Armistice day for the family

Emotional Intelligence, ,


“Comrade, I did not want to kill you.
If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too.
But you were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.
It was that abstraction I stabbed.
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me.
I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle;
now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship.
Forgive me comrade.
We always see it too late.
Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us,
that your mothers are just as anxious as ours,
and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony
– forgive me comrade;  how could you be my enemy?”

Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on the Western Front

On Sunday, I took a moment to reflect on Armistice Day, drawing on the above extract from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.  Today, I am taking a few moments to translate the passage above for the family:

“Beloved, I did not want to snap at you.
If you did the same again, I would not snap at you, if you too would hold back.
But you had become an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth an appropriate response.
I snapped at that abstraction.
But now again – maybe even for the first time – I see you;
I see that you are human, like me.
I thought of your shortcomings and felt the pain they stimulated in me;
now I see your face, your place in our family and my own.
Forgive me.
I always see it too late.
Why did they never tell me that you are human just as I am,
that you, too, feel the pain of misunderstandings,
and that we both fear the loss of identity and needs unmet as we negotiate family life
– forgive me beloved; how could you be my enemy?”

Armistice day for the office

Emotional Intelligence,


“Comrade, I did not want to kill you.
If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too.
But you were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.
It was that abstraction I stabbed.
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me.
I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle;
now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship.
Forgive me comrade.
We always see it too late.
Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us,
that your mothers are just as anxious as ours,
and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony
– forgive me comrade;  how could you be my enemy?”

Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on the Western Front

On Sunday, I took a moment to reflect on Armistice Day, drawing on the above extract from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.  Today, I am taking a few moments to translate the passage above for the workplace:
“Colleague, I did not want to speak ill of you at the water cooler.
If you acted in the same way again, I would not do it, if only I could be sure you, too, would not speak ill of me.
But you were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.
It was that abstraction I spoke of.
But now, for the first time, I see that you are human like me.
I thought of your department and the way you never deliver on time,
I thought of the risk to my own department and our reputation across the company,
I thought of the way you always seem to get promoted ahead of me even so;
Now I see that, like me, you have a mortgage to pay, a family to feed –
You are doing your best.
Forgive me colleague.
We always see it too late.
Why do they never tell us that you – in Accounts, HR, IT, Sales – are poor devils like us,
That you are as anxious as we are,
and that we have the same fear for our jobs and the same doubts buried beneath our fears
– forgive me colleague;  how could you be my enemy?”

On Armistice Day, November 2012

All articles


“Comrade, I did not want to kill you.
If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too.
But you were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.
It was that abstraction I stabbed.
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me.
I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle;
now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship.
Forgive me comrade.
We always see it too late.
Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us,
that your mothers are just as anxious as ours,
and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony
– forgive me comrade;  how could you be my enemy?”

Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on the Western Front

Today is Armistice Day, November, 2012.  It’s a long time since the armistice was first signed – on 11th November, 1918.  Few people alive today have memories of that war.
Nonetheless, many of us live in the shadow of that war.  We have family members who fought in World War I, who were injured, traumatised, perhaps even died.  These experiences are part of the story of our family and shape our own experience.  On a larger scale, and in many countries, the war also played a role in the story of the country in which we live.  Erich Maria Remarque, in his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, strips back the rhetoric of war-time ‘heroism’ to reveal the human experience of the young soldier.
The themes of war are also the themes of peace and for this reason I chose the extract above from Remarque’s novel.  It is a theme I have touched on before at this time of year.  For it seems to me that it applies as much in the office or at home as it does on the battlefield.  How often are our colleagues (in Finance, IT, Sales, whatever…) ‘an abstraction’?  How often do we take a stab at the same ‘abstraction’ when we speak to our spouses, siblings, sons and daughters from a place of anger or frustration?
On this Armistice Day, 2012, we remember those who fought in World War I and in subsequent wars.  Let us remember, too, those closer to home.  And whether our opponents in war or our colleagues or loved ones, let us take a moment to see beyond our abstractions and to connect with our ‘enemies’ from a place of recognition of our shared humanity.

