Lead at Any Level®

Essential Skills for Inclusive Leaders

Communication

Selling to the Heart (Not the Head)

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Selling one’s ideas is a daily occurrence for many professionals. In my case, as a diversity consultant, it is often incumbent upon me to sell my diversity training and consulting services. To be honest, when I go to sell a proposal, for example, I often fall into the same trap that I will I caution against in this article. The trap I fall into, and caution strongly against, is relying on business logic to carry my argument. Too often I feel compelled to simply demonstrate return on investment (ROI), instead of aiming for the heart.

A Common “Selling” Mistake

From my perspective, using statistical evidence to sell diversity is a no-brainer. I can cite infinite statistics supporting the benefits of good diversity and inclusion practices. But I do this more often than I should, at least more often than I make the real case, that being the human argument.

I recently decided to write a blog article about empathy. While contemplating the topic in a coffee shop (my go-to creative space) I actually witnessed something I thought would make a great story to lead off with. However, rather than simply using that story as the full thrust of the article, I caught myself immediately going to google to try to find some compelling facts and figures concerning the science of empathy or what have you. Of course, there is plenty of hard evidence in support of empathy, yet, and especially so on this topic, I initially turned away from the most compelling argument. That of course was the incident itself that played out right before my eyes – the human story that I had actually witnessed and could relate to others. I almost blew it but caught myself, and hence perhaps the impetus to this article.

Take a Cue from Mr. Rogers

A very dear friend, colleague, and just an all-around good guy, Richard Brundage (author of The Heart in Communicating) tells a story in his communications workshops about Fred Rogers (yes, Mr. Rogers) addressing pediatricians as a keynote speaker at a large conference. What would Mr. Rogers have to say to an auditorium of physicians?

He talked about children. It was not a talk about procedures or drugs or billing or costs, the very things too many of the doctors got caught up in; but rather why these humans were there to begin with – they were there because they cared about children. Too long and too often these professionals were wrapped up in their own heads. When Mr. Rogers reminded them of their own humanity, there was not a dry eye in the house. He reminded them of their hearts and touched them there very acutely, and affectedly. The heart is a powerful catalyst.

The Science of Selling

That is what stories do, they actually reach a different part of the brain – the part responsible for emotion. Stories appeal to both logic and emotion. When listening to stories with rich imagery and meaning, the brain is stimulated as a whole. When this happens, emotions and logic are in play.

The London School of Business did a study (see article on Tenfold.com) and found that people retain 65 to 70 percent of information shared through stories while only 5 to10 percent of information is retained through the dry presentation of data and statistics.

Be More Persuasive

People make decisions in general with both logic and emotions in play, and more so the latter than the former. Consider how many people DON’T buy into diversity messaging, say LGBTQ for example, by logical argument alone. That is until they hear a compassionate story of a real person, especially a story of someone they know and can relate to. The heart is the mechanism of change.

Most importantly here, storytelling yields cooperative behaviors. Stories “motivate voluntary cooperation” as described in a 2014 HBR Article. There is much power in storytelling in many professional settings.

My experience is that in networking, building associations, building relationships, and forging teams when I led off with talking more personal than professional I made headway much quicker. Both personal and professional bonds forged deeper. I was more professionally effective when I was more personally affective. I see telling personal stories as the mortar between the bricks and make it a conscious practice to include them as much as possible.

How to Connect with Your Audience

The challenge in communication is to connect to the heart and not to the mind…

Why Do They Care?

Job one, get to know what others value – what they care about. For example, I worked for a director with a son who was an accomplished figure skater. I knew I could get his attention by first talking about skating, or anything related to it, prior to getting down to business. But I also give this huge caution – this is not about placating, or even greasing the wheels. This has to be honest interest, and authentic give and take of sharing stories, not simply a means of getting intel or opening another’s ears. Do not be insincere in this – it will show (eventually), no matter how careful in subterfuge you believe yourself to be. If you can’t be sincere in this skip this – really, I very often do just that. The goal is after all for your authenticity to make the human connection with emotion as described.

Think Like a Child

Think like a kid. Recall what is fun and/or interesting – don’t overthink. You want to open your mind like a child. I read a study once where researchers asked both children and adults what they thought a blot was on a piece of paper. It should come as no surprise that the children generated many more answers than adults. You want to be in an open relaxed frame of mind when telling a story. Over-thought stories will miss the emotional mark because in their logical framing they lose some of their authenticity and humanness. And in addition to thinking more childlike, aim for some of that good old childhood enthusiasm as well, to further the emotional connection. Enjoy your story if you want others to do the same.

