BE it.

Get clear about your intention and goal in any conversation, beforehand. (definitely)

Bring more rigor to the words you choose. (absolutely)

Clarify your message. (important)

Know that every conversation you have is causing something, so be intentional. (more than you realize)

Watch and manage your tone, body language and facial expression, as they can speak louder than your words. (truth)

...Those tenets are a big, and  bring big impact. I coach to them all the time, as they start to get at the power of our communication. Because communication is so much more than the content of our words. 

There’s the intent or goal of the communication…. what we want to HAVE out of it.  So many skip this step, yet it can make all the difference, when inserted right before diving in to an exchange... Out of this communication, I want to have… agreement? collaboration? the other person put in their place? Hm. 

Then there’s the delivery. Those nonverbal messages we’re sending (tonality, facial expression, body language) as we communicate… what we DO in the conversation. 

Of those parts… people get and trust what we’re DOing in the conversation more than the content.  If I'm saying one thing, but messaging another in my tone, body language and facial expression, you'll go with the nonverbals.  There’s often a huge disconnect between the messages coming from our words and from our delivery (picture a teacher/coach/boss talking to their brood about getting fired up in an expressionless way).

And yet there’s another lesser-known key to it all.  Even more powerful than what you’re DOing in in that standard formula of words + tonality + facial expression/body language… is what comes before any of that, and could be sabotaging the whole thing for you. You’ve had interactions where you said the right things, did the right things, but actually didn’t get the impact you wanted, right? I certainly have.

In those moments of frustrated communication, we get in our own way because it’s more than what we say or how we say it.  Despite message, word rigor, causality and nonverbal awareness…

It’s about who we’re BEing. 

That is... who are you mentally, emotionally and physically being at the time?  What State are you in?  What’s your mindset? Here’s the challenge… We all have countless versions of ourselves which we end up BE-ing at any moment, without ever thinking about it. Yet rarely do we create a moment to check it, and make sure it’s the version we need to BE in the moment for what we’re trying to accomplish.

I can BE: calm, nurturing, positive, connected, excited, all-in committed, inspiring, partnering, empathetic, flexible, curious, interested, loving, patient, listening, disarming, lighthearted, open, laser-focused, empassioned, relentlessly optimistic, intense in a motivating way…

I can also BE: distracted, pushy, steamroller-y, defensive, submissive, impatient, cynical, rigid, negative, resentful, judgmental, task-y, inaccessible, fake, passive-aggressive, aloof, insensitive, closed off, already decided, intense in an intimidating way…

We could pick any one of those (BEs), and quickly predict how it would impact what I might DO differently in each one, and then what I might Have as a result. Pretty simply: 

Be: Open

Do: Really listen with full attention, truly imagine and try on every idea another person is saying, allow uninhibited connections to occur, build on them. Communicate ideas about how we can work together. Keep body language open, relaxed, possibly leaning in. Eye contact is direct, connecting. 

Have: Collaboration with my partner

Now go back through that Be-Do-Have plan changing to BE-ing Defensive instead of Open.

The whole thing changes and now doesn’t work, right? If I really tried to force those same behaviors (the DO) from a place of really BEing defensive- I’d come across as inauthentic, and in no way get true collaboration with my partner out of that conversation. This type of communication fail happens all the time. The challenge is that we focus too much on what to DO, when who we’re BE-ing may be all wrong. This is usually because we just don’t think about it, or because we think it’s not visible to anyone else. We, as the wired-for-action creatures that we are, focus on what we should DO, best practice, and steps to the goal. Yet those only succeed if we’re executing them from the right place, which we may or may not have set consciously.  I can use all the right words with the right message, even taking the right steps, but get no buy-in if I’m coming from a place that doesn’t match my outcome. That BE has everything to do with powering my impact, message, tonality, nonverbals and emotional energy… beyond the words I’m speaking.

Lately I’ve been bringing more attention and intentionality to this awareness before interactions. The results are powerful. With a client recently, I focused on BE-ing light, flexible and effortlessly positive- even while presenting a paradigm-altering idea. They were surprisingly agreeable and open to it.  This was significant since I had presented the exact same idea to the same client a few weeks before, and they not only hated it, but were resistant, upset and unhappy with me about it. After that didn’t go well, I had to admit to myself that I was irritated with them, BEing insensitive, pushy and a know-it-all (all unconscious). It didn’t matter how right for them my good my ideas were- all they got was the pushy know-it-all I was BEing, so of course they weren’t engaged by my idea! Owning that, doing what I needed to do to come back BEing authentically positive, flexible and lighter... I had a completely different result. 