Avoiding an office affair

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,

After quite a long spell of writing two or three blog postings a week, I have gone a whole month without publishing anything.  In truth, I have been running to catch up for months now – and something had to give.  It’s become clear to me that I want to write fewer blog postings going forward – perhaps one a week or two at most.  At the same time, I want to add depth to my postings.  You can expect them to be longer in future.

I thought I’d come back with a bit of a bang – a term I may come to regret given the topic of my posting.  I was drawn last week by a posting on LinkedIn entitled Six Tips for Avoiding an Office Affair.  If the early responses (mine was one) are anything to go by, this is a highly contentious subject.  It’s also a taboo subject – I know that I was drawn to read the posting precisely because I have seen any number of office affairs take place and yet this subject is rarely addressed in public.

Facing up to sexual attraction in the workplace

No matter what we consider to be ‘professional’, we all of us – at times – are attracted to colleagues.  The workplace is one of the key places in which people meet their life partners – a place where people see each other often and get to know each other well.

But what if you’re already in a relationship?  It doesn’t stop you feeling attracted to people and you may even spend more time with your colleagues in the workplace than you do with your partner at home.  Once you become a parent your opportunities to really connect with your partner may be even fewer.  Perhaps your work with a colleague brings you close together or maybe it’s your work colleagues who hear and understand just how challenging life is for you when your spouse is unsympathetic (or maybe the source – in your mind – of your woes).  In the heat of the moment you may find it hard to resist the temptation of embarking on one relationship (an “affair”) whilst still being committed in another.  You may even be surprised to realise that you have embarked on an affair before you even realised it – the writer of the article I mentioned above uses the term “work spouse” to describe a special friend of the attractive sex.

Perhaps you have no problem with having a workplace affair.  If so, this article is not for you.  Perhaps, though, you are feeling the heat of the attraction and struggling to know what to do.  Or maybe, right now, you have lost sight of the potential consequences of following a path that can lead to the breakdown of your marriage, to disruption in your relationships with any number of loved ones, to the loss of respect from your colleagues, to the loss of your own respect for yourself.  It’s not that relationships don’t break down – they do, and at times this is clearly for the best.  Even so, embarking on a workplace affair has a raft of consequences that you may not be ready to choose or face up to.

Avoiding an office affair – a different set of tips

Author Gretchen Rubin gives one set of tips in her article Six Tips for Avoiding an Office Affair.  I offer my own, below:

  • Get clear on your values ahead of time:  It may seem obvious, but getting clear on the values you want to live by helps you to make choices in the moment with the long-term view in mind.  Take time to think about the values you want to live by in your intimate relationships so that you can make decisions in the moment in the full awareness of your highest aspirations;
  • When you feel attracted to someone, talk about it:  Rather than denying that you feel attracted to someone, talk about it.  Whilst denial can stoke the flames of an attraction, talking about it can help you to acknowledge it and begin to engage with it.  It also provides the basis for making decisions.  Choose carefully who you talk to.  Perhaps you have a coach or therapist who can help you to step back from the attraction and to think things through.  Perhaps you have friends.  It may even help you to name it to your spouse or the object of your affection – though this takes maturity on your part and may not be the best place to start;
  • Ask yourself why the attraction is so compelling:  Perhaps it’s meeting your needs just to feel the attraction (or to know that someone is attracted to you).  Perhaps you imagine that an affair will meet some as yet unmet needs.  Understanding what those needs are opens up the possibility of meeting those needs in different ways.  This may be about addressing needs in the context of your intimate relationship, but not always – if you find that your need is for empathy and understanding, for example, you can choose to seek support from friends and reduce the risk of an affair;
  • Address issues in your intimate relationships:  Perhaps you’ll discover that you’re unhappy in your marriage or intimate relationship.  If you do, don’t ignore it.  Perhaps it’s time to address the balance in your life between work and family, or to discuss with your partner issues that are troubling you.  You may even want to seek professional help.  This is a critical moment in your marriage:  it’s a moment when you could save your marriage.  It’s also a moment when you could handle a break-up with dignity and without falling into the first pair of arms you find;
  • Finish one intimate relationship before you start another:  It may seem simplistic and still, if you set yourself the rule that you won’t embark on one relationship before you’ve finished another, you will think hard before embarking on an office affair.  This could help you to realise how important your marriage is to you before it’s too late.  It could also help you handle a break-up with dignity and compassion and to enter a new relationship knowing you have honoured values of honesty and integrity.
I sign off with both compassion and curiosity – I look forward to your comments.  And if you’re struggling to avoid a work-placed affair, please know that you are not alone.

