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If Something Can Go Wrong

Cheryl Cran, professional speaker, author and consultant for CranSpeak International Inc. of Vancouver, is a seasoned pro who, in order to deliver as promised, knows how to go with the flow. Fine, but what happens when the flow doesn't go with the pro? She adapts.

In one of Cran's more memorable assignments, the flow was both literal and figurative. Literal in that after agreeing to do a one-day seminar on customer service and conflict management for the civic employees of Akiachuk, Alaska and figuring it would be just another swanky gig, a tad rustic perhaps (think Northern Exposure sans pantyhose), she found herself clinging, slightly green-faced, to the gunwales of a 13-foot CONVERT aluminum boat slowly bouncing its way up the 90 miles CONVERT of saltwater between Akiachuk and Bethel. So much for the commuter shuttle. The lifejacket she clutched: not large enough to save a small child with gas. But Cran is a pro."This is merely a transportation issue."

The boat finally docked and Cran looked around. No paved roads or plumbing? That the village of 700 souls did have cable made her wonder - briefly - about civic priorities but no matter. Having to fish for her own dinner was, well, different and although the blackflies preferred her to her catch, her spirits were high: this was an adventure!

The adventure continued. With no hotel, motel, B&B or whatever to be had, Cran was put up in the home of the new CEO/mayor (the village is run like a company) for the night. Call it a cozy place. Call it two whole rooms (not bedrooms) and her very own honey bucket.

Next morning and the day of the big speech. Without water to clean up, she peered into the handy cracked mirror and saw, staring back, a mascara-stained, vaguely familiar face. She wondered why her hair was standing at full attention. Ah, the interesting effect of last night's de rigueur "bug helmet". Unable to perform anything remotely resembling her morning toilette, Cran sprayed down her vertical hair until "it resembled a shelf" and used a damp finger to remove the leftover streaks of makeup.

She changed into her stage suit. It had lost some of its crispness on the long bounce up (and so had she) but hey, she's a pro. She arrived at the conference site or, as it was known locally, the bingo hall. Of the 20 villagers and civic employees in attendance, two did not speak English. She took this as a sign. She handed out the conflict-resolution handbooks. She looked into the angry faces glaring back. The body language was universal, any words (in English or otherwise) unnecessary: "What in hell are you doing here?"

She soldiered on. The exercises and question/answer period were a disaster but ever cool, Cran called for a break. She then invoked a cunning exercise to delicately probe the reason for the townsfolk's surly impasse: role play and act out the hidden problem.
When the first chair went flying, Cran kept that cool for which she is renowned. She ducked. Next came the tables, adding a bass tone to the yells and crash of chairs. Before one of the chairs could nail her, Cran nailed the problem.

It seems the new CEO was trying to resolve that tiresome thing we call 'paying' for cable and hydro. In a small village with a small and ailing tax base and where everyone is somehow related to everyone else and where good relatives were quietly splicing cable from Uncle Bob's house to sister Sue's, the new directive called for the actual payment of all cable bills. If not, the cable and electricity would be shut off. Needless to say, the battle lines had been formed and everyone was pissed off at everyone else.

Conflict management indeed. Cran ducked again. She pondered. Clearly, her agenda had just followed that last chair out the window. So why not get into it? Cran chucked the workbooks into the garbage -kerbang! - turned to the raging group and said (or perhaps yelled; she won't say): "Okay, we're not going by the book today. Let's talk about the frustrations and issues and then brainstorm for solutions." (Or something to that effect.)

What followed stunned a woman one would think could be stunned no more. The raging stopped, the chairs were retrieved, everyone sat down and the meeting ran almost three hours past schedule. The festering problems were thoroughly aired, the hanging cloud of death threats dissipated. Picking up on the mood, rather than culturally foreign handbooks, Cran used a 'talking stick' to keep the discussions on track.

When the meeting finally adjourned, the CEO, now in tears (presumably of joy), hugged her, thanking her for following her instincts and helping uncover and resolve some very real but, until then, grimly unspoken concerns. "It was a huge success," she asserts.
Besides bringing a crash helmet, what else did Cran learn? Go with her gut. "Trust your instincts when working with groups and have the courage to voice the unspoken to create real communication and solutions." And last I heard, the bingo hall raised enough money to buy new furniture.

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