“They know enough who know how to learn.” – Henry Adams
Viewing entries tagged
relationships
“Humans are social animals. There are probably dozens of ways we absorb energy, inspiration, skills, and character traits from those around us. Sometimes we learn by example. Sometimes success appears more approachable and ordinary, because we see normal people achieve it, and perhaps that encourages us to pursue schemes with higher payoffs. Sometimes the people around us give information we need or encouragement, or contacts, or even useful criticism. We can’t always know the mechanism by which others change our future actions, but it is pretty clear it happens, and it’s important. Years ago, I mocked an intern for thinking his choice of neighbors would influence his career. If he’s reading this, I’d like to offer my apology. I can easily see that were you live might influence the energy you put into your career. If you live near optimistic winners, whose qualities are sure to rub off to some extent. And I advise you to consider is fact a primary tool for programming your moist-robot self. The programming interface is your location. To change yourself, part of the solution might involve spending more time with the people who represent the change you seek.”
– Scott Adams in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
“How to be a great conversationalist
Ask questions.
Don’t complain (much).
Don’t talk about boring experiences (TV show, meal, dream, etc)
Don’t dominate the conversation. Let others talk.
Don’t get stuck on a topic. Keep moving.
Planning is useful, but it isn’t conversation.
Keep the sad stories short, especially medical stories.
The point of conversation is to make the other person feel good.”
“An intimate relationship is a study in everything that is wrong with you. Think about it.” – Gweneth Paltrow
I saw the new Mission: Impossible movie yesterday and was struck by how often Ethan Hunt, the hero played by Tom Cruise, stopped to see, empathize, and protect his team mates and the innocent bystanders of his action shenanigans. Seeing them as people, not as obstacles on his parkour course chasing bad guys.
It was a good reinforcement of some ideas from a book (recommended to me by Jennifer Daniels) called The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute. In it, they provocatively call the objectifying of people as an act of violence itself, as thoughts precede behavior.
What does this have to do with sales and marketing alignment? Well, everything.
I have been writing for Forbes on the topic of alignment and customer-centricity, showcasing insights from different marketing, sales, and business leaders across the country, from brands big and small. I still have a lot to share (stay tuned for some great upcoming pieces), but even in these early weeks of my research I am struck with how often the problem that manifests as misalignment is one of perspective.
Harkening back to high school geometry, here is the step-by-step proof:
We can only solve problems we can see.
In frustration or impatience, we see each other as the problem.
When we see each other as the problem, we stop seeing the real problem.
As we don't see the problem as it truly is, we can never really solve it.
In a lesson today, Dr. Mark Brewer, reminded us that in relationships you can’t think “you are the problem” or “I am the problem,” you have to think “it’s you and me against the problem.”
When we see each other through the lens (or should I say the monocle) of the problem, we no longer see the person. They are the problem. They are objectified. They are a caricature without the complexities inherent in humanity. We see them and the issue in 2D. Over-simplified. And as a result, our minds are tuned to seek and find hardship. We are often chasing evidence of how we’ve been wronged. None of which is useful to problem solving.
In contrast, when we see the problem through the lenses of more than one expert (as you can when you are on the same side of the table, instead of opposite sides), the problem can be fully explored in 3D. The people remain people (not obstacles to overcome) and our minds are tuned to solutions and finding common ground.
We see what we seek.
This does not mean that sometimes our colleagues are not very good at their jobs or that some people are difficult to work alongside. There are times when people do have ill intensions or have broken our trust. Sometimes role changes or people moves are required to get to solution and this can be achieved with sensitivity and respect. But in any case, confronting reality, both the good and the bad, together leads to better outcomes in my experience.
I heard of an example recently where a high-performing executive at a prominent company decided to take a side step into a supporting role in recognition that the business needed something beyond what he could give. This highly admirable act demonstrates not only self-awareness and servant leadership, but also the commitment to face the truth and follow that truth to whatever conclusions are best for the business.
This kind of openness and frank communication can re-center the organization on the “why” of your business or project, what success looks like, and what is required to move forward.
Ray Padron recently shared a quote from Gail Hyatt which posed that “people lose their way, when they lose their why.” So true.
And ironically, the best way to find your “why” is to start with your “who.” After all, you can’t be obsessed about your customers, if you don’t know who they are. You can’t set priorities or align your time and resources to high-impact projects, if you don’t know who you are serving. You can't own your business, if you are seeking others to blame. And we can’t determine or achieve the “why” of our business without the people “who” are our colleagues, team mates, stakeholders, and co-collaborators.
Our mission, should we accept it, is to see people as people and to find a way together.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.
