Let me share some snippets of my expertise with you. I hope you find them useful and if you would like to chat more, just…
I hear all the time about those of us who want to write a book. One of my pharma friends writes two hours per night for pleasure. My sister published 70 books and often told me she wrote daily, “Even if I have nothing to write about.” After 70 books apparently, she had a lot to say! How about you? Happy to speak with you about it, let’s connect. No charge at all for talking about that book that just might be in you!
I listened to a speaker the other day who began with a story that was a bit sad, moody, and heartfelt. As he spoke, I felt his reverencing for the story, for the person, for the situation. He went slow, articulating each word, taking a breath here and there in an unrehearsed-like form. His cadence was slow but not distracting. I wondered are their stories we tell when we present or even when we relate to one another that we can slow down so others won’t just hear but will understand.
On this week's Wednesday Rewind, we revisit the top of interviews and specifically podcast interviews. Have you experienced this before when listening to a podcast? What is your take?
Some hosts go on about how much they know the person they are about to interview, where they met, where they work, how great they are, etc. Even the hosts with great reputations do this. One recent well-known host took the first 9 minutes talking about the guest instead of talking to and with the guest. Don’t be that guy! If a host does this to you make your first comments about the audience and the topic instead of more chit-chat about your relationship with the host.
A friend of mine lives in the United States but manages 100 employees overseas. She needed to hire a new manager, and I asked what she looked for as she interviewed. “Three things: Candor so they will talk to me. Humility so they will talk with the team. And Technical Ability to get the job done.” She had a wry smile when she also added, “A lot of them have the technical ability.” The implication to me was that the first two are both rare and required…worth searching for, worth waiting for.
While many of us ‘work’ on our flights, computer out, balancing the food, avoiding our seatmate, watching a movie… how about a different plan? Plan your time in terms of outcomes and not tasks or objectives or deadlines. At the end of the flight what are the outcomes that would make you proud of time well used? I’ve been experimenting recently going from a ‘to do’ list to an outcome list. My ‘to do’ list is the same one on the ground. My outcome list is framed as ‘What will make this flight more?” And the ‘more’ is about balancing the opportunities that the flight has for me. It has time to speak to the crew. After the meal service I hit the galley and thank them and ask how long they’ve been flying…great conversations ensue. I’m also practicing my paraphrasing which comes in very handy when I’m on the ground with clients. I also take some quiet meditative time, usually on take-off, sometimes I’m not even aware of the take-off itself! How many times on the ground do I take those moments? I’m respectfully aware of my seatmate and test out a conversation during a meal or even on the descent. More interpersonal practice and sometimes a contact worth meeting. Work bits are there too but monitor their outcomes also. Too much work and we are likely to be drained on touchdown. Clients need us to flow with them and their needs and not come in riddled with pace and anxiety.
Lech Walesa the former dockworker turned activist and eventually drove the communists out of Poland becoming the President of Poland was interviewed in his 80’s about his imprisonment. “Weren’t you afraid.” Walesa replied, “I am only afraid of two things: my God Almighty…and my wife!” One of my mentors, Dr. Michael Canady, says of the word FEAR…Future Events that Aren’t Real. I think it was Dale Carnegie who said: “Today is the tomorrow that you were worried about yesterday.” Maybe we really do only have to fear and worry about two things!!
In this week's Wednesday Rewind, I'm revisiting a series I did on Fearless Facilitation. This post comes from the fourth of seven parts.
We value others who can help us. We do not instinctively value those who are smarter, better, especially those who say that they are! We value what we value, not who or what they want us to value. As Nido R. Qubein from High Point University advises that we the audience members, not the presenter, are the value interpreters.
This may seem like common sense but consider how some experts treat you, your teams or their audiences. Some consider themselves as full vessels, filling up the empty vessels…us!
This mindset of how we approach others signifies how we regard and value them. This has impact immediately. Have you ever felt talked down to by someone? How quickly did you recognize this was happening? This is called vertical communication with the superior one on the top and the inferior one on the bottom. This was a traditional teaching technique for physicians in residency where they would be grilled by the senior doctor, often then leaving them feeling less than adequate, humiliated, or worse!
