Connect, Trust and Spark Fascination through Conversation
Apr 10, 20120 commentsIn last week’s blog post, Are you spreading optimism or pessimism, we discussed how emotions can be contagious. This week, we’d like to explain how you can create connections, increase trust and spark fascination in your conversations.
The Connection Contagion
Great leaders understand the powerful secret of human connection. They spend time interacting with employees, showing interest in them as a person (versus treating them like corporate chattel), listening to them, and thanking them face-to-face for their contribution. When you need to convey optimism, passion, purpose, gratitude or seriousness, the most effective way to do it is face-to-face. The limbic system in your brain regulates emotions, and sends out a wavelength in face-to-face conversations that act as a contagion to imprint others with passion and it can powerfully serve an entire organization. If you need to deliver excitement and enthusiasm, or perhaps compassion and kindness, along with your words, consider a face-to-face conversation as your default, if possible.
Create Trust / Reduce Tension
Face-to-face conversation is essential if you need to create trust and reduce tension in a relationship. It increases trust, bonding, attention, and pleasure, and it reduces fear and worry. As Edward Halowell puts it in his Harvard Business Review article called The Human Moment at Work:
“Nature … equips us with hormones that promote trust and bonding: oxytocin and vasopressin. Most abundant in nursing mothers, these hormones are always present to some degree in all of us, but they rise when we feel empathy for another person – in particular when we are meeting with someone face to face. It has been shown that these bonding hormones are at suppressed levels when people are physically separate.”
That explains why it’s easier to rip someone apart in an email than it would be if you were standing in front of them. But face-to-face conversation not only produces trust, it can be the happy Prozac moment of your day. Hallowell adds that “scientists hypothesize that in-person contact stimulates two important neurotransmitters: dopamine, which enhances attention and pleasure, and serotonin, which reduces fear and worry.”
Spark Fascination
Have you ever had a conversation with an “expert” who is explaining something that is intricate and complex, but you find yourself fully capable of comprehending what is being said? It’s as if all your channels are open - no distorted buzzing in the background. In another conversation, a different expert is explaining a subject that is no more complex but you feel thick and slow, unable to comprehend the message.
What was the difference? Sometimes it’s more than just your affinity with the subject matter or how ‘with it’ you felt on a given day. Often, chemistry can be at play. Perhaps the first speaker made you feel respected and valued. The second made you feel patronized and disrespected. Each of these two interactions sets into motion a very different hormonal chain of events.
Daniel Goleman, in Working with Emotional Intelligence,discusses the scientific evidence regarding the physical effects on people when they are disrespected or respected. “When we experience stress -- for example, when we’re being psychologically “erased” or simply ignored by others -- our bodies release cortisol, sometimes called the stress hormone. When cortisol is released into our pre-frontal cortex, the logic center or CPU of our brains, can shut down up to sixty-six percent of our rational reasoning powers. The unhappy effect is that we find it hard to understand what is being said. We literally remain stupid, no matter how hard we try to understand.”
He adds that whensomeone positively engages us, “our brain is being soaked in a bath of catecholamines and other substances triggered by the adrenal system. These chemicals prime the brain to stay attentive and interested, even fascinated, and energized for an almost effortless, sustained effort.”
If you want to make a deep and lasting imprint on people, make them feel respected and valued as you converse with them. Doing so will enable them to find the fascination that keeps them engaged to the point of full understanding.
This post discusses face-to-face conversation as the ideal default mode when communicating, to take advantage of your body’s natural chemicals to engage in a better connection. Next week will introduce reality, and talk about how to be more effective at having better conversations virtually and electronically.
Love Lives in the Tension
Jul 12, 20110 commentsRelationship Rule #1 states that, in any relationship you will encounter differences. Men and women’s communication styles are very different. South Americans have a different sense of timeliness than North Americans. Operations people tend to value processes differently than sales people. Millennials appreciate technology differently than Boomers do. An introvert views a company party very differently than an extrovert does.
And differences tend to create a sense of tension. The beauty of tension is that it has something powerful residing within it – energy. You don’t get to decide whether energy will get released from the tension – you do get to decide whether it will be intelligent energy or destructive energy.
At work, we deal with business tensions every day:
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- Meet the global needs of the organization and meet the individual needs of the employee.