People see in others what they feel themselves. Criticism is a clue.
"The key to learning is listening. It was great to talk to CEO World about this important topic. I confess I'm still learning to apply my own advice here, so I'd better listen up!"
Everyone knows that great leaders are great listeners. But as senior level professionals, our opportunity to listen diminishes as we are the people in the room that introduce new ideas, present plans, answer questions. When we do listen, many of us are guilty of preparing our response, thinking about the implications, or predicting what the speaker will say next, instead of truly listening.
How can we tap into the thoughts from our staff? Here are ten ways that you (and I) can listen more.
1. Stop talking.
When someone is speaking to you, let them finish their entire thought before responding. It sounds simple, but it is harder in practice. Even when we agree, we often interrupt to show we understand the point by talking over the speaker before they have finished their thought. In disagreements, we might talk over the person to communicate our counter viewpoint. But when you stop talking and better yet, pause before you respond, you will likely hear something in that last trailing sentiment that you might not have heard if you had interrupted to rush your reply.
2. Advocate for the person speaking.
As you master the skill of refraining from interrupting, you will notice how often others interrupt. Be an advocate for the person speaking – not necessarily agreeing with their position but asking others to let them finish their statement.
3. Don’t multitask.
In our fast-paced society, multi-tasking is celebrated. But to truly listen, the person speaking deserves our full attention. Be fully present throughout the conversation by taking notes and asking follow up questions as needed. By focusing on their words instead of using the time for other responsibilities, we can be more productive in that moment, gaining more clarity for that topic and potentially save time in the future by eliminating misinterpretation.
4. Let someone else lead the conversation.
As senior level professionals, we are inclined to determine the topic, set the agenda and carry the conversation. But when we let someone else lead, whether it be a meeting, group discussion or 1:1, we can empower others voices to be heard while giving ourselves an opportunity to stop, listen and reflect. By being fully present in the moment with the person speaking or leading the conversation you communicate respect and encourage leadership amongst your team members.
5. Ask open ended questions.
When my kids started in school, I would ask them about their day and get brisk “it was fine” or “good” answers. I asked a friend how he got his teenagers to share details of their day and he recommended starting the daily conversation with a story starter, such as “I dropped you off at school, then what happened?” With a storytelling prompt, I found that it was easier for the kids to recall details about their teacher, friends, lessons and activities. In business, this technique works well as you lead people through a timeline, putting them in the moment and likely down a path you wouldn’t have heard if the question could be answered with one word.
6. Be open to old ideas.
As senior professionals, we’ve experienced many of the same situations repeatedly and original ideas and solutions are far and few between. When we hear an idea we’ve already proposed to colleagues or a solution have tried ourselves, we tend to stop listening, often interrupting the speaker with a statement “we already did that.” But if we take time to listen more, we can consider how the environment, products, and other variables have changed since our last attempt. If the context has changed, we might have a solution that could work again or for the first time. By listening more effectively, we can open ourselves to old ideas.
7. Repeat back what the person said.
Reflecting listening skills are a tried and true method for increasing understanding and empathy. By summarizing the speaker’s thoughts in their own words, you demonstrate that you are engaged and understand their statement. If there is a misinterpretation, summarizing gives the speaker an opportunity to clarify and continue the conversation knowing you are both on the same page and leading to a more productive outcome.
8. Create environments to listen.
One reason we might not hear from our team is we haven’t made the time to listen. Schedule meetings and secure a meeting place that allows for conversation. If there is a specific topic you want to learn about, share a few questions before the meeting, kick off with a reminder of those questions, then stop talking and start learning. Scheduling your undivided attention shows your commitment to listening to your employees.
If it’s not possible to meet individually, schedule small group meetings, regularly host open office hours, or make time at the end of a team meeting for open Q&A. Dedicating consistent time to listen to your team, shows that you value their opinions and want to learn from their areas of expertise.
9. Listen with your eyes.
A small child asked his mother if he could tell her a story while she was cooking. The mom responded “sure” but didn’t move her eyes from her cooking task. Moments later she looked down and asked why he wasn’t telling her the story and the boy responded “you weren’t listening with your eyes.”
Maintaining eye contact with the speaker demonstrates they have your full attention and allows you to pick up on their body language – their passion and excitement or their uneasiness about the topic. Listening with your eyes as well as your ears gives you clues to how the speaker is reacting to their own words and gives you greater insight.
10. Act on the conversation.
Perhaps the real value of listening more is the response it elicits. After the conversation, take time to think about the learnings – write down thoughts and any action items. Commit to following up with the person, even if you don’t have an immediate update – circling back to reference the conversation shows that you listened and have learned from what was shared.