The amygdala hijack: is it OK to be human in your workplace?

Emotional Intelligence

Today this posting is published for HR practitioners on Discuss HR and I thought you might like to read it, too.

Last week I came back from a week’s holiday to news of ‘Plebgate’.  MP Andrew Mitchell had acknowledged his tirade against Downing Street police officers but denied the use of certain words, specifically that he had told them – as logged in the officers’ records of the incident at the time – that they were “plebs”.

Amidst the news reportage The Daily Telegraph published the full police log on 24th September, a contemporaneous record of what – according to the police officer involved – Mr. Mitchell had actually said.  A posting on the paper’s website included a poll with the question, “Has Andrew Mitchell’s integrity been so damaged that he must now resign?”  At the time I read this article, close to 13,000 respondents – an overwhelming 91% – had said yes.

I do wonder how often we look in the mirror.  Who hasn’t lost their temper every now and again and been horrified – shamed and embarrassed – after the event by their choice of language or, at the very least, by the lack of grace they had been able to bring to a situation in which their emotions were high?  Coming back from a week away with my mother I had certainly experienced the occasional sting of strong emotions in response to situations in which my needs were not easily met (though I notice I want to add that I didn’t respond with a string of insults and expletives).

Now you may be wondering:  why do I raise this incident in the context of this blog?  I do it because, despite the increasing talk of emotional intelligence in the work place, I wonder if we’ve really grasped the full implications of everything we’re learning.  Daniel Goleman (amongst others) has done so much to share with us the importance of emotional intelligence and it is by reading his writings that I have become quite familiar with the term “amygdala hijack” – for this is precisely what Andrew Mitchell experienced on the evening of Wednesday, 19th September, 2012.

It seems to me that, in our response to Mr Mitchell’s unfortunate words, we are at risk of going beyond condemning his behaviour to pretend that real people – nice people like us – never feel the sting of strong emotions.  In truth, it’s a very rare person who has never spoken in ways they regret and a rarer person still who has never experienced an amygdala hijack.  In the workplace, such a view can manifest in strange forms.  Where we have power, we can justify the occasional rant as some kind of righteous anger in response to the ineptitude of those we lead, even whilst taking firm action against a member of our frontline staff who has lost his or her temper with a colleague or, horror of horrors, with a customer.

In writing this posting, I don’t want to let Andrew Mitchell off the hook.  His behaviour really wasn’t pretty.  I do, though, wonder if we need to cultivate a more compassionate context for responding to the occasional loss of temper, which recognises that it happens to most of us sometimes.  In such a context, Mr. Mitchell might have been able to make a sincere apology and to know that yes, it is possible to draw a line under an unfortunate incident and move on.  In such a context, we would be slow to question someone’s integrity and quick to forgive.

What would this mean in the workplace?  In the first instance, it might mean providing the kind of training that helps people to understand how an amygdala hijack manifests itself and how they can manage their response both to their own feelings and to the feelings of others.  It might also involve using some kind of structure to support people following such a loss of temper.  This might include support for the person who has lost their temper as well as for anyone who has been on the receiving end.  It might also include support for the kind of dialogue between the people affected which restores understanding and goodwill.  Yes, there would need to be some way of addressing such behaviours if they had significant immediate effect or were regularly used by an individual and even then, I would hope for compassion and understanding for the individuals concerned.