But the successful facilitator speaks on a horizontal plane. If I can get the other to articulate what they think, feel and know, then I as the facilitator will be in a better position to teach, discuss, and encourage with mutual respect. To do this however, means to give up the natural urge to be on top. Instead, it means you are willing to listen, to really hear, and perhaps to learn yourself. Fearless facilitators who work on the horizontal plane learn something new every day, even about the area in which they are the expert!
In our corporate meetings the same is true. Facilitate what is privately logical, listen, allow for input, allow for diversity of thinking. This is the gift of facilitation. No motivational speech is really motivational unless it allows me to change my own mind.
I like word play and, on the radio, recently a company that buys homes that are often homes of deceased parents that the adult children have to sell had this line: “We will help you through the transition, not just the transaction.” I wondered as I heard this if it is also a great model for a leader to consider as they complete a performance review, a firing, or even a promotion. All three are filled with emotion. All are transactions. The best end with an understanding of the transition…perhaps the transformation.
Do you move on quickly from a KOL visit? Here is an idea. Go back to the waiting room, tell the receptionist you have some things to do before your next appointment (so it won’t look creepy that you are still there!) And then just for a few minutes pay attention to the patients and their families coming in and sitting among you. Observe, listen, wait a bit more, listen some more…turn up your empathy scale. These are the people you and your KOL were just talking about. What will it be like for them on this visit? What fears will they have? What good news? These are your folks too!
African Proverb: When you pray, move your feet!
In graduate school I heard a psychiatrist say, “I don’t listen to my client’s words only, I watch their feet.” Actions tell more than our telling.
The voice within is YOUR voice. This is the voice that likely talks to you all day long, “Should I or shouldn’t I? This way or that way? Respond or stay quiet? What if…? And then what…?” My goodness what we say to ourselves!
Consider how much of what we say is a warning, a discouragement, a critique, or a demanding parent to an innocent you. When we teach advanced executive professional speaking, the request each and every time from the class is: “What did this person do well? What is just one thing they could have done better? What is the special expertise that you noticed?” That’s all you need to get better and better with each presentation and come to think of it, with each interaction. No need for an inner judgment, no need for an inner critique, no need for perfection; simply a way to reorient yourself for the next right step.
You may have had a difficult conversation, a difficult meeting, a difficult day…but you can use these three little prompts to guarantee the next right step: “What did I do well? What is just one thing I could have done better? And what is the special expertise within me that I noticed?”
A final thought – in today’s environment it might be helpful to watch or rewatch the movie “Up In The Air” with George Clooney. Certainly, recommended for any HR professional!
A Texas lawmaker recently said of his party’s majority status, “The majority as the right to prevail, the minority the right to be heard.” Aside from politics even our families or our workplaces may find themselves on one side or the other. Prevailing as the boss or parent is pretty easy. It is the listening to the others “so that they feel heard and a part of things” is much, much harder especially for those in power: parent, spouse, boss, winner. When heard we call it collaboration and cooperation. When not heard we call it rebellion, overthrow, temper tantrum. Care for and allow for the feelings of your ‘other’ or they will metastasize and the cancer will grow between you.
Sometimes we get complacent with the clothes in the closet, our everyday reliable outfits. What if we changed things a bit? Here is an idea. Stop in at a variety of shops, the ones you usually go to and the ‘up one level’ ones whose price tag as kept you away, but admiring. Keep your credit cards locked up for these visits. Go to a reliable looking salesperson and say, “Here is what I usually wear to work.” Any thoughts on a refresh? One caution here. Don’t ask your spouse, partner, or coworkers. They don’t deal with clothes day in and day out. Ask a professional. Then after these visits consider your next purchase. Even if it requires a bit of your courage to make the change.
Bill Moyers, Press Secretary and prior was the de facto Chief of Staff to President Lyndon Johnson, during the Viet Nam war reflected after with a powerful quote maybe many of us with a boss can identify with!
“I worked for him despite his faults.
He employed me despite my deficiencies.”
Digging into the vault for a timeless truth about presentations that still rings true today:
I am continually amazed by presentation after presentation where the opening lines are about the presenter and not the audience. Are you guilt of ever starting with any of the following?
