Category Archives: Emotional Intelligence

Just how much can you flex in the workplace and still be yourself?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
Just how much can you flex in the workplace and still be yourself?

I’ve been reflecting on a challenge I observe amongst my clients – maybe it’s one with which you, too, are familiar.  Some of the most successful people I know are also those who are most flexible and able to adapt. These are people who are able to read a situation and to know what’s required in that situation in order to achieve their desired outcome.  These are people who choose their behaviours carefully in order to move towards their end goal.  These are not the people who behave, repeatedly, in particular ways and say “people can like it or lump it – it’s just who I am”.  No, these are the people who know that they are far more than the sum of their behaviours.  Confident in their sense of self, they adapt easily to change and maintain steady progress towards end goals.
At the same time, I meet people who have flexed so far that they have lost touch with who they are.  These are the people who have pursued end goals and may even have succeeded and yet, they have done so at the cost of their sense of connection with who they really are.  Perhaps they never knew who they are – busy pleasing their parents or their employer they have drifted further and further away from any sense of who they are.  Sometimes the disparity sits right under their nose, if only they were open to seeing it.  Sometimes it is so well hidden that they have no sense of it – just a vague sense of unease.
For this second group (do you belong in this group?) there is a paradox.  The more alienated we are from our true sense of self the more challenging it becomes to change and adapt at a behavioural level.  It goes like this:  I think I am what I do – so any change to what I do threatens my sense of who I am.  Maintaining behavioural habits becomes a proxy for being ourselves.  This presents many challenges.  If I am what I do, how will I experience any feedback about my behaviour?  Of course, I shall try hard to dismiss it or the person who gives it.  If I am what I do, how will I manage in situations in which old behaviours are ineffective?  It’s likely that I will chose to be ineffective over changing my behaviour because this gives me some sense of preserving my sense of identity.  If I am what I do, how will I experience failure in a particular task or even in my job as a whole?  It’s hard not to take it personally.
So just how much can you flex in the workplace and still be yourself?  I wonder if this question opens up an ongoing journey rather than a once-for-all-time answer.  It requires us to be curious – on an ongoing basis – about how much of what we think of as “me” really is me.  The newly promoted leader, for example, may find him- or herself looking over his shoulder for weeks until he realises that yes, I can do this job and it’s OK to do this job.  Sometimes it can take feedback to reinforce this new sense of workplace identity.  At the same time, part of this ongoing journey is to become increasingly aware of times when an action does not sit comfortably with essential motivations and values.  Yes, I can lead my team in a certain direction and still, every day I find myself struggling to get out of bed or simply forcing myself to do what I need to do to deliver in this job.
Often, I have found that the instinct for change – for a move towards a life which is more congruent with who we are – is barely hidden beneath the surface.  The right question will open up the need to reconnect with our sense of self and to identify, quite quickly, that the life we are leading lies outside what is normal and natural for us.  Sometimes we have the joy of discovering that we are in the right place at the right time:  learning to bring ourselves more fully to our life and career can open up much greater ease as well as higher levels of achievement.  Sometimes the realisation is that, by continuing to strive to succeed in this situation, we are flexing too far from our essential selves.
I wonder how much you are flexing in your life and career?  And with what results?