I don’t think I am naive or a misty-eyed idealist, not least because I have had the privilege of practising such an approach in my own life and supporting others in this area:  I know what’s possible and I know that even this kind of restorative dialogue is no ‘soft touch’.  I wonder how you respond though – to Mr. Mitchell’s behaviour as recently reported, to the behaviours of colleagues in your workplace, to the ideas in this posting.  Please share your thoughts.

Handling a knotty discussion with a member of your team – can (s)he make it as a line manager?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,

Recently, a member of the Training Journal’s discussion forum raised a knotty question – how to handle discussions about the potential for promotion to a line management role with an employee who, whilst technically competent, lacked the “people skills” for the role.  The individual concerned had asked for the opportunity to step up.  His manager wasn’t convinced he could succeed and had told him so.  Still the staff member wanted to further his career in a line management role.

Maybe you’ve encountered this kind of thing before – fielding this kind of request can be a heart-sinking moment.  Even with all the HR wizardry in the world (a clear description of the behaviours needed to succeed as a manager in your organisation, 360 degree feedback which shows where this individual’s strengths and areas for development are and so on), you face the prospect of spending more time than you really want to trying to explain why you aren’t willing to promote him.  Secretly, you may have a concern that his reasons for requesting a promotion have more to do with increasing his pay packet (or status, or some other thing) than with a real desire to manage others.  This can be a real problem when time is already at a premium.

Worse still, the pressure to promote can lead to people taking on roles for which they really don’t have the skill.  This can undermine the morale of those being managed and may have disastrous consequences for the person who has been promoted.

How do you move forward in this kind of situation?

It’s all in the framing

As long as you’re thinking “I have to persuade him he’s not suited to a line management role” and “he doesn’t understand his limitations”, you’re at risk of setting up an impasse – you persuade, he resists, you persuade some more… until you’re both frustrated and exhausted.

There is another way.  A second approach is to take a more open view – to acknowledge your view that your team member is not ready for (and even may never be suited to) a line management role, whilst agreeing to work with him to explore this as a possibility and to do this in a way which keeps the business on track, and keeps his dignity intact – whatever you both discover.

Against this backdrop, you can take a number of steps on a path of exploration:

A step-by-step approach

Here are some of the steps I recommend you take on this path of exploration:

  • Explore his motivations for wanting to follow this path:  It may be obvious and still, the more you can understand his reasons for wanting to become a line manager, the more you can explore with him what ways he can meet his needs whether or not he gets the promotion he desires.  If he says he wants to have more influence in the business, for example, you may discover he’s quite happy to have coaching support to increase his ability to influence – and less concerned about promotion once he has this support;
  • Let him know that promotion is not guaranteed:  Most organisations promote people when a vacancy becomes available.  If this is your policy, you need to explain this from the beginning.  Your team member needs to know the nature of the journey so that (s)he can decide whether or not (s)he wants to go ahead;   
  • Let him know what you’re looking for in your line managers:  You may have a competency model or something similar to help you and even if you don’t, you still need to let your team member know what behaviours you need to see him demonstrate before (yes, before) you’re likely to support a promotion into a line management role.  The more you can help him to understand your expectations, the more he can work towards them as well as to assess, “is this really me?”;
  • Seek feedback from the business:  Whether you have a fancy 360-degree questionnaire or simply time to ask people for their views, ensure that you gather feedback early on in the process about your team member’s strengths for the role and areas in which (s)he will need to develop.  This helps to “keep it real”.  Use this information as the basis for a discussion with your team member:  let him know what people are saying and explore the implications;
  • Test and explore “hard truths”:  One of the most difficult aspects of this kind of exploration is when you see difficulties that your team member doesn’t appreciate – it’s easy to run away from this aspect of the discussion by telling yourself “he just doesn’t get it”.  It’s important to test your understanding with your team member and to speak honestly about your concerns, whilst also leaving ownership with him for his own choices (for example, “John, it sounds as though you believe you have the listening skills you need – is that right?  I think the feedback is telling us staff want more empathy from you, even though you think they should be able to work effectively without your understanding.  I think there’s a risk for you that, because the business can see you don’t see empathy as important (which we do), senior managers may be reluctant to promote you into a line management role.  I can help you to develop in this area but I will only do this on the basis that you understand the importance for your staff of showing them understanding”);
  • Agree a development plan:  A development plan for your team member needs to highlight key strengths and how these can be leveraged to make progress (or how they may limit progress if they are used as the basis for a people management approach).  It also needs to highlight key areas for development – those areas in which your team member needs to make progress in order to be an attractive candidate for promotion;
  • Give support in the form of assignments and coaching:  You can do a great deal to support your team member by giving him assignments which help him to develop in key areas, coupled with effective supervision and coaching.  Is it influencing he wants to develop?  Talk to him about the need to get buy-in from your project steering committee for an increase in funding – discuss tactics, explain why you propose certain actions, allocate actions to him.  A key to your overall success is to take a step-by-step approach, building the skills of your team member over time and making sure that any failures are relatively minor and leave his dignity as well as your business results intact;
  • Include a “get out of jail free card”:  This suggestion takes us right back to the beginning –  you think your team member may not be cut out for a line management role and you may be right.  Still, using persuasion and only persuasion is unlikely to succeed.  At the same time, it’s possible that the more your team member is exposed to the responsibilities of line management the more (s)he will understand this for himself.  However, if (s)he has the faintest sense that you might be waiting to tell him “I told you so” (s)he may be reluctant to share this insight.