- Achieve economic and ecological success.
- Do what’s good for the present and for the future.
- Provide a differentiated, tailor-made customer experience and reduce costs.
- Use technology to drive efficiency and help employees feel that face-to-face connection.
- Develop peoples’ careers and maximize productivity.
Great leaders stand right in the middle of the tension, use the power of the and, harmonize the conflicting needs and in so doing, release a powerful energy that drives sustainable results.
I’m beginning to think that in relationships, love lives right in the middle of the tension. My partner Theresa and I have been together for twenty-nine years. I started off the relationship swallowing my needs, overlooking issues and stuffing my frustrations in an attempt to meet Theresa’s needs. That didn’t work. It created bitterness and resentment. I wasn’t loving myself. Then I tried to make sure I got my own needs met. That didn’t work either. It created a pendulum of fiery explosions and icy wildernesses. I wasn’t loving Theresa.
Love lives in the tension. It’s the drive to get your own needs met and the drive to ensure your partner’s needs get met. Love both covers our partner’s inadequacies and calls out their bad behavior. Love accommodates and demands growth.
When two people stand right in the middle of their relational tensions and extend themselves to invest in their own highest good and highest good of the other, astonishing energy is released.
Love Makes you Strong
Jul 5, 20110 comments
Want your quads, calves or biceps to grow? Here’s how to make it happen. First you exert yourself to the point of tearing the micro-fibers of your muscles. Next you rest your muscles. In the next couple of days, as the torn fibers repair themselves muscle is built. This is the cycle that creates the growth of muscles: stress and recovery, stress and recovery.*
Extending yourself tears the muscles
Last week my eldest son Adrian and his wife Alison had a triple whammy. They moved into a different house on Saturday, had a baby on Sunday and renovated their entire bathroom in the ensuing week. I had just come off a big month of travel and was exhausted. But I really wanted to invest in the highest good of my kids. Adrian and I gutted the bathroom, re-plumbed it and got the drywall all taped. I worked late into the night with him then woke up at 4:30 the next morning to take off on another trip. I knew when I woke up that my body was sick. Sometimes when you extend yourself to invest in someone’s highest good it requires sacrifice – you tear something in the process. I later told my business partner Alex, “I wouldn’t trade this cold for anything. It means everything for me to be there for Adrian.”
I have stepped into many, many stressful conversations – extending myself to invest in someone’s highest good. In the process I often exerted my intellectual or emotional muscles to the point where they began to tear. In the aftermath I became enlarged – a bigger, more expansive human being.
My scope of care and ownership expanded and I became more mature, no longer just caring for my own good and growth but the good and growth of those closest to me, and then in an ever-expanding orbit – my community, my province, my nation – my world.
Are you tearing the muscles?
Is there someone you need to offer your help to – something that will mean significant personal sacrifice for you?
Is there someone close to you who needs to move to a higher level of growth or maturity and you’re the one who needs to have a conversation with them?
Is there someone with an annoying idiosyncrasy requiring levels of patience and restraint from you, that are almost more than you can bear?
*For more on this concept read The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Lohr and Tony Schwartz.
Love is Your Selection Process
Jun 30, 20110 comments
If it’s true that the soul’s stature is measured by the yardstick of love, you might be asking yourself, “How do I stack up in the love department? Am I a loving person?” I have an answer for you: you are a loving person. You love all sorts of things. Whenever you extend yourself to invest in the highest good of someone or something – that’s love.
I often extend myself to invest in the highest good of my customers. So by the definition above, I love my customers.
My neighbor Jim extends himself to invest in the highest good of his Harley. He loves his motor cycle. Kelly extends herself to invest in marathon training. She loves running.
Love is the selection process that determines what you will do and what you will not do; what you value and what you throw away; what you seek after and what you spurn; what you will devote your time to, and what you will ignore. The question is not: “How can I be a more loving person?” You are already a loving person. You love all sorts of things. The question is: “How can I love the things that are most important and beneficial?”
Your marriage suffers when your spouse feels you love yourself more than you love them. Your family suffers when your kids feel you love your career more than you love them. Your business suffers when your customers feel you love your processes more than you love serving them. We do love. The question is: “What do we love?” and “How do we know what’s best to love in the moment?”