There’s wisdom in knowing when to forgive

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,
There’s wisdom in knowing when to forgive
I’ve been struck recently by the way the theme of forgiveness has been popping up.  Over lunch the other day a colleague described how he had been reaching out to former colleagues some years after leaving the organisation in which they’d worked together.  Clients have been talking about difficult experiences with their colleagues – when someone had done something they’d found hard to forgive.  Rosabeth Moss Kanter has been writing on the subject recently in a blog posting for the Harvard Business Review entitled Great Leaders Know When to Forgive.  Even as I sat down to write this posting I realised there was a phone call I needed to make before I could be in integrity with myself in writing about forgiveness.
The interesting thing is that forgiveness is not a word that comes up often at senior levels – so you may be wondering what I’m talking about.  Reflecting on this topic, I wondered if – at least for now – the topic of forgiveness covers three areas.  In the first area, colleagues do something that is deeply personal – these are the small-scale actions that can be a thorn in our side.  Perhaps, for example, your colleague has taken credit in the board-room for an idea you know he or she got from you.  Perhaps he got the job you really wanted and you find it hard to let go of the conviction that, for some reason, the job was meant for you.  Perhaps you know someone has ‘bad-mouthed’ you to your colleagues at senior levels without ever coming to you to give open and honest feedback.
This first area has a ‘first cousin’ in the form of actions your colleagues may or may not have taken and which you have taken personally because you have attributed some kind of intention or drawn some kind of conclusion.  Yesterday, for example, before I wrote this posting, I decided to phone someone I’d been reaching out to for weeks – I’d sent multiple e-mails, I’d phoned and then phoned again.  I was starting to feel angry about the lack of response and also to wonder – was there something going on?  Part of me was concerned for the person I was contacting who is normally so reliable in coming back to me.  Part of me was angry about the consequences of not bringing to a conclusion some conversations we’d started earlier in the year.  And part of me was, well… a bit paranoid.  Had I done something wrong?  Was she angry with me?  I knew I needed to find out what was going on.
Sometimes, the things we struggle to forgive move beyond the personal to the organisational and beyond.  Moss Kanter, in her posting, Great Leaders Know When to Forgive, points to some of the examples that are familiar to us all.  Most striking to me is the example of Nelson Mandela, whose actions included appointing a racially diverse cabinet when some of his colleagues were clamouring for revenge against those who had oppressed black people in South Africa under apartheid.  In the kind of organisations I work with, forgiveness can range from letting go of one’s feelings about a hostile merger to forgiving those who had failed successfully to deliver an expensive IT project or letting go of angry feelings about a financial loss incurred.  These are examples of events that can cast a long shadow across an organisation unless they are forgiven.
How do you know that there’s something you need to forgive?  Your emotions – if you are attending to them with care – will give you some clues.  Do you feel angry or resentful, for example, about something someone has done or about some ongoing situation in your organisation?  Such feelings are closely linked to thoughts which are also worth noticing – when you’re telling yourself that someone has done something wrong or that such-and-such a situation is unacceptable.  This doesn’t mean it’s time – yet – to forgive.  Instead, such moments represent an opportunity to be present to your anger and to notice what it means.  Often, beneath the anger there are fears – fears that your needs (which needs?) will not be met.  You may also be assigning responsibility to someone else for your well-being.
Connecting with your thoughts and emotions in this way can lead you to insights about what you really want and open up new ways forward.  It’s not that such ways are always easy.  Perhaps your reflection will help you to realise that the things you most want to change in your organisation are not going to change and that it’s time for you to accept the status quo or move elsewhere.  Perhaps you need to recognise the incompetence of colleagues and consider what you need to do given the capabilities of your colleague(s).  Perhaps you need to look at the larger outcomes you desire for your organisation and accept that maintaining a low level feud stands in the way of your desires.
And then, it’s time to forgive.  In my experience, forgiveness becomes an option when we recognise that whatever has happened, it is the way we are thinking about our experience that makes us feel so bad.  Change our thinking and we open up the opportunity both for forgiveness and for a better experience going forward.  As a leader, your act of forgiveness may be an act of heroism on a grand scale.  It may, equally, be entirely invisible to anyone but yourself.  Either way, it releases you to move forward in a more constructive way and makes energy available to you that was previously the fuel of anger and resentment.
Forgiveness.  When have you done it?  How?  And with what outcomes?

When it’s time to give feedback to the boss

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
Giving feedback to the boss?
Don’t skirt around what you have to say.

I have been following a thread of discussion on LinkedIn.  The discussion, amongst fellow coaches, was prompted by a request along the following lines:  Anyone got any suggestions for building rapport with a CEO whom the Board has asked you to coach, but who believes he’s doing a good job?  I have the opportunity to have a couple of interactions with him before the Board lets him know they’d like him to work with a coach.  Whilst the coach is at risk of tying himself in knots, most colleagues have encouraged him to establish clear boundaries with the Board.  It’s for Board members to give clear and direct feedback to the CEO about the behaviours they find difficult.  It’s for Board members to suggest that the CEO work with a coach.

The issue is common.  I leave out the word “surprisingly” because why would it surprise us that a human being who’s risen to a senior position may do things we find difficult – unless, of course, we hold the view that  organisations only recruit people into roles who are effective and well suited to the role.  We’d like this to be true but it isn’t.  Instead, we are faced with human beings in the role of the “boss”, people whose behaviours we find difficult.  “He tells us he wants us to share our ideas but when we do, he dismisses them out of hand. It’s always his ideas that prevail”.  “It’s been five years since I told her that John isn’t performing and he’s still sitting round the top table.  Yes, she’s taken work away so he can’t do any damage but she needs to face the issue straight on so we don’t have to work around him any more”.  “I’d like to actually have a boss – someone who is aware of what I do and who is able to give direction and support.  Yes, I am pretty self motivated when it comes to it and still, I’d like to know how my work is seen in this organisation”.  To these issues, I am sure you can add your own – because bosses rarely measure up and give us the support and direction we need, even though it’s in their job description to do so.

