People Who Inspire Action

In my day to day work, I deal with a variety of people of varying personalities and "working styles." I can be a real procrastinator when it comes to making and returning phone calls from these people because it requires putting down my work to make a call to someone who may not be there, to play phone tag, to end up on the phone with them for longer than necessary while they whine about a list of things they need from me resulting in hours of work on my part. Not necessarily something I'm motivated to do. Ok, not every exchange is like this, but in a support role such as that I'm in, it's very often the case.

However there are a few people I will always call back right away, and it's not because they never ask for anything (in fact many of them ask for a lot). The reason I'm motivated to call these people back? They have a positive attitude (it's not going to be a complainy conversation). They are willing to work together to get things done, and not try to shove all the work onto me. They keep it short and sweet. They are usually there when I call, or return my call within a few minutes. And when I give them what they ask for, they are appreciative and make me feel like the work I do is valuable. Working with - and calling these people is always a pleasure.

So...just a word of advice from my experience. If you want to inspire immediate action, develop a rapport with people such that they know you won't waste their time, and have an attitude that makes you pleasant to work with. It makes all the difference in your ability to get what you need from other people.