Come Prepared

Have the data and justification at hand. Yes, do also include some solid facts. These establish credibility. It’s very important to be seen as someone who is knowledgeable; someone who knows their stuff and not just someone that is fun, interesting, or even caring. The data, facts, and logic can be prepared ahead of time as opposed to the stories which should be ad-hoc as much as possible. In telling the story you could sprinkle in the data points, but I personally advise to either state them before any personal story or hold until afterward, so as not to in any way interrupt the natural humanity of the story.

Use Stories

Tell your stories (and no one else’s). Be sure your story has some relevance to the situation at hand. Relevance makes stories more advancing in nature, more catalytic. But understand sometimes the relevance is less important than being real. Your story should inform, but it can inform about you even if it less directly, or does not directly, inform about any item at hand. In the act of telling your story, people are often advised to ‘talk to the heart’.

This is good advice but in truth, we are really talking to a different part of the brain – the emotional part. And that part has more resonance with who we are, which in turn ultimately drives behaviors, actions, and decisions. Understand in telling personal stories there is a risk. You have to accept the risk of opening up and revealing yourself. It is in being vulnerable that we are approachable and connectable. The quickest way to drop another’s defenses is to drop our own.

Relax!

Don’t sweat it. If your story missed the mark or was judged in some way not to your liking – OK, such is the nature of being real. You might feel uncomfortable or even embarrassed at the moment, but in the long run, I still argue you have built social capital. You have shown yourself to be human, which is far better than remaining unknown. To others, unknowns are riskier bets. Even if you don’t close a case, make a sale, or cause a decision on the spot – people remember you by telling stories. And in the end, you will feel better in being authentic than leaving yourself to other’s assumptions and misinterpretations. I personally find opening up with stories, hit or miss, is freeing. If nothing else I believe it has better connected me with the right people and weeded out those less appropriate to where I want to go.

In Summary (tl;dr)

Tell your stories. People may not remember all that you said, or perhaps not even your name, but they will remember the positive things about you by the way they were made to feel. And that is fuel to go forward.

Growth Mindset for Managers

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Are you a manager or leader of a team? If so, you have a unique responsibility to seek and draw out the potential in others. You may be familiar with the term “growth mindset.” Having a growth mindset is important for our own careers. And when we manage others, we need to apply the same principles to how we view others.

Growth Mindset: A Refresher

In her book Mindset, Carol S. Dweck lays out two approaches to how we experience our lives. A fixed mindset says, “I am.”  Identity is static, unchanging, and limited. A growth mindset, on the other hand, says, “I can.” Identity is fluid, evolving, and unlimited. Think for a moment about how you see yourself and which mindset you predominantly use.

Now, especially if you are a manager, consider how you think about others. Have you already decided who on your team has reached their potential? Do you have someone who feel is “not management material”? Consider whether you’re assessing others from a fixed or a growth mindset.

We Typically Get What We Expect

People will typically match the expectations we put on them. For that matter, so do rats. Don’t believe me? Bob Rosenthal‘s research suggests that we can affect someone else’s performance based simply on our expectations of their performance. For an experiment, he arbitrarily labeled some of his lab rats as “incredibly smart” and others as “incredibly dumb.” Then researchers set about testing the rats’ performance. The “smart” rats performed twice as well as the “dumb” ones. Why? Because the researchers treated them better.

Be honest with yourself. Do you have limiting beliefs about some of the people you manage? Based on a few interactions — or worse, what someone else told you to expect — you may have decided that someone can’t present to executives, can’t lead a high-profile project, or wouldn’t succeed if promoted. If so, you may be applying a fixed mindset to others.

Try looking at others through the lens of a growth mindset. Think about the behaviors, skills, abilities, and knowledge that the task requires. Challenge yourself to find ways to develop the person to that level. As a manager, anytime you have those thoughts about another person, ask yourself why. Then ask yourself why again, and then do it again until you get to something that’s not fixed.

While there’s an argument to be made that we all have natural strengths, remember that skills and abilities and knowledge and behaviors are not fixed. Anything can be learned. Empathy can be learned. Interpersonal skills can be learned. There is almost nothing that any of us can do that we were born knowing how to do. If you can learn itm somebody else can too.

Influencing Your Manager’s “Growth Mindset”

What if you’re in the unfortunate position of having a manager who sees you as a fixed entity? I think it’s worth a conversation to challenge their mindset about you. What do you have to lose?

Have a respectful conversation about your goals and aspirations. You could ask questions like:

  • “What are the things that I would need to do to learn how to do this?”
  • “Are there classes I could take?”
  • “Is there someone that could mentor me?”
  • “What books should I read?”
  • “How did you learn this?”