And it’s hard to give feedback.  It’s hard because we find ourselves chafing against our expectation – of which we may or may not be aware – that it’s for the boss to know how to manage us.  How come we are doing the work of managing our staff and we have to manage the boss as well?!  It’s hard because the very reason the feedback is needed is because the boss has a blind spot and he or she does not enjoy hearing about behaviours of which s/he’s unaware.  It’s hard because, at the end of the day, the boss is the boss – there is an inbuilt difference in the power he or she wields in the organisation.  So we fear our boss’s response to any feedback we might give.  Most of all it’s hard because to share our needs fully can leave us feeling vulnerable and exposed.  More vulnerable and exposed than we like to admit.

There are ways around this.  You can try to outsource the giving of feedback like the Board I mentioned right at the top of the page.  You can talk about your boss to others – to your colleagues or your loved ones – declaring heatedly that he or she ought to know better.  Hey!  You can even change jobs in the hope of finding a better boss next time.  These strategies protect you from the vulnerability of giving feedback.  Some of them leave you with the same boss and the same behaviours and the same unmet needs.  One of them may even leave you with a different boss and different behaviours and different unmet needs.

Some people even protect themselves from the vulnerability that can come from giving feedback by showering their boss with “shoulds” and “oughts” and even “good ideas”.  “Don’t you think it would be a good idea if we checked in every few weeks to make sure we know we’re on track?”  “I thought you might enjoy this article – it says that effective leaders should hold regular meetings with their teams”.  Even when the “should” is not explicit, holding the view that our boss “should” (take time for one to one meetings, understand your need for clarity, lead more effective team meetings…) in some way protects us, placing the responsibility for change with the boss.

At the same time, if you want things to change, the ball is in your court.  It’s time for self-examination:  do you want this change enough that you’re willing to speak up or is this one you want to let go?  And if you choose to speak up, it helps to be clear.  Let your boss know what it is he or she does that doesn’t work for you and what behaviours you’d like instead.  Be willing to share how these different behaviours would contribute to you so your boss can understand the significance of what you’re asking.  Be willing to listen – there may be reasons why your boss chooses not to do what you ask.  Focus on your needs and the boss’s – and explore how you can work together in ways which meet those needs.

More than anything, be prepared to learn.  This kind of conversation, without exception, yields information.  It’s not always information that’s easy to digest.  It may be information about you (that you can make requests of your boss, for example, who always wondered why you weren’t more demanding).  It may be information about your boss (that s/he knows what you say is right but may not follow through to action).  It may be information about the wider organisation.  Being better informed opens up choices.  They may not be easy choices but they are better informed because you’ve had the conversation.

I wonder, are you ready to give feedback to your boss?

Good Communication that Blocks Learning

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Twenty-first-century corporations will find it hard to survive,
let alone flourish, unless they get better work from their employees.
This does not necessarily mean harder work or more work
What it does necessarily mean is employees who’ve learned
to take active responsibility for their own behavior,
develop and share first-rate information about their jobs,
and make good use of genuine empowerment
to shape lasting solutions to fundamental problems.


Chris Argyris


Whilst not directly aware of the work of Chris Argyris, I have nonetheless been aware of his work via the work of Roger Schwarz.  I was interested recently to come across an article by Chris on the Harvard Business Review blog, entitled Good Communication That Blocks Learning.  The quote above is the opening paragraph to Chris’s article, positioning it within the challenging economic times we live in.

Chris’s article took me back to the early days of my career, when Total Quality Management was all the rage  and everyone was reading Tom Peters’ In Search of Excellence.  This was an era that emphasised making many small improvements based on listening to members of the workforce in order to create a quality product or service and to design out flaws and wastage – at least, this is my memory of Total Quality Management approaching 30 years later.

I don’t remember ever hearing anyone criticise the logic of TQM and still, there are reasons why, all these years later, we still talk about the need to empower – without actually empowering.  Argyris’s article scratches the surface to uncover the unconscious behaviours that run counter to our leadership aspirations, preventing us from ‘walking our talk’.

It’s long and it’s also worthwhile – so make yourself a cuppa and close the office door before you read it.