The return on your investment

It’s possible that the outcome from this process is that you will be surprised – discovering that, despite your worst fears, your team member slowly develops the skills needed to become a valuable member of your management team.  Going into this process with a willingness to be surprised greatly increases the chances that this may happen.

It’s possible that your worst fears will be confirmed – not only does your team member fail to make any progress towards developing the skills (s)he needs, but (s)he also fails to develop any insight into his need to develop in order to manage others effectively.  This can be frustrating for you and everyone concerned though it does seem unlikely.  I have found that it’s rare for this to happen when so much support has been given.

Finally, it’s possible that your team member will come to understand that, no, this isn’t for me.  If you’ve included the “get out jail free card” I described above, it’s also easy for him to say so.

Perhaps there’s a larger context to consider.  Hopefully, all the actions outlined above will gain the loyalty of the team member concerned – you may well become the manager he remembers with gratitude in years to come.  And if this is the experience of one team member, it’s likely also to impact the experience of your wider team.  You don’t have to spread the word (and nor does your team member) for staff to recognise something special about the organisation they work for.

What are you taking from this posting?  I look forward to your questions and comments below.

Miserable meetings

Developing as a leader

It’s Thursday as I write.  Sitting at my desk this evening and in conversation with my fellow students with Mark Silver at the Heart of Business, I realised how much my mind has been racing this week – trying to keep up with all the commitments I have made and under extra pressure to get things done because I am away next week.  I shall be enjoying 10 days with my mother in Scotland and I’m looking forward to it immensely.  At the same time, my attention in the last few days has been focused on everything that needs to be done before I go away – how crazy to feel so much added pressure because I’m due to go on holiday.

It has been a bit of a mad week.  Last week, I conducted two assessments and I needed to follow up this week.  On Monday, between calls, I started to write my first assessment report which I completed and sent off for peer review on Tuesday in time for an afternoon call (four hours of afternoon call – that’s a long meeting, especially by conference call!).  By the time the meeting finished my assessment report had been returned with comments for my consideration in time for feedback meetings on Thursday.  First, though, I had to write my second report.  To this I devoted the whole of Wednesday, with the exception of a lunchtime call with a completely different client, returning to my final amendments of Report One first thing this (Thursday) morning.  I did this, sent them off to be forwarded to the client, spoke with the assessee’s line manager and then with the person I had assessed.  Tomorrow I shall do the same again with Report Two.  Oh!  And in between I had calls with a colleague about a third client and, yes, I shall be speaking with that third client tomorrow.