The answer is not as simple as, “Don’t love things – love people.” You do love your old Gibson hummingbird guitar, and if my definition for love holds any water you should. By all means extend yourself to invest in its highest good: polish it, store it at the proper humidity level so it doesn’t crack and don’t let your four-year-old shred it with a bread tag.
But if you don’t know when to put your Gibson down and listen to your wife’s concerns about the colleague who’s trying to assassinate her character at work, then she’s going to feel you love your Gibson more than you love her. That will not be good for your marriage. If you go ballistic when your teenager spills hot chocolate in your SUV, he might not have a huge desire to hang with you.
I remember helping a friend move. The ramp of the moving truck was very slick and I slipped and hurt myself. My friend came running over and immediately expressed his concern – for his dresser. He began running his hands over the wood to determine if any damage had been done. The message seemed articulate: “I love my furniture more than I love you.”
I think in general, loving people enlarges our soul more than loving things. Perhaps that’s because people are harder to love than things. They seem to require a greater extending of ourselves and a steeper form of investment. Extending yourself to invest in your cottage has a pretty linear form of payback to it. The relationship between cause and effect is trickier to track when you invest in people.
So love things, love ideals and love people. Most of all, learn to detect what the moment is calling for and focus all your attention on loving that in the moment.
Love Makes You Big
May 31, 20110 commentsTears welled up in Shelly’s eyes as she told me about her boss’ sacrifice. Shelly was stuck in a no-win situation. She managed a highly-complex nursing unit with too few resources, too many demands and too much emotional energy being sucked out of her by a chronic bullying issue.
Kate, my boss came to me and said, ‘I’m carrying your pager for the next six weeks while you get things straightened out. I’ll let you know what you need to respond to and I’ll take care of the rest. What kind of a boss does something like that?!”
In short, only big people do things like that. Scott Peck unpacks the concept of human enlargement in The Road Less Traveled*. Psychologists say that when “we are attracted to, invest in and commit to an object outside ourselves 'we actually cathect it' We psychologically incorporate a representation of that object into ourselves.' In the process of cathexis, we extend the boundaries of our personhood by stretching out toward the object of our love whose growth we wish to nurture.”
My neighbor Mary-Catherine is a gardener who loves her garden. When she’s at work and takes a break for lunch she pulls out her Lee Valley catalogue and studies the gardening section. On rainy days she’s creating sketches of how she envisions her garden to be. In a very real way, Mary-Catherine has incorporated the garden within her, and by this incorporation her self has become enlarged. She is not only Mary-Catherine anymore, she is Mary-Catherine with a garden growing inside her.
Those of us who are parents have experienced this first-hand. I am not only a person, I am a person with children and grandchildren living inside me. Through cathexis - being attracted to, investing in and committing to the objects of my love I have become a bigger person. In short, love has made me big.
If love enlarges us, think how large Mother Theresa’s soul was. She cathected thousands inside of her. Think how small the soul of a cold, heartless banker who only lives for his own self interests.
I’ve been on a quest to discover a working definition for love. I think maybe there’s one inside this concept of cathexis. My current working definition for love is extending yourself to invest in someone’s highest good.
So back to Shelly’s question, “What kind of a boss carries her employee’s pager for six weeks?” A boss who is attracted to, invested in and committed to the highest good of her employees. In short, a boss with employees living inside of her. It’s only a big person who makes a big boss.
How big are you on the inside? What, or whom do you have living inside of you? If you extend yourself to invest in the highest good of your employees, it is possible that one of them is speaking positively about you right now and asking, “What kind of a boss does something like that?”
*If you haven’t yet read it, pick up Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled. His thoughts on cathexis are on page 52-53 of Love at Work.
Got a Soul?
May 26, 20110 comments
A chunk of limestone does not seek the growth of another being. Neither does a turnip. As far as we can tell, minerals and vegetables have no drive to seek the growth and preservation of others. The cocker spaniel, on the other hand, does exhibit this drive. She cares for and protects beings outside her own scope of concern. Humans take this trait to even more sophisticated levels.
If you were asked, “Does a rock have a soul? Does a turnip? A cocker spaniel? A human?”, what would you say?