How much do you recognise the behaviours Argyris describes – in yourself?  In others?

The not-so-positive “positive sandwich technique”

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If you’re using the ‘positive sandwich technique’
to convey negative feedback, you may
be treading on thin ice 

In 2007, it was my privilege to participate in an Intensive International Training in Nonviolent Communication with Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  a Language of Life.  Regular readers will know that this book is a favourite of mine and gets a regular mention on my blog.  I went with a friend of mine and we decided to join some of our fellow participants in the dormitory accommodation a short walk from the main building.  It was only on day two of the training that I realised that one of our companions in the dorm, surrounded by women old enough to be his mother, was a young man.

The training was a rich experience for me which I continue to treasure.  A few people touched me in particular, including the young man in the dorm.  As our time together was drawing towards its completion, I asked him (and a few others) if I could have some time with him before we said goodbye.  I wanted to express my gratitude and appreciation ahead of our final goodbyes.

Sitting in a quiet corner, I shared, one by one, the things he had done that I most appreciated and how they had contributed to my well-being and enjoyment of the course.  It’s been my experience that sharing appreciation in this way can create moments of connection, both with the pleasures of giving and receiving and with each other.  On this occasion, though, I noticed that my colleague was becoming increasingly tense – I watched as his body stiffened and asked him what was going on for him.

He told me he was waiting for the real feedback and when I asked him what he meant, he said he was waiting for the negative feedback which must surely follow.  I told him there was no negative feedback – I wanted to talk with him precisely because I wanted to share my joy at meeting him and how much I appreciated the time we had spent together.  For a moment he seemed to doubt this until he realised that, yes, I really meant what I said.  We laughed about the misunderstanding and went on to have the real conversation, celebrating together the times we had enjoyed.

I was reminded of this experience recently when I received notification from Roger Schwarz of the publication of a blog posting he wrote, entitled The “Sandwich Approach” Undermines Your Feedback, published recently by the Harvard Business Review.  This approach has been taught to managers over time as a way to soften the blow of giving negative feedback, making it easier to give and easier to receive… or so the theory goes.  In practice, as my own experience illustrates, this approach can make people wary of receiving positive feedback because they assume it’s a precursor to some kind of corrective feedback.  If you’ve ever tried the “positive sandwich technique” to giving feedback and wondered why it doesn’t work or even tried it and come away believing that it did work, it’s worth reading Roger’s article for a different point of view.

Please let me know know how you get on.

A modern understanding of the brain

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Brain science has progressed and continues to progress at such a fast rate in recent years that concepts that were very fashionable just a few years ago are now known to be vastly over-simplified.  We also live in a society which favours rational thinking over all else.

Recently, dear friends and members of my mastermind group, Marc and Melanya, have been speaking highly of a book by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, called The Master and His Emissary:  The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.  I put in my order on Amazon recently (my, it’s hard to get a hardback copy!) and await its arrival.

At the same time, my friend and coaching colleague Len Williamson highlighted this talk on www.TED.com:  The Divided Brain by, you guessed it, Iain McGilchrist.  www.TED.com says of this talk:

Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist describes the real differences between the left and right halves of the human brain. It’s not simply “emotion on the right, reason on the left,” but something far more complex and interesting. A Best of the Web talk from RSA Animate.

I wonder if the number of views equates to the number of people who have watched the talk or to a much smaller number – it bears viewing many times.
If you want to understand the way your mind works or to gain insight into the mind of colleagues, this is a good place to start.

Reflections on my 50th birthday

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There is something wonderfully bold and liberating
about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
With even a glimmer of that possibility, joy rushes in.
Yet when we’ve been striving to make “Pillsbury biscuits” for a lifetime,
the habits of perfectionism don’t easily release their grip.
When mistrust and skepticism creep in, we might be tempted
to back down from embracing our life unconditionally.
It takes practice, learning to bounce back
each time we’re dragged down by what seems to be wrong.
But […] when we stop comparing ourselves to some assumed standard of perfection,
the “biscuits of today”, this very life we are living right now,
can be tasted and explored, honored and appreciated fully.
When we put down ideas of what life should be like,
we are free to wholeheartedly say yes to life as it is.

