replaced and Xiao He was promoted to another level in six months. Both the leaders of the department and the leaders of other departments were full of praise when they mentioned him.

I looked at his attributes carefully and found that he did not show any particular excellence in terms of professionalism or dealing with people, and even in communication he would often repeat my words, and often I would find him a bit nagging. I would say his strengths are at best "dependability", as I often feel at ease and relaxed when working with him.

The first time I noticed something different about him was an email.

I happened to receive an email from two colleagues that day, both of whom needed to be reviewed and confirmed, and forwarded to the company's core management. The content of the emails was not very different, from the formatting to the wording was very standard, the only difference was that Xiao He had clearly stated the name and email address of the recipient and the sender after the body of the email. It took me less than two minutes to check the content of Xiao He's email and copy the email address to complete the forwarding; I took an additional three minutes to enter the recipient's email address one by one for another colleague's email.

After this small incident, I began to observe and think deeply -

Where did Xiao get the sense of reliability from?

The answer is simple: user thinking!

In his work, he always works from the user's point of view, and it is this kind of solidity and reliability in him that makes the leaders willing to give him the most important and urgent things with confidence, and this is also the most important trait that helps Xiao Hegetst promoted quickly.

What does "user thinking" look like?

In the Internet era, user thinking is frequently mentioned, especially in the field of product design and operation, and has become a credo for many companies and managers.

Simply put, user thinking means thinking from the customer's point of view and seeing things from the customer's perspective. User thinking requires the ability to trigger satisfaction and recognition in a customer's experience.

In the workplace, user thinking is about thinking about your "customers" and asking yourself the question: what do they need?

For example, what time of day do you send the daily work report?

Many people usually send it to their leaders at the end of the day, depending on when they finish work, at 6 pm if they are not busy, or at 3 am if they are busy.

Do you occasionally think that your boss will be impressed by your contribution when he sees you working until 3 am?

Sorry, you don't have a user mindset!

If it was Xiao He in the story, he would have planned and sent the daily reports to the leader at 6 pm every day, because he knew that the leader would like to finish browsing everyone's daily reports before the end of the day, and the leader would like to give feedback to everyone on the same day.

Another example is when the leader needs to review PPTs during his business trip -

When the leader is on a business trip, you have an important presentation PPT that you need to ask him to review first, so you send it to him as soon as you're done, thinking that the PPT you've made will be well received.

Sorry, you don't have a user mindset!

If it were Xiao He, he would have sent it to his mobile phone first to make sure the formatting was OK before sending it, or convert it to PDF, because he knew that the leader would probably only be able to receive and view the PPT on his mobile phone when he was on the road, and sometimes the PPT would be messy or distorted.

User thinking that requires an extra layer of consideration -

When collecting information, consider how others can fill it out most easily.

When publishing information, consider the reading habits of the recipient of the information.

when coordinating work, consider how tasks can be organized to make partners' work easier and more efficient

When reporting on work, consider what exactly the other person wants to hear ......

User thinking: I'm too hard!

While excellence is a common pursuit, user thinking is not easy to obtain.

Paul MacLean, director of the Laboratory for Brain Research and Behaviour at the US National Institute of Mental Health, has famously proposed a three-in-one brain theory. He divided the brain into the primitive instinctive brain (the crawling brain), the mammalian or marginal brain (the emotional brain), and the neobrain (the intellectual brain).

The reptilian brain controls our instincts and consumes the least amount of energy to use them.

the emotional brain controls our emotions and memories and uses more energy.

The intellectual brain controls our logical analysis and thinking activities and uses the most energy.

From a human evolutionary perspective, our bodies require us to conserve as much energy as possible and to call on the intellectual brain as little as possible.

User thinking requires us to rationally analyze the needs of others, which often requires us to consume more brain energy than our survival instincts, which is why we often say that user thinking is important, but it is difficult to do.

A three-step approach to becoming a second Xiao He

So how can you be like Xiao He and have a user mindset in the workplace?

First, you need to have a sense of respect

The so-called fear in the workplace is to have respect and fear for the company, work, leadership, and colleagues. Only with reverence, in the workplace will be a little more careful, a little more thought, a little more check, to people, to things will also be more careful and thorough.

If one lacks reverence, one becomes arrogant, passive, and slack, and naturally one is less willing to expend more energy to call upon the intellectual brain.

Secondly, deliberate practice is needed

As we grow up, most of us are used to starting with our own needs, and even if we realize the importance of user thinking, it is difficult to acquire it in an instant. At this point, it is necessary to practice and use user thinking consciously and over time.

I used to keep a sticky note on the side of my computer screen for a long time that said "What does the person need?" This little sticky note helped me to put myself in the other person's shoes when I was given any task.

I have also changed my phone screensaver to a picture with the words "User Thinking", a simple image that helps me to think about what the person needs first when I receive a message.

It's not hard to think with the user in mind, it's hard to overcome inertia, so we especially need the above-mentioned tips to wake up the intellectual brain and start the practice. These tips can be a post-it note, a picture, etc., which can be used as a reminder.

Finally, regular review is needed

It is only by doing regular reviews that we will know what we still need to do to improve. I usually start with two dimensions.

Regular review by yourself

The most effective review is to keep an awareness journal at the beginning of the practice, to briefly review the day's work scenarios every night before going to bed, to take stock of what has been done with user thinking and what has not been done, and to pay particular attention to the scenarios that have not been done and to think about what can be done to improve them next time.

When we find that we have achieved user thinking in 50% of our work scenarios throughout the day, we can gradually reduce the frequency of logging and analysis, moving from daily logging to three days, a week, two weeks, or even a month, until it becomes habitual for you.

Proactively get feedback from others

We can regularly collect feedback from our leaders and colleagues on our recent performance, and as we find that we continue to gain recognition for our practice of user thinking, we will also gain more consistent and powerful motivation to change.

By communicating and solving problems with a user mindset, we gain not only faster promotions but also better word-of-mouth, stronger influence, and stronger partnerships. So stick a post-it note and get your awareness journal going, you might want to try it out first!