I am helping to coordinate a class where
students must register online and pay a tuition fee. There are a myriad of
discount options available, including early bird, friend referral, and
outside funding source options. Actually, I used to have two early bird
discounts – one expiring in November and other expiring in December. In my
head, I knew all the rules of how I intended the discounts to be applied. For example, the outside
funding scholarship applies if the person has watched an online video, the
early bird only counts if you pay at time of registration (not later in class),
you can stack some discounts but not others, etc. In my head, everything was
perfectly clear. In reality….it was a mess. Students took both early bird
discounts at once, didn’t pay at time of registration, stacked discounts, and came up with all
sorts of other combinations. The early bird problem was so bad that I had to remove the second discount, and I may or may not put it back once the first one expires. I was reminded that what is clear to ME is not
always clear to others and that unless my expectations are explicitly and
clearly stated, people will seldom be able to read my mind.
This is not the first time I have
learned this lesson. In fact, it was explained to me a number of years ago by a
team-building activity leader I have great respect for. He taught us the basics
of a tag game that involved sitting on a person’s knee and simulating the
action of flushing a toilet in order to un-freeze a teammate (don’t ask – it was
wild). One of the first things that started happening was that people bent the
rules that had clearly been stated at the beginning. After we had played for a
while, the leader called us together and said, “Didn’t I tell you what the rule
was? A full handle simulated flush was what I said, and most of you are barely
sitting down and flapping your arm before you’re off to the next person. Now,
if you are full-grown adults and doing this, how much more so are the kids that I am training you to teach going
to? Don’t assume because you SAY something that people have actually HEARD you,
nor that they are going to DO it." I am now finding out through my own experience that those words are just as true today as they were back then.