Tara Brach
Radical Acceptance:  Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha

On Saturday, I had a moment of awareness of being in heaven.  I was sitting in the You Don’t Bring Me Flowers cafe in Hither Green on my way back from a visit to my hairdresser.  It helped that the sun was shining – had shone, indeed, on my walk from Lewisham, through the underpass at Hither Green Station, along Springbank Road and all the way to Hither Green Cemetery and back.  It helped that my sandwich was freshly made and accompanied by a (very rare and much savoured) cup of coffee.  It helped that I was seated by the window and enjoying the bustle of the cafe.  Most of all, it helped that, in this moment, I was present to each and every one of these things – even to the strange juxtaposition of my feelings of sheer bliss with the rather prosaic view out to the rows of cars parked on either side of the street.

Life has not always been bliss, is not always bliss at this time.  Regular readers know that the year started with the final illness and death of my uncle and more recently the death of Sir Colin Davis with whom I have regularly performed in recent years as a member of the London Symphony Chorus.  There have been other deaths, too.  Business has been relatively quiet this year.  Initially I was grateful for this period of quiet and even now I know how much it has benefited me to take my foot off the accelerator for a while.  I have taken time to assimilate the death of my uncle and to notice how it signals to me the passing, one by one, of my mother’s generation.  I have been busy with the house and am thrilled that, having completed the kitchen last year, Gary returned to prepare one of the spare rooms for a second lodger (so that the house can work harder to pay for itself) and to strip and varnish the floors in the hallway.

There are, though, bills to be paid.  As the months have gone on at this slow pace I have been feeling increasingly anxious about money, even whilst some part of me feels totally calm.  With the anxiety about money come all sorts of thoughts …about the future consequences of this quiet patch, …about whether after almost eleven years of running my own business, I should be looking for a proper job, …about what I should do  next to make things happen… about… about… about…  It’s not that I have been entirely idle.  I have not.  I have continued all sorts of activities which, over time, keep me connected to the world and let people know that Learning for Life (Consulting) is open for business.  At the same time, in recent weeks, as these different voices within me seek to hold sway, I have found myself neither fully resting nor fully productive.

There are moments when I have been touching into a layer of thinking that is deeper still.  I have been surprised, for example, to catch myself fearing that friends and family will not join me in celebrating my 50th birthday.  I know these fears are not rational and still, they have, at times, been present – or I, at times, have been present to them.  These are fears of being alone and unloved.  In my work life I have also had fears – old, old fears of being incompetent and unable to find my way forward.  I recognise the tenderness and feelings of vulnerability that comes with these thoughts.

I know from my work with clients that I am not alone with my concerns.  Yes, the particular thoughts relate to my own circumstances and still, others also grapple with a plethora of thoughts and with the fears that accompany them.  Currently, I am reading Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance:  Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of a Buddha.  Brach begins her book by describing what she calls the “trance of unworthiness”.  I have met it in the Board Room.  I have met it at every level of the leadership hierarchy.  I have met it in my own experience.  Brach is not alone in naming our common experience.  I think of Timothy Gallwey’s Inner Game of Tennis, of James’ and Jongeward’s Born to Win and even give a nod and a smile to authors whose names and books will come back to me later.  I am blessed in having skills and also friends and colleagues who have skills to help me to respond compassionately to my own deepest fears.  On Monday, I took time with Steve Matthus, from my mastermind group, to bear witness to those parts of me that are struggling and filled with fear.

Right now, though, on the day of my 50th birthday, I take time to bear witness to everything that is in my life at this time.  I bear witness with deep, deep gratitude to friends, family and colleagues for the love and care which nourishes me in my life.  I bear witness to the extraordinary privileges that are in my life at this time or have been in my life in the past, including my life and career as a trainer, consultant and coach, including my diverse roles amongst friends and family, including my experience as a lifelong student of what it takes to live life consciously and fully, including my years of singing, including more than half a lifetime of singing as a member of the London Symphony Chorus.  And I bear witness to the twists and turns that take me, at times, by surprise and to the fears and doubts as well as to the yearnings and even the needs fulfilled.  This is my own imperfect and messy life.

Most of all, I wish myself a very happy 50th birthday.  

How criticising in private undermines your team

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

There’s an old adage that leaders should “praise in public, criticise in private”.  It’s so well established that many people accept it without question – except one.  Roger Schwarz, writing in March for the Harvard Business Review’s blog, recently wrote a posting entitled How Criticizing in Private Undermines Your Team.  I recommend you read it.  Why?  Two reasons – maybe three, even four…

  • If you hold the view that you shouldn’t criticise in public, this article will help you to test your view against your practical experience and maybe even to revise it;
  • If you have any ‘persistent offenders’ in your team, this article may give you alternative approaches – and ones that work;
  • This article may deepen your understanding of what it means, as a leader, to hold ultimate accountability for the performance of your team;
  • If you’re the “leader” of a family (i.e. a parent), this article includes pearls of wisdom for you in this other leadership role.
In case you haven’t spotted it, Roger Schwarz is author of The Skilled Facilitator and a favourite source for me of leadership and communication wisdom.  His regular newsletter is well worth signing up for and his article Ground Rules for Effective Teams can be downloaded for free.