“You probably want to know a bit about me…”
“I am blah blah and I studied at blah blah and blah blah blah…”
“Before we get the meat of today I want to thank…”
“Before I get to the report you’ve been waiting for, you have to understand…”
And of course, the infamous, “How’s everyone doing this morning?” (followed by “I can’t hear you!”)
While the audience will be patient with you nonverbally (we’ve been taught to sit and listen politely!) they will also mark you as ordinary, expected, and frankly, wasting their time.
Dale Carnegie’s famous admonition, “Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them” still works today for the soul reason - it is audience focused. Our nervousness, our ego, our desire to please or our wish to look good unfortunately puts the focus on us instead of those who came to hear us. The hard truth is that the audience don’t really care about you. No matter how important you are, the audience has one pivotal question in their minds “Can you help me solve my problem; can you improve my condition.” Start there and you will see and maybe even hear your audience say, “Whew! Yes!”
The TV show “The Pitt” in season one had a quote or a formula for having hard talks…the one depicted was of adult children allowing their parent to die without subjecting the parent to useless but painful medical interventions. It was a simple and powerful formula and I wonder if might at some point come in handy for all of us.
I love you…
Thank you…
I forgive you…
Please forgive me…
As I’m ready to pass from this life to the next, I’m very OK with my loved ones engaging me with this.
When you come across some vital information from your KOL, AdBoards, or Congress meetings it’s natural to feed the information up and across the chain. How about though those side comments your physician or researcher makes almost as throw away thoughts. The ones that often begin with “It would be nice wouldn’t it if we could…” or “I was dreaming of a day when…” or “I had a rep in here the other day who mentioned…” or even “One of my patients had an interesting comment…” These can easily be non-remembered thoughts that never makes it up or across the chain, especially if we are on our own mission to say what we want to say! I’m often reminded of a friend who was highly successful with his mantra, “On the first visit, I know nothing! I let the client tell me. Come to think about it, every visit is a first visit!”
I like hearing accents. I used to ask those I met who had an accent (even New Yorkers!), “Where are you from?” or “Where are you from originally?” Now I ask, “How many languages do you speak?” That gets a better response. My X-ray tech said, “Two! English and Bulgarian.” I asked, “You been there?” She laughed and said, “I was born there!” (she did not add “dumb ass”!) We spoke about the beauty of her homeland and a recommendation to go for a visit. She then asked with a knowing wry smile, “How many languages do you speak?” I responded with a smile, “I’m an American, just one! But I’m also Irish so I am fluent in sarcasm.” A fun short time in X-ray with a possible trip to a new place, maybe!
Many years ago, Nido Qubein President of High Point University taught me the difference between success and significance. Success is certainly a good thing whether in things financial, career, family, or any of the many goals one might accomplish. Nido reminded us, however, that these things are not usually in a eulogy. What we speak of when they pass are how what they did was significant to us, to those around us, to the world. So, if you are ever called upon to give a eulogy to the many at a funeral or a mini-eulogy as you speak to a surviving family member…think about how this person was significant to you, how they made you better, in what ways they infused a quality in your life that made all the difference. Success is certainly good; significance is lots better still.
One of the hallmarks of the way a person ‘sees’ the world…uniquely of course…was developed by Alfred Adler (1870-1937). He called it our Life Style…not the common way of thinking about that term but the way he meant it was how we see life, how we move through life, sometimes without awareness. Ever get to a destination and you can’t remember every turn, or any of them? He summarized this Life Style as the following:
Life is…
People are…
I am…
Therefore, I must…
Some people believe life is dangerous…and for them it is! Imagine their thinking about people and about themselves and what they must do as a result.
Others might believe life is exciting and then you can follow their experience with people and their own self-image.
I took a great course recently “Empowering People in the Workplace” (www.positivediscipline.org) led by Dina Emser.
This course took a slight and important change to the traditional Life Style:
Life is…
People are…
I am….
Therefore, I can…
I was struck by the difference between the words, ‘must’ and ‘can’…are you often stuck with a feeling of what you ‘must’ do, what people are requiring of you, of the forces that force you?
‘Can’ can lead us to hope and beyond…to what we really ‘can’ do.