Mihalyi Csikzentmahalyi, the author of the book Flow, has an opinion on this. “No matter how complex a system is, we judge it as having no soul if all its energies are devoted merely to keeping itself alive and growing. We attribute soul to those entities that use some portion of their energy not only for their own sake but to make contact with other beings and care for them.”
With this thought in mind, one could argue that the cocker spaniel has a bigger soul than the heartless lawyer who devotes all his energies to serving himself.
The bigger the soul – the more it seeks to extend itself to invest in the highest good of another. In short, the soul’s stature is measured by the yardstick of love.
In a very real sense, love is the metric of maturity. Got a soul? How big is it? You can tell by the amount of energy you expend seeking the highest good of others – the drive to seek the growth and preservation of an ever-broadening community. This journey of maturity started when you began to share toys with other toddlers. It continued with your friends as you protected them in the schoolyard. It progressed when you protected a colleague’s reputation at work. Perhaps you’ll get married and have children. That part of the journey will give you millions of opportunities to grow your soul. The journey includes all your dealings with your community, and your entire world.
Here’s my definition for love at this point in my journey: Love is extending yourself to invest in someone’s highest good.
Breaking apart this definition will provide you with a choicepoint many times a day: Will I extend myself? This can mean sacrifice, stress, stretching and pain. To invest. This part requires risk. You take time, energy or money that’s in your hand as a for sure thing and you spend it on someone else in the hopes that good will come out of the investment. In someone’s highest good. This part requires relationship and conversation. A person’s highest good is not tattooed on their forehead. Not only that, most people aren’t crystal clear themselves, about what the highest good is for them. We all have blindspots and are a little bit unaware of what’s best for us. This is a discovery process: seeking to co-explore what someone’s true potential is and how you can help them fulfill it.
Animal, vegetable, mineral – the choice is yours every day.
Engagement Should Be Close to the Heart
Apr 4, 20110 comments
I just returned from China. Here's how it came about. Over the past few years my 22 year old daughter Katelyn has been poking me in the ribs saying, "You go on so many trips - when are you going to take ME on a trip?" I've been looking for the right opportunity for some time. It presented itself through Katelyn's boyfriend Josh, who is teaching at a University in Hunan Province. Katy wanted to go and visit him but didn't feel comfortable navigating China by herself. I didn't have to be asked twice. We started planning our trip and got excited about hanging out together.
That's when I got the email from Josh. "I was wondering if you could transport something over to China for me?" It turns out what he wanted transported was an engagement ring - he was asking for my daughter's hand in marriage. So I began thinking about how I was going to transport the 'rock'. I didn't want to put it in my checked luggage: I'd feel horrible if it got removed. I didn't want to put it in my carry-on luggage: what if the security people asked me to open it up and Katy saw the ring. So I decided to wear the ring around my neck on a strong leather cord: people go through the security scanners with diamond rings all the time and they don't go off. I should be safe.
Well, I got through security with no problems. A few hours later I was sitting beside Katelyn on the plane, the ring that would change her future a mere 16 inches from her eyes and she had no clue. Sweet. I did have to be careful though. I had this compulsion to keep touching it beneath my turtleneck - is it still there I wonder? A few days later, after I delivered the ring safe and sound to Josh I began reflecting on the experience.
You know, engagement should be close to the heart. It should be something we carry on behalf of others. It should be something we safeguard. And it should be something we deliver for the people we serve. Doing so is love at work. And I can promise you one thing, making engagement happen won't cost you nearly as much as it's going to cost me!
Cheers, Brady.
What’s really going on in this conversation?
Apr 1, 20111 comment
These little fellas are having a great conversation. Notice their technique - the one little guy moves closer, they take turns expressing themselves, they are completely open to one another's point of view, they inquire, they're direct and they use body language well. In a conversation, people don't remember the words you use, they remember how you make them feel...
Listening is an Act Of Love
Mar 30, 20110 commentsPowerful words, aren’t they? It’s the name of a book published by StoryCorps based on the idea that the stories of everyday people are important. They say that when we take the time to listen, we are rewarded with the wisdom, wonder and poetry in the lives of the people around us. Knowing our lives matter and that we won’t be forgotten is an intrinsic part of our being. Listening, they say, is an act of love.
