Success Circle Call #11: Do You Have The IKTA Attitude?
IKTA is an attitude. Do you have it? If you don't, be careful because some of your co-workers and employees are bound to have it. And it could be contagious if you don't take the necessary precautions. When people go to a seminar, workshop or other training, there are usually breakouts of IKTA reported. When your boss talks to you about improving sagging performance, IKTA often rears its ugly head. When you come to your sales meeting every week and don't change your behavior, you're showing classic signs of the IKTA attitude. IKTA is an acronym for “I Know That Already.”
The problem with this nasty attitude is that it's very invasive. Symptoms include a lethargic attitude, unwillingness to change and a comfort level with the status quo. It all comes down to the fact that we all have lots of knowledge; we've been exposed to tons of information in our careers. We've had plenty of service training, loads of how-to-sell training and lots of other exposure to knowledge. And let's face it, there are some universal principles that have been around forever - things that we've heard before; things that we know are valuable. Many times we can intellectualize and understand the value of the knowledge. We know stuff and we know it's important. It's not until we emotionalize the information, however, and actually apply the concepts or principles that we're able to reap the benefits.
We know what to do most of the time – the trouble is getting ourselves to do it. Unless we really care about the results we get from applying the information, we aren't inclined to change our habits and utilize the knowledge. And so we brush it off with a casual “I know that already” and go back to doing things the way we've always done them. We hope our sales manager and customers will be less upset by our IKTA attitude and we don't have to change. How easy is that? Easy it is; effective it is not. Let's look at a typical example. Steve may know that to hit his sales quota he has to have four appointments a day. A quick glance at his calendar shows that he's averaging only three appointments per day.
Does he know what to do and how to do it? Sure, he's got the intellectual knowledge and the skill sets necessary to set appointments. But until he emotionalizes the information and really wants to apply it for his own success, he will stay behind in his sales performance. Until he really cares about changing things and doing them a better way, he'll get the same results he's always gotten. The problem with IKTA is that it really doesn't matter what we know if we don't do anything differently. There's an old saying that states “Knowledge is power.” The truth is that knowledge really isn't power. It should be “Applied knowledge is power.” So the next time you think to yourself, “I know that already” be sure to follow up with a very important question, “So if it's really important to do, how am I going to apply it in my life?”