I think the question “How did you learn this?” is great for two reasons. First, it shows respect for their skills and abilities. Second, it’s a great reminder that they went through a learning process to get where they are.

 

Knowledge Transfer: Increase Your Training ROI

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During one of my programs on Creating a Learning Culture, a participant asked, “How can we demonstrate a return on investment (ROI) for our training dollars?” While I’m not a financial wizard, I can tell you that it’s easy to multiply your training value with knowledge transfer activities.

What Is “Knowledge Transfer”?

Knowledge transfer is a fancy way of saying “telling other people what you know.” There are countless ways to conduct knowledge transfer. Some companies even invest in expensive software for this purpose. But if you want to improve team cohesion, interpersonal methods go a long way toward building trusting relationships.

Raise Your Hand… Politely

Perhaps you’re the self-appointed Hermione Granger of your team. You can share what you know without being a know-it-all. Try asking for accountability from your team. For example, you might say, “I just read a blog post on knowledge transfer. With that in mind, each time I attend a professional development webinar, I plan to write a brief synopsis to share with the team. Will you hold me to that?” If you do this every time your boss sends you to training, it shows you’re serious about your professional development. It also shows your manager that you’re a good investment.

Look for Cross-Training Opportunities

Ideally, everyone on your team has different skills and strengths. Reserve a few minutes during team meetings or schedule monthly cross-training sessions so each person can share. These can be formal or informal. The goal may be to actually train team members on different tasks or simply to create a greater awareness about what each person brings to the team.

One-on-One Opportunities

Use formal and informal mentoring programs, manager/employee coaching sessions, and other one-on-one meetings to talk about professional development activities happening in and around the team.

Lunch & Learns and Book Clubs

Lunch & learns are a great way to introduce new concepts. They can also be used to help a new team member “show what they know” and add value while they’re still getting up to speed. Anyone can lead a lunch & learn, and you can even rotate the responsibility.

Your team can form a book club or use rotating “book report-outs” to keep up-to-date on your industry, customers, and skill sets. Better yet, bring in your customers as experts to speak to the team! They’d love to tell people in your office about the challenges they face and how you can better serve them.

Amplify Learning Opportunities

If you’re a member of a professional association , see if you can host member webinars for your team. That way, you’re paying one registration fee (or membership fee) and sharing the direct benefits with the whole group.

If attending as a group isn’t an option, you can still pass along topics of interest to people in your organization. Forward the notification email with a subject line that says, “I thought of you, have you seen this yet?”

How are you getting the most from your team’s training & development investment? Tell me in the comments!

Listening and Empathy: Critical for Success

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Listening is a skill.

Few other skills are more critical for effective communication and strong leadership than the ability to listen.

In fact listening is one leadership skill that ranks far and above all others in determining your overall success as a leader according to a new High-Resolution Leadership report from Development Dimensions International (DDI), a – report that was based on the analysis of real behaviors in assessment center simulations from over 15,000 leaders across 300 companies in 18 countries over a decade. According to the report Leaders who master listening and responding with empathy will perform more than 40 percent higher in overall performance, coaching, engaging others, planning and organizing, and decision making, according to the research.

In the workplace, the focus on listening is likely that of a tool to foster effective work. And thus, we often come to think of listening largely as a tool to gain information. Listening is a necessity to acquire essential task-based and decisional information, but also information that simply helps us be in the loop, or to fit in the culture or team, or to meet other experiential needs and desires.

Information Is Power

In my own career I also learned the lesson, many times over, that the saying holds true – information is power. Whenever I had a leading role in anything I would listen first, talk second. It may seem backward but being able to influence is much more about listening than speaking. Before speaking you must first not only have the necessary information on hand, but you must also know other’s thoughts and perspectives in order to find the influence sweet spots. Listening and influence are not mutually exclusive. Many great influencers have also been great listeners.

Listening is one of the most powerful relationship builder and/or strengthener. Listening shows respect, engenders trust and connects people emotionally and intellectually. In case you doubt the power of listening, I ask, “Who are the great listeners you know or have known?” I bet you can name them quickly regardless of how near or far they are or whether recent or past.

An Example

My cousin Barb and I grew up together and have kept mostly in touch throughout or lives. In my late forties at a time of reconnection with Barb, I told her she had always been a hero of mine, or rather the hero of mine, because of the great amount of laudable work she has done in her life. Much of her work was as a volunteer and all of it was done in service to others. When I told her she was my hero, she countered that it was the other way around.