StoryCorps launched in October, 2003 with 91-year-old Studs Terkel proclaiming, “Today we shall begin celebrating the lives of the uncelebrated! We’re in Grand Central Station. We know there was an architect, but who hung the iron? Who were the brick masons? Who swept the floors?” Since then, StoryCorps has captured and archived the legacies of over 30,000 people, falling into the categories of life, death and love.
Fundamental to the success of this project was the courage for someone to initiate a conversation, and then for another person to join in. Conversation starters included questions like, “How do you want to be remembered? Are you afraid of dying? What are you most proud of?” If we can’t take the time to have these good conversations with the people we love, how can we tackle the more difficult conversations that cause tension and conflict? The tools on the StoryCorps website including the question generator provide an excellent opportunity for you to practice mining for the treasure in the lives of those you love, so when you run into conflict you have the strength of your relationship and a deep understanding of that person’s values to help make them feel heard, and for you, yourself to be heard. Every voice matters. And listening is an act. Of love. Now go and explore someone's story. I'd like to find out more about Studs Terkel's name...
The Feelings Economy and its Impact at Work
Mar 18, 20110 commentsFeelings drive behavior. Marketers have been selling feelings for years. Watch any good television commercial and you will see that marketers constantly connect to people’s emotions, whether it’s selling coffee or cars. Good branding is about evoking feelings and emotion in your audience. People have a short memory about facts, but they never forget how you make them feel.
When it comes to people you work with, how you make them feel makes a significant difference in their performance. Why? Because feelings create energy - much like gas in a car or food for the body. People’s emotional state affects their performance. If people are positively charged it enables them to tackle tough issues and they can access their knowledge and experience faster because there is little or no interference from negative emotions. If people are negatively charged, motivation plummets and the ability to access knowledge or experience is compromised and ultimately productivity is affected.
If people forget what you say and remember how you make them feel, how can we practically make this happen in a real and authentic way that produces results? At Juice, we help people understand it is possible to create environments where it feels good to work and it is easier to get things done. You can apply this truth to how change is managed. If you approach people purely on the rational level, the likelihood of enabling change will have more to do with pushing it on them and mandating it. In turn, this creates friction, interference and resistance in the system even when it is the right thing to do. If you engage people at an emotional level and speak to their heart and mind, 
people will be more open to your message and it enables them to act. John Kotter illustrates this truth beautifully in his book The Heart of Change.
My business partner, Brady Wilson goes further in his latest book, Love at Work, Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy and he makes a compelling case for the role of feelings in the workplace.
Humanizing the workplace is good for employees and good for organizations because humanizing the workplace gets results.
Uncomfortable Conversations
Nov 2, 20100 comments“I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have.” – Timothy Ferriss
I’d have to agree with Tim Ferriss. My definition of love is “extending yourself to invest in someone’s highest good” and uncomfortable conversations are just the type of extension that demand a big investment; one that a small percentage of people are willing to make.
The unsuccessful managers is caught up with his email. He attends the meetings he is required to attend. His reports are all completed. What’s the one activity he has left undone? Uncomfortable conversations.
- He hasn’t got around to taking to his boss about how her mass email made employees feel de-valued.
- He hasn’t talked to the marketing manager about the way he shoots down others’ ideas in meetings.
- He hasn’t dealt with the under-performer: the one who is rocking the numbers but trashing his team-mates.
The risk and discomfort involved can be paralyzing. Today (and most every day) I’m out helping people extend themselves to become skillful in those types of conversations. It’s a large privilege to help people figure out how to Love at Work.
Date with my Granddaughter
Oct 21, 20100 commentsTomorrow I go on a date with my granddaughter. As I interact with her, I often think, “What kind of a world will you grow up in?”
What if she could experience an education system that identifies her unique potentialities and helps her cultivate them so she can contribute to society in an ever-expanding way.
Maybe because of that education system she’ll be part of the team of engineers and researchers that discovers a, clean, alternate form of energy to power our autos, homes and businesses.
Maybe she’ll design a breakthrough negotiation technology that will end the bloodshed in the Gaza strip.
Or perhaps she’ll help transform our penal system to produce contributing members of society.
Maybe she’ll be an economist and use her economic brilliance to end poverty.
