The Importance of Admitting to the Elephant in the Room

Over the last few weeks in our marketing class we have discussed sales. One of the largest takeaways from those classes was that one should always admit to the elephant in the room.  The idea being if we acknowledge the tension in the room it will make a sales meeting easier. But for me this idea of recognizing the tension and releasing it is important outside of salesmanship as well.

Comedians make a living off of identifying tension in every day life. Most comedians even the “safest” of them have acts that revolve around telling a story, building tension, and then hopefully releasing it to laughter. This is a simple tactic that allows the comedian to test their audience and get a laugh.

Not being a comedian or a salesman at this point in my life I wanted to see how I could utilize of tension recognition and release in the MSBA program. The answer was simple, group projects. We have already done probably 8-12 group projects, I can remember in each group were someone did step up and acknowledge the tension that made the experience better. Unfortunately I can also remember times were someone did not step up and the group deteriorated.

Group projects are all about each person buying into one another or at least understanding each other. Essentially you are selling yourself to the group. I think that we can all be better workers if we communicate better and just recognize tension with one another.