The lesson for me?  

Who I’m BEing will always speak louder than anything coming out of my mouth (and can’t be hidden in my nonverbals to those who know how to read them).  Before I respond or communicate I must first get clear on what Intention I want someone to feel in my communication, and focus on it.  Get myself present- IN it.  Then go!

So…

Try this out: 

Develop an awareness in the moment of who you’re BE-ing and what it’s causing. 

After interactions with people, ask yourself: 

• What did we both Have at the end of that interaction? This is the result, the takeaway- both concrete and invisible? 

Examples: we both had frustration; or connection; or a great solution we couldn’t have gotten to alone

• What did I Do in that interaction to cause what we both ended up with? 

Examples: I didn’t really listen; I really listened and empathized; I acknowledged and built on his ideas

• Who was I BE-ing in that interaction? 

Examples: I was being impatient; present in their world; open and partnering

The more you do this, them more you’ll be able to catch yourself in the moment and make adjustments. 

Before you respond or communicate in a moment, pause to get clear on what you want someone to feel in your communication, or what you want to come out of it. Then find the corresponding way of BEing that could cause that, see if it’s different than where you are, and shift it.

Notice your patterns. Do conversations seem to end in frustration when you’re coming into them BEing defensive? Are you able to have your best moments of connection with people when you allow everything else to go out of your head and are just BEing present in and focused on their world? When you’re rushed, do your interactions become tense (perhaps you’re BEing tense when you’re slammed with other stuff)? Do you tend to have better or worse interactions/influence with certain people, or with particular settings, which may be triggers for who you’re BEing?  

Experiment with different ways to BE in your interactions. In low stakes situations (where you have a lot more control over your emotions), try isolating different versions of who you’re going to BE in a conversation beforehand, get yourself there, and notice what happens. As you continue to do this, you’ll get more precise and faster at it. Eventually, you’ll be able to do a quick reset with yourself going from interaction to interaction.

The true power of connecting with others in communication of any kind (leading, teaching, influencing…) comes down to this essence of who you are BEing in the moment. It powers your impact, message, tonality, nonverbals and emotional energy… before and beyond the words you’re speaking.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2014

Impact Everywhere

Scenario #1:                                     

I got 20 minutes with a group of bright, talented new hires last week in a new company I’m working with. It was a spontaneous decision to have them spend a few minutes with me as the expert coach since I happened to be in the building during their onboarding. I knew that this might be my only window to make impact with them (never met them before, might never see them again), so I went for it. I dove in, assessed where I could focus for the most impact, coached them individually and as a group pretty intensely, watched their thinking shift, then I was out. I intentionally made positive impact that would change some things about how they see themselves going forward.

That’s a really good twenty minutes to me. I measure my work’s accomplishment in level of  impact I have on people. In this case, I actually heard feedback today from that group last week who reported my twenty minutes with them as the most powerful in their ten day onboarding process. “She pushed hard, but not in a confrontational way, and pulled stuff out of me I didn’t know I had.” Awesome.

Overt acknowledgments are pretty nice. Yet most of the time I have to go on the cues I get in the moment (you, too, can develop the sensitivity to see the moment of shift for another person if you’re looking for it).  I maximize the moment to create a shift and then trust that it’s going to have marinating, multiplying impact as that shift takes root in their thinking after I’ve gone.

 Scenario #2:                                                                                      

A crew of city engineers were doing the final reseeding and strawing next to the street they’d been working on yesterday, as I jogged through them on my regular path .

“Thanks for doing this- it makes a big difference, and it’s going to look really good when you’re done!” 

That shoutout takes 5 seconds to say, doesn’t slow down my run at all, and can actually be the one nice acknowledgment those guys get that day for their work making a positive difference in other people’s lives.

...Which brings more meaning and satisfaction to what they do. And maybe causes them to feel more pride in their work and the positive effect it has in the world. Which makes them happy. And maybe sparks them to think about and acknowledge other people in the same way. Which carries it on…

Except I didn’t say it. 

Instead I just smiled and said “Hi,” as I continued to run past. I thought it, but it didn’t fully occur to me to verbally acknowledge them and my appreciation of their work until I was already too far down the road, out of earshot.

Missed moment. 

As soon as I ran past, I knew I’d missed it. I could’ve said something right there and made positive impact for that whole crew. I actually spent several of the next minutes of my run regretting that moment and thinking about this very idea of how easy it actually is to make more positive impact by just becoming more aware in those moments of opportunity.