All of us have cause to feel hurt, overlooked, or disrespected from time to time. Finding ways to handle that graciously while maintaining our self-respect and poise can be a challenge for even the most self-confident of the bunch. In the heat of the moment, when you feel attacked or dismissed, it is hard to muster the courage to take back the energy and the power. Sometimes you need a cheat to help get you there.
In Amy Poehler’s recent book, the comedian talks about her winning strategy in these situations. “This is the part where you apologize to me,” she says. “You screwed up and this is where you make me feel better about it.” And then wait for the response.
She describes using this technique on bosses, co-workers, and even the rude concierge at a hotel, who might need a “this is the part of the evening where the concierge helps me” kind of reminder. “Act like they are an actor who has forgotten which part they are playing,” she continues. “It brings the attention back to them and gives you a minute to calm down so that you don’t do something silly like burst into tears or break their stupid glasses.”
I think I might try this the next time that I am asked to wait too long, have my awesome idea interrupted, or want to ask for something in a disarming way.
Let’s try it now. This is the part of the blog post, where you leave a comment.
I have a stitchery, which was a wedding present, which reads “Love is a choice and a commitment. It takes a lifetime of giving and receiving.”
Sometimes love gets up in the middle of the night to comfort a sick child. Sometime love travels great distances and solves seemingly impossible problems to resolve a customer problem under deadline. Sometimes love looks like dirty work.
Although it is not popular in western culture to discuss, sometimes love looks like duty. Duty, administered thoughtfully, purposefully, and with heart, can be loving.
“To build the relationship with your clients for the long term,” said Flavia Sparacino from SensingPlaces at a recent conference, “you may need to say ‘no’.”
"The best quality to look for in a friend is curiosity and a sense of humor." - Iris Apfel
"It's easier to accept others, than to change them. It's wiser to understand them, than to get angry. And most of the time, it's more fun to love 'em, than to leave 'em." -Susan Clark, founder of HeartSpark
Looking back in the early days of my career, I think about the lessons I learned that have helped me throughout my career. Now that I’m the CMO of Leyard’s international business and vice president of marketing and product strategy at Planar, I’m sharing those lessons in the hopes they will help new employees as they enter the professional workforce.
As a new professional, you’re ready to take on a new set of challenges while working to build your manager’s trust and confidence in your abilities. Yet starting out on a new job can be daunting. Not only are you required to learn a new role, but you must navigate an unfamiliar company culture complete with a new set of processes, politics and personalities. As Michael Watkins, author of the guide, “The First 90 Days” has said, the first three months in a new job are both “fraught with peril—and loaded with opportunity.”* To do well in college, the professor gives you a syllabus and timelines for every assignment. The work world isn’t that way. You have to figure things out for yourself.
Here are seven lessons I learned early on in my career that can help you to embrace the opportunity, while avoiding the peril as you start on a new job:
1. Come prepared
A great way to hit the ground running is to learn everything you can about the company you’ve been hired to work for — before your first day on the job. Follow the company, its leaders and industry competitors on social media. Learn about the executive team. Read recent press releases, blog posts and news articles to learn about the company’s products and services, and where the business is headed. Having that background before you walk through the door will give you a significant head start, helping you to ramp up more quickly.
2. Dress appropriately
How you dress is a part of your personal brand, which combined with your work and behavior, defines who you are as a professional. Look at how the leaders in the company dress, and take clues from them. If you don’t know the dress code, the easiest thing to do is ask. And if in doubt, it’s best to err on the side of dressing more formally and more conservatively than what’s required, especially for young employees attempting to demonstrate their professionalism.
3. Take notes at every meeting
If I had to choose one thing to help young professionals demonstrate that they’re ready for the challenge, it would be pen and paper. By taking notes at every 1:1 and team meeting, you show that you’re prepared for new tasks. When you take notes, you communicate that you’re an active listener who’s engaged in the conversation and focused on taking action. And by documenting conversations, you establish yourself as a resource whom the team can rely upon to follow through on their commitments.
4. Listen and ask questions
Over the years, I’ve noticed that the new hires who adapt the most rapidly are first and foremost good listeners. By listening and observing, you get to know the different players and personalities at your new company, what their interests are, and how they interact. You also quickly learn the priorities of the company—including what has and hasn’t worked in the past. As a new hire, you should also take the time to ask questions. The first 90 days on the job are a grace period during which you’re not expected to know everything. By seizing this time to think strategically about the company and ask good questions, you demonstrate your curiosity while at the same time accelerating your learning curve.
