“Jean-Louis Gassee, who used to run Apple France, describes this situation as the choice between two tokens. When you deal with people who have trouble, you can either choose to take the token that says ‘It’s no big deal’ or the token that says ‘It’s the end of the world.’ Whichever token you pick, they’ll take the other.”
This is one of my favorite stories from It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work. And I was reminded of the value of this lesson recently on tax day. I’ve always done my taxes myself. But we finally decided to work with a professional this year. It was just getting too complicated. And even though I had all my paperwork set up months beforehand, the accounting firm was way behind schedule. Maybe they were busy, maybe new regulations slowed them down. But it was bad enough that on tax day, we still weren’t filed, and we ended up having to file an extension instead.
I could have done the logical thing and chewed out the accountants for letting this happen. For not prioritizing our return. For not communicating enough. But once we were at April 15, I recognized that sort of reaction probably wasn’t going to do much to fix the situation. Instead, I could learn from the situation, move forward, and deal with the extension afterward. So I decided to treat the situation like it was no big deal, and let the firm take the “it’s the end of the world” token.
It’s worth distinguishing this lesson is all about emotions and how you react in the moment. Once you get past the drama and are able to look at the situation with a clear head, you can decide what to do next. I could decide to take my taxes elsewhere next year. Or I could give them another shot. But in the moment, it’s usually worth taking the “it’s no big deal” token.