Since adolescence I had always been her hero. And the reason was that I listened. I am several years older than Barb, but we were close even when I was a teen and she a pre-teen. She recalls perfectly the two of us talking during long walks together during a time when her life was difficult for her. I recall these times together, but I was a teenage boy oblivious to her angst. Yet the teenage boy took the time to listen to his younger female cousin.

That simple act was so important to Barb that she can recall clearly how it made her feel after all these years, and how helpful it was for her for no reason other than a caring, friendly ear. My listening touched her, and her story touches me deeply. Her story is invaluable not only as a lesson in connection, but it is also testament to the durable and strengthening power of listening.

Don’t Pretend to Listen

Another thing I learned about listening during my long career …

Don’t pretend to listen. People eventually see through any subterfuge regardless of how well you mask it.

In not being forthright you will either be seen as someone not to be trusted or someone who is only placating. In either case, you will be seen as someone not to connect with.  Listen, do not not listen.

Listening, as opposed to non-listening which occurs in various forms not presented here, has two basic forms: 1) give-and-take and 2) empathetic.

Empathetic Listening

With give-and-take listening, the more common form, a person legitimately listens with their own interests equal to what the speaker is saying. It is basically taking turns – turning on and off selfish listening with empathetic listening. There is nothing inherently wrong with give-and-take listening. But empathetic listening can yield greater value.

Research shows there is no other single leadership skill that is more important than empathy and yet, in today’s culture, it is near extinction.

There is a wealth of research that shows empathy is on the decline, A study by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research found that college students are 40 percent less likely to have empathy compared to 20 to 30 years ago. DDI’s High-Resolution Leadership report found the same in today’s workplace. Only 40 percent leaders were proficient or strong in empathy. Of the eight leadership interaction skills measured, listening and responding with empathy was one of the weakest.

We need to increase empathy. This starts with empathetic listening.

Empathetic listening is solely about the other person and what she or he has to say. This listening, sometimes called receptive or active listening, requires movement of position and/or perspective. Receptive listening is hard. We sometimes call this active listening because it requires effort. And it is the type of listening most difficult for some to master.

Follow These Steps

  1. Listen. Keep your mind quiet and process the other person’s words in a focused manner. (On average, we retain just 25 percent of what we hear, which is because of our busyness and lack of listening skills.)
  2. Repeat the speaker’s words. This is a simple form of reflecting and involves repeating almost exactly what the speaker says. Repeating what the speaker says shows you’re paying attention, at a minimum. More importantly, it ensures you did indeed hear all that was said.
  3. Rephrase. At this stage, rephrase what the other person said, using your own words. This ensures you understood and will reveal any misunderstanding. Paraphrasing involves using different words to reflect what the speaker has said. It demonstrates not only that you are listening but that you are attempting to understand.
  4. Reflect on what the other person said. Focus on the feelings behind the words. Reflect what you sense. This helps get to the real (personal) meaning of the words. Consider this “listening with your heart.”

It is difficult to resist the temptation to ask questions when you first use this technique. And it is difficult to remain completely focused and not think about your own thoughts, perspectives and experiences.

Although the rephrasing step may seem stilted and awkward, is vital to the process. When you both rephrase content and reflect feeling, others will sense your desire to really listen and understand. It also demonstrates that full and correct information was shared and that you understand it from the perspective of the speaker. It also shows you care.

If you are a good listener, you will become known as such. People will seek you out for support, and in return you gain valuable relationships as well as valuable information.

I started this article saying listening was a skill – more correctly … Active listening is an art, a skill and a discipline that takes a high degree of self-control.

Podcast Hosts: How to Expand Your Reach

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After more than 40 podcast appearances, I’ve learned a simple trick for hosts to grow their audiences. (I don’t host yet, but when I do, this will be top of mind!)

If you host an interview podcast, put your guest’s name in the episode title.

Why?

Fans of your guest can easily find the episode (and the rest of your show series) with a name search in their podcast app.

When I recommend a podcast to my readers/colleagues/contacts, they are unlikely to remember the show name weeks later. If they search for MY name, they have a good chance of being able to pick the show out of a list…but only if it is included in their search results.

After I initially shared this advice on social media, Claim the Stage host Angela Lussier confirmed my hypothesis, “Your episode [of Claim the Stage] is one of the most downloaded of all of them. Your name is in the title. I guess a lot of people are searching for your advice! 👊”

If you are a host of a business or leadership podcast, I’d love to be a guest on your show!

For links to all my podcast appearances, check out my Press page.

What are some of your favorite podcasts? Tell me in the comments!