5. Display a positive attitude
Studies show that that almost half of new hires fail within the first 18 months.** Interestingly, the biggest reason for this isn’t lack of skill, but attitudinal issues such as lack of coachability, low levels of motivation and the wrong temperament. By being humble, flexible, energetic and openly receptive to guidance, you will quickly establish a reputation as an employee who’s ready to work. Moreover, you’ll demonstrate that you’re a “can-do” person and a great team player.
6. Form the right relationships
Nearly every job has its share of gossipers and complainers. As you encounter these people, make sure to keep your distance. Instead, form relationships with productive co-workers who are focused on making a positive difference. Ask for guidance from those you respect. And take your co-workers to lunch to learn about the company culture and build a rapport.
7. Ask for feedback
Don’t wait for your manager to offer feedback. Proactively ask for it after you’ve spent a few weeks on the job and have had time to adjust to your new role. What’s going well? And what can you improve upon? By proactively asking for input from your manager, you make sure you’re moving in the right direction. And if adjustments are needed, you can quickly make them so that you exceed expectations in the long run.
With these guidelines top of mind, you will show your employer that you are ready and motivated to do your best work.
This article was originally published on Leaders in Heels blog.
Honest feedback, delivered with good intention, is an absolute gift. It is hard to give. It requires a sacrifice of pride, poise, and position. It often requires speaking truth to power, which can be difficult and vulnerable. But there is a spectrum of feedback that might require different approaches.
Telling someone they have “spinach in their teeth” is one end of the spectrum. The bolder of us might even point that out to a stranger, but many of us struggle to do this with our own friends, family, and co-workers. We figure they will eventually figure it out. This is a problem we all have faced, we are always thankful for the quiet aside that helps us fix it, and yet we sometimes don’t offer the same courtesy to others. This is an example of feedback that people are generally happy to hear, from someone they know and trust, as it saves them from embarrassment with others.
The other end of the spectrum is telling someone that their “baby is ugly.” Maybe not their literal baby, but perhaps their pet project at work, their big idea, or their latest obsession. It takes a lot of courage to tell someone something they will be ungrateful to hear. They might not understand. They will likely question your motivations. The feedback might fall on deaf ears or, worse, backfire. We have all heard those cautionary tales of whistle-blowers being fired, but in most cases it isn’t that dramatic, but can still feel vulnerable.
So, how do you approach giving feedback along this spectrum? I find it always useful to preface your message with a reminder that you like them and want the best for them. The spinach in the teeth might only require an “I figured you’d want to know” to start a conversation. A bigger, more emotionally tinged, situation might require you to tell them that you care about them and the company and that is what is prompting the feedback.
Always go to the person directly first. In a personal way, like face-to-face or over the phone is best. Emails or text messages are often taken harshly or misinterpreted, but that can work as well depending on the relationship. Feedback like this should never be given publicly, as that makes everything worse.
What kind of feedback have you given and what have you learned about doing it well?
This article was originally published by the Technology Association of Oregon.
Named after the public officials in “It’s a wonderful Life”, the Sesame Street characters, Bert and Ernie, are a staple of childhood mythology. Ernie represents enthusiasm and wonder. Bert represents practicality and order. The “odd couple” certainly.
In our organizations, we divide up into Bert and Ernie camps. Some of us ideate, have a sense of urgency, and can be easily distracted. Others of us can have singular focus (even if our obsessions are misplaced on pigeons and stamp collecting), are skeptical, and risk adverse. Our organizations need both.
Josh Goldblum from Blue Cadet spoke at a conference and said he is the Ernie to his business partner’s Bert. Who are you?
"It's easier to be brave when you are not alone." -Amy Poehler, comedian, actor, best-selling author, and mother (who knows her share of terrifying situations)
At the end of the day, when the final numbers are tallied and the results are analyzed, it is all relationships.
I recently re-read Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Teambusiness fable and was reminded of the foundational importance of trust among a team. His definition is fairly precise and limited to a belief in the intention of the person (not in their ability or capacity), yet it got me thinking about trust in a more general sense.
We often talk about building trust. But I wonder if that is the right metaphor at all. Do we really “build” trust with people? Or is it more that we reveal the trustworthiness of others in our interactions and in their promises made and kept?
Some people can never build (or re-build) our trust and others can’t seem to shake our feelings of goodwill, no matter what they do. This led me to another thought.
Is trust not about the other person, and their trustworthiness, at all, but in our own willingness to be trusting? So, perhaps we don’t build trust at all, but rather we reveal the trust within ourselves.