Maybe, twenty years from now, she’ll come out on another date with me and say, “Grandpa, I can’t believe that people in your generation used to call people ‘Human Resources’. Why did they treat them like resources, Grandpa? Didn’t they know they were people?”
My hope is that she won’t have to ask that question. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to tell her that because of my work people began to Love at Work – extending themselves to invest in each other’s highest good. I want to build a better world. Maybe I’ll let my granddaughter know that tomorrow.
Joy,
Brady
Build a Better World
Oct 12, 20100 commentsI just attended a Restorative Justice conference in Rochester. You may not yet be aware that there are pockets of the world where people are approaching justice in a way that actually restores the aggrieved, the offender and the broader community impacted by the crime.
Restorative Justice goes far beyond punitive and retributive justice (our North American justice system) and even beyond ‘repair-ative’ justice. This system, pioneered by Dominic Barter in the ghettos of Brazil, has had a transformative impact on gang wars, prison violence, schools and youth drug addiction.
Restorative Justice engages the offended, the offender and the larger community in a form of dialogue that is strikingly authentic and powerfully transformative. I am intrigued about this phenomenon for one simple reason, and it’s the reason I wrote Love at Work: I want to build a better world. Restorative justice is a great example of how that happens. Let me use a metaphor to unpack this idea.
Think of a raging river, roaring and foaming its way downstream. Does it have power? Yes, immense power. But it’s not a particularly useful form of power. If we were to be able to install a dam and a turbine, we could transform all that power into useful energy – the kind of energy that could power a hospital or a university.
Restorative Justice does the same thing – it places itself right in the middle of the stream of hatred, bitterness and vengeance and installs a system that transforms all that destructive energy into something useful – the kinds of actions that restore people and allow them to become or return to the place of contributing to society.
Love at work is all about that very activity – stepping into our business tensions and extending ourselves to invest in another’s highest good. When we practice that at work, we learn how to do it more effectively for our communities and ultimately, for our planet. That builds a better world.
Love = Intelligent Listening
Oct 12, 20100 commentsI heard Dominic Barter (the Restorative Justice guy from my last post) say something interesting about the word intelligent. He told us what the word actually means. Do you know what the word intelligent means? Smart? Wise? Knowledgable? Bright?
It comes from the word intelligere and is comprised of two parts: inter + legere. Inter = between and legere = read or choose. Intelligence is the ability to read between the lines. Anybody can read what’s on the lines – it’s the intelligent person who can extrapolate and read between the lines – connecting the dots to uncover the hidden meaning.
So intelligent listening is the ability to read between the lines – bringing a blend of intense interest and refreshing directness that pulls out the deepest meaning possible in any situation.
Intelligent Listening is one of the most demanding expressions of love- demanding not only immense psychological effort but a transparent authenticity that is just unfake-able. I’m passionate about helping leaders learn to be intelligent listeners because intelligent listening releases emotional engagement – the magnetic element that unlocks four times the discretionary effort of rational engagement.
Walk into your next conversation with the curiosity that will enable you to read between the lines – then do the implication reflection – reflecting back to the the speaker what their words might mean to them – inside their world. Demonstrating this level of understanding in conversation distunguishes you as an intelligent listener.
Manitoulin
Oct 1, 20100 comments
I can’t believe it’s been two years since I started to write down my thoughts about Love at Work in my journal. I was at my cottage on Manitoulin Island. (my native friends tell me that Manitoulin Island means ”The Home of the Great White Spirit”) Each morning, as I sat overlooking Tobacco Lake, a flood of ideas and impressions presented themselves to me. I remember writing, “Why would I write a book about love in the workplace? People will think I’m a nutcase.”
Well, Love at Work landed on Amazon.com this June and the initial response from readers has indicated that I might not be too far gone – in fact, for several people, the notion of practicing love at work came just on time – confirming what they knew in their gut and practiced in their leadership style all along: 1. Love creates feelings 2. Feelings release energy 3. Energy produces results.
It is so intriguing to look at the pages in my journal now – two years later, and see how the thoughts I wrote on the page, which seemed so amorphous then – have morphed into something solid and useful for people in the midst of their very real and challenging work-life tensions. How appropriate that a timely and useful message would be sparked in the home of the Great White Spirit!