So, I ran a little harder and faster, hoping I’d get back to those guys while they were still there, and make it right. When I did, many of them had gone, but a few remained. I ran up to them and delivered that simple little acknowledgment. A ten second exchange, I watched their thinking shift, then I was out. In that quick ten seconds, a little caught off guard, they went from surprise, to really getting what I said, to big-grin, standing up-a-little-straighter satisfaction of being newly proud of their work and acknowledged for it by someone in the world. They played it off casually, but I knew I’d struck a chord. I intentionally made a positive impact that would change some things a little about how they see themselves going forward that day. And I didn’t even lose time off my run.

That’s a really good ten seconds to me. Not as good as if the whole crew had been there to feel it, but a difference made for those few guys. Think starfish story,“I made a difference for that one.” Not as big and dramatic as Scenario #1, but who’s to say?

It’s right there.... 

Okay… so maybe this idea of making impact is one that I think about more than other people, yet I’m clear that this is way bigger than what I do for a living. We could consciously be making positive impact 100 times a day if we actually paid attention to the moments of opportunity we’re passing by all the time.

I can drop a pebble in a pond, and watch it as it disappears to the bottom of the pond. I may notice the ripples my pebble causes, but how often do I follow them, making impact somewhere else, 90 degrees and a good distance away from where I focused my pebble in the water?  Bucky Fuller coined the term Precession, the idea that there’s impact happening at 90 degree angles from our focus all the time, like those ripples reaching out to the edges you can’t even see in a pond. I choose to turn an otherwise disconnected moment near someone else (think standing in line at the grocery store) into one of connection and positive impact, and who knows what that might ripple into for that person?

I’m convinced of the truth that every single interaction we have in the civilized world has an impact on someone else. 

If you can think of an exception, please let me know, as I haven’t found one yet.

Sometimes it’s direct, sometimes it’s delayed, and sometimes it’s in that ripple effect that happens in the pebble-tossing of our actions/words into the shared pond of our collective awareness. Just in the range of what we intentionally do and say to make impact and the ripples that causes without our even noticing... it’s staggering, and everywhere.

Kaizen is a Japanese concept referring to small, seemingly imperceptible changes over time which yield a big difference in the end. The impact we have in the course of an hour, day and so on can be much like this. Lots of little choices and interactions, over time...

Let’s first establish that a moment of interaction can fall within a huge range from me jogging past you and just making eye contact briefly, to stopping to say something that really touches you, makes a positive difference and sticks with you. There’s a pretty big range in-between. And- there’s the negative version of this range… I could jog right by, not noticing you, or stop to say something that really offends or hurts you, which then makes a negative impact, and sticks with you.

We have so many kinds of interactions in just the course of one day. See if you can count the number of possible moments of interaction you’ve had in the last few hours. Not just the moments you interacted with someone, but all the openings when you could’ve. Just this morning in the hour before my three kids left for school, I lost count of the moments with them where I actually was or could be making impact on their state, thinking, beliefs or course of their day. Every look exchanged (smile or scowl?), every word choice, every topic chosen influences. Just in the course of writing these few paragraphs, I’ve had eight emails, two calls and one live conversation come in (I let them all go until later), all representing potential moments of impact (on me as I read them, on another, as I reply). I also posted a few times on Facebook and Twitter today, each post an opportunity to impact lots of people with a few simple keystrokes.

This is one of those concepts that worms its way into your thinking, and then you start noticing it everywhere. So- we’ve got an opening here to gain new awareness going forward. What if we started considering our impact everywhere in all of those moments, and consciously chose to make them count meaningfully with positive impact?

Here’s a start:

•  Reflect on the last few interactions or opportunities for interaction you’ve had (even with strangers). What impact did you have? Even if you ignored them, you had impact of some kind, so own it.
• Think about how you could’ve used those moments to make positive impact somehow.
• Going into your next interactions, consciously choose to connect with or contribute to someone. Notice something positive (even the most cynical can see it), then actually acknowledge it out loud to that person.
• Notice the moments you encounter everywhere, where you actually have a choice, but never even considered.
• Notice the moments you make negative impact. Maybe intentionally, maybe not, pay attention to how your inattention or sour state get on other people. (We’ve all been there)
• Be willing to give with impact in the 5-minute Favor, as Adam Grant shows us. You can create big movement for someone in very little effort.

It all counts. I assess the maximum impact for the moment, and dive in as the work I do every day. You could too. Yet the small, little moments not only make impact, but ripple and multiply into impact we can’t even measure.

Go.

Double-edged...