All my meetings have been by phone this week and counting them, I have had ten scheduled meetings varying from 30 minutes to four and a half hours in duration.  All this in addition to chunks of work, keeping on top of e-mails and dealing with the kind of surprises that crop up constantly in between.  I want to be clear – I’m not complaining!  I love my work – every bit of it!  I feel so privileged to support the progress of men and women into increasingly senior roles.  (And I also enjoyed – immensely – helping my niece to make ginger-bread men when she came to see me on Wednesday evening, but that’s another story).

Nonetheless, this week reminded me forcefully of one aspect of my clients’ lives which is both challenging and relentlessly ongoing – meetings.  How often do you feel as if your calendar is running you and not the other way around?  Even at the most senior levels, many people find they are called to meetings which they feel they can’t refuse.  And yes, it’s also true that the same people are inviting others to meetings which those others feel they can’t refuse.  And amongst those meetings some seem pointless and others downright painful.

Funny then, that in the same week that I have been running to keep up in between meetings, Mark Silver (whom I mention above) wrote a posting on his blog entitled Beets, miserable meetings and your micro-business.  Mark’s clients are micropreneurs like me and his posting is written with this in mind.  Still, it contains a thread of gold which is of equal value no matter what your business.  Follow this link if you want to read it – at the very least, you’ll find a book recommendation that may be of interest.

And yes, I look forward to meeting you again when I return from my holiday.

Reflecting on my gardening year

About Dorothy, All articles, Developing as a leader, ,

Summer is drawing to a close – and what a summer!  Predictions of a drought to knock 1976 into a cocked hat became the subject of ridicule as the rain poured and poured and, well, poured… breaking one record and then another.  Sitting in my garden recently, I found myself reflecting on my gardening year.

This is the first year I have sown anything from seed and I have had a good number of successes.  I have grown broad beans, runner beans, French beans – the runner beans from beans harvested from last year’s crop.  I have grown Swiss chard, and three different types of courgettes – green courgettes, yellow courgettes and summer squash.  I have grown butternut squash, potatoes and tomatoes.  I have grown marigolds and nasturtium.  I have grown aubergine and cucumbers, lettuce, fennel – even cauliflowers.  Recently, visiting my local farmer’s garden, I noticed how many of the vegetables I most admired were ones I have in abundance in my own garden.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing.  The tomatoes have suffered terribly in the rain and I have had to pull out and dispose of tomatoes with blight.  Of those that remain, I have only had ripe tomatoes in the last two or three weeks and even then, very few – what a wash-out!  I have discovered that some plants really do need to be in a green house – the aubergines and cucumbers in particular.  I don’t (yet) have a greenhouse, though I have started to ponder what size greenhouse I need and where I might put it in my garden which is spacious by urban standards and nonetheless modest in size.

I really celebrate my learning.  I can grow things from seed and they are naturally inclined to grow.  In this less-than-sunny year my vegetables have grown much better on one side of the garden than the other.  I’ve learnt a few more ways to reduce the number of slugs and snails in my garden.  I’ve learnt – after upwards of 40 years without eating a broad bean – that I can eat broad beans and (in some dishes at least) enjoy them.  And as I learn more about my garden I am also slowly developing a plan for it.  I know where I want to grow vegetables, taking into account the position of the garden and where the sun shines.  I know where I want to have a seating area for breakfast and another shady seating area for lunch at midday.  I have learnt that I experience an unbelievable amount of pleasure – a deep, deep joy – from sowing and tending and planting my own seeds.  I have been reminded of nature’s abundance and the joy of giving away my excess harvest.