A long-time coaching client recently told me that his biggest peeve about me as a coach is that I don’t ever just let him be where he is if it’s a negative place.  I always have to turn the conversation eventually to movement somehow-  “so now what…” or “let’s talk about what you can DO with that…” when what he really might want in the moment is to just be in it rather than move through it.  Me doing my job or not?

It’s true- I have a propensity for forward motion, getting people on board, steps toward the horizon, no matter what.  It’s in my language, my patterns, my material, my teaching.  It’s gotten me into immense success and trouble throughout my life so far.  It’s definitely what makes me great at what I do, and really challenging to people in my life at the same time.  A true double-edged sword with really sharp blades on both sides.

I’m guessing that you have some strengths like this too, yes?  What is it that makes you great at what you’re great at, yet is maddening to others?

In StrengthFinder, I’ve got:

Activator • Strategic • Ideation • Command • Relator • WOO • Individualization

How it’s been described in feedback I’ve gotten from others…

The upsides:

• Taking action when everyone else is swirling in the discussion for too long.
• Facilitating other people’s process quickly to get them to move through it to resolution or breakthrough.
• Being able to see the path out of the mire as a guide for teams.
• Having an instinct for the big elephant in the room (or issue/situation), calling it, so all can move on.
• Energizing rooms full of stuck, bored people to inspired action and change.
• Taking groups farther than they’ve ever gone before.
• Getting people to try things they’ve never tried before, and having fun doing it.
• Creating change and possibility where it was needed for a long time.
• Empowering people to walk away feeling that it was their idea all along.
• Turning someone from frustration and stuckness to resourcefulness and excitement about what’s possible.

The downsides:

• Being too reactive.
• And impatient.
• Pushing too hard.
• Not accepting “no” for an answer.
• Moving too fast.
• Being too positive or focusing too much on the positive.
• Always ending the conversation with what’s possible when someone wants to just stay with what is or what their complaint is.
• Being too charismatic (really?) and convincing when someone wants to hold their position.
• Being hard to slow down when I’ve decided to go after something.

Of course I would argue that a lot of those “downsides”-complaints are often exactly what’s needed in a situation, even though they’re uncomfortable for others.  My wiring for unsettledness when I see an opportunity for change I might be able to impact is what drives me. I can’t NOT go there in my head, although I can quell it for short periods of time in my actions or speaking (usually by request of others).  That never lasts very long before I can’t take it anymore, so speak out or take action anyhow.  I also get that this pattern often has clear costs, usually to those around me.

What are your instincts which you can’t turn off, which kick into gear every time?  Have you identified them as strengths? While every trait has an up and downside, finding the way to leverage them as strengths is the key.  

So again, it comes down to balance, intention and acceptance.

I am forever tinkering with the balance of my own actions and patterns.  A self-awareness of my own presence and how it gets on people around me is critical. Some days I’m better at that awareness than others, which has everything to do with my own state management.  Putting the focus back on the others around me and really noticing their responses to my way- both verbal and not (tonality, eyes, facial muscles, blink patterns and movements) helps me to balance my responses.

Are you noticing the responses you’re eliciting all the time, both spoken and unspoken? Choosing next steps based on that response helps. 

Intention is what I always come back to, in order to make the Why of my course clear.  I often state my authentic intention in conversations explicitly (“…I’m telling you this because I’m committed to your success, and I think this will help…”) so that people can trust where I’m coming from.  While this doesn’t always work (if there’s no trust to begin with), it’s the most honest thing I can do, so I keep putting it out there.

People will always make up your intention in their head unless you state it clearly.  If there’s any tension or mistrust, they’ll assume your intention to be negative. Check yours, make sure it’s pure, and state it.

In the end, I accept that my wiring is what it is.  It brings incredible strength and also thorny challenges. While I have no plans to change who I am, I am learning how to also accept that I must flex more than I might want to when my strengths aren’t working for others, and cultivate more patience.  I trust my coaches, teams and trusted advisors to give me the feedback I need to pivot when necessary (though I need to ask for it more).  I also accept that my every action has ripple effect way beyond what I can see no matter what.

So do yours, by the way. As you trust your instincts and choose your actions, accept that you’re impacting more than you know all the time.  Have your fully accepted both the greatness and challenges of your wiring?  What are both sides, and their impact on your world?  

Intentionally or not, who we are, what we think and how we act in moments and patterns- have impact and influence all the time.  The more we put it out there in the world, the more impact it has, for better or for worse.  Who I am, and who you are is both awesome and troublesome- always.  A true double-edged sword with really sharp blades on both sides.

So really self-mastery means learning then mastering dexterity with both edges of one’s sword.  I’m on it. 

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012