After a while I realised that my reflections were like the annual reviews that are carried out in many organisations.  I also realised that my reflection in hindsight were rather different from my reflections at certain moments during the year, when my focus was overwhelmingly on the challenges of my garden – the blight on my tomatoes, the impossibility of staying on top of the weeds and the slugs and snails in what seemed like interminable rain.  For me, this ‘annual review’ of my gardening year, seated with a cup of tea in the midst of the harvest of my labours brought nothing but joy, pure joy.  I was able to embrace my successes and to notice areas where I still have much to learn.  I was able to look ahead and to begin to plan for the year(s) ahead without any sense of being somehow in ‘deficit’.  I was able to differentiate between gaps in my learning and the impact of circumstances beyond my control.

If only the workplace annual review could be a joyous event, too.  I wonder, what would this take in your organisation?

Not being heard? Time to do something differently

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Recently a friend sent a card by (if I remember rightly) Daily Telegraph cartoonist, Matt.  The card depicted a boardroom scene and the caption was along the lines of “That’s an excellent idea, Miss Smith.  Would one of the men like to put it forward?”  It must have spoken to some real or perceived truth – it made me laugh out loud.

As to that “truth”, it may have been about sexism in the workplace or it may, equally, have been about influencing others – whether you’re a man or a woman, and whether you are seeking to communicate with your seniors, your peers, or those you lead, there will be times when your message isn’t being heard.  When this is the case, what do you do next?

All too often, the key reason our message isn’t being heard is this:  we are expressing it in our own language (be that logical persuasion, using facts and data or by some other means) and assuming others will think about the same issue in the same way.  So, a good place to start is by putting ourselves in the shoes of our audience.  How do those we want to influence think about these things?  This can be hard – if all your boss ever thinks about is how to catch people out who are doing things wrong, you may be reluctant to speak his or her language.  Still, to speak the language of your audience may be enough to transform the conversation into one in which you get heard.  More than this, it may be enough to transform an important relationship, so that you are heard with ease again and again and again.

The Matt cartoon also speaks to a deeper truth – that sometimes you’re just not the person to put forward a message or idea.  If your agenda is to attract approval or appreciation, you may find it hard to stand to one side and still, letting someone else deliver an important message can be an effective way to be heard.  This is one reason why organisations (or rather, people in organisations) commission outside consultants to do research and then deliver a message which isn’t easily heard from people inside the organisation.  It’s hard to speak up as an individual and say “you ask for our ideas but you always shoot them down so we’ve stopped putting them forward”.  It can be more compelling to hear that “members of your board expressed the widespread view that whilst you ask for ideas, you are highly critical of ideas such that people feel it’s not worth offering ideas”.

There are ways to promote an idea without going to the expense of hiring in external consultants (which is, in any case, a rather hit or miss affair).  Savvy leaders know that ‘socialising’ an idea before making a formal presentation is an important part of gaining support for a proposal.  If you’re going into a meeting wondering if your proposal will be approved, you probably haven’t done your homework.

Sometimes, effective leaders make some dramatic gesture to get their message across, like the leader who, after several months of seeking unsuccessfully to engage staff in dialogue about the need to turn their part of the business into profit, announced the closure of the department.  Suddenly staff were ready to talk and, what’s more, to contribute ideas to enable a radical re-shaping of their department and, in this way, to secure its future.

Why is influencing important?  Because the more senior you are, the more you need to work with and through others.  And the more you need to work with and through others, the more you need to be able to gain support for ideas, proposals and plans of action.

I wonder, how does this idea land with you?  It could be that you understand the need to influence and still, you don’t know how – for you, the challenge is in turning this intention into effective action.  Equally, it could be that you find the ideas above uncomfortable and even repulsive – for you, the challenge is squaring the need to influence with values around openness and honesty or even with your preference for getting the work done.

I’d love to hear from you in via the comments box below – how does the idea of influencing others land with you?  What has worked for you?  And where are you stuck and still needing to make progress?

What successful people do with the first hour of their working day

Developing as a leader,

Kevin Purdy wrote a great article a few days back entitled What successful people do with the first hour of their working day.

The article offers a variety of inputs from diverse and successful people.  They don’t all start their day in the same way but they do have one thing in common – they’ve thought about how best to start their working day.  Have you?

In case you’re looking for ideas, follow this link.