The fears that keep us working harder than we need to

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I’m away this week, writing this blog posting ahead of time and scheduling it for publication on the day after the Easter Monday Bank Holiday.  As I write I am savouring the prospect of a short trip to Istanbul, with my mother, brother and family.  I have long since identified Istanbul as a place I’d love to visit.  I am also looking forward to a week in which my main focus is not work but play – a combination of spending time with loved ones and exploration.
In the run-up to my departure, I have been inviting discussions with my colleagues in the awareness that the heart of my work centres on helping leaders to do what they do with ease as well as with good results.  Often, my work is about helping clients to identify the next stage of their career and to move easily towards it.  For some, this movement towards is imbued with ease.  For many it is not.  So, my question to my colleagues is this:  what is it that keeps us working harder than we need to in order to achieve results?  I’m not talking about the kind of hard work we put in because we are engaged and inspired – what some call “discretionary effort”.  I’m talking about times when we struggle to achieve the outcomes we long for.  I’m talking about times when we work long hours but with little to show for it in terms of our desired outcomes or the way we feel.  I’m talking about the dialogue that goes round and round in circles and still, fails to lead us to the outcome we most need.  The list could go on…
Today, as I write, I am struck by a couple of resources highlighted to me by colleagues.  The first is a blog posting about a man called Simon Sinek whose name is new to me.  This led me in turn to a talk by Simon on www.TED.com – not just any talk but, at the time of writing, TED’s 7th most watched video ever.  In this talk, Simon outlines the simple difference between those leaders and organisations which manage to engage and inspire and those that, no matter how fantastic their product, fail to gain a foothold in the marketplace.  This is what Goleman and colleagues describe as the visionary leadership style in their book, The New Leaders.  This is what inspires the discretionary effort from staff.  This is what engages – excites, even – a tribe of loyal customers.
My question, though, was about the opposite side of the coin.  What is it that keeps us working too hard – struggling – to achieve results?  I was delighted to be pointed to this posting, entitled The Fears Leaders Never Speak Of (And How AQAL, Zen, And The Chinese New Year Can Help).  In this posting, author Ginny Whitelaw points us to the fears that sit beneath our efforts – fears that are often unrecognised and in this way given the power to drive our behaviour.  She also gives an intriguing recipe for responding to our fears which has the potential to empower us in the most counter-intuitive way.
But hey, I’m on holiday right now.  If you want to know more, you’ll have to read the bog postings and watch the TED talk.
Mmmm… 

The art of asking

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,
In recent weeks, I confess I have engaged in a classic response to challenging times – going shopping.  It all started with a tea pot in Oxfam in Blackheath.  I loved it so much that, having bought it, I started to look for other items to match.  I uncovered the name of the pattern, discovered places to buy this pattern (long since discontinued) and have quickly built up a collection.  I have even, finally, succumbed to having cupboards and shelves built in my dining room.  This has given storage space for my new collection, it has been designed to display some of my new items, and it has also given storage for just some of the books around the house because, yes, I am also a bibliophile par excellence.  I can rationalise that I have been meaning for a while to replace some of my tired old china and this has been the opportunity to do it.  At the same time, I notice that this period of intense activity has followed the death of my uncle, distracting me from some of the feelings of grief and loss that came with it.
This collecting frenzy has also had an interesting side-effect, because in order to build my collection, I have had to ask for help.  It started when I posted some photos of my tea pot on Facebook and asked if anyone was clearing out their collection.  A number of friends responded with sources of information about this pattern (Denby arabesque) and pointed me to places that sell it.  For the first time, I ‘discovered’ eBay.  I bought a bowl, for collection only, from someone who lives near my younger brother, leading me to ask him if he’d be willing to collect it.  And then another from someone who lives near my older brother so that, once more, I found myself making a request.  I bought a large collection some miles away and asked a friend with a car (who keeps a car in London?  My friend Alan) if he would be willing to drive me.  The list goes on.
The tenderness of asking for help
Making requests of my friends and family – and so many requests of so many friends and family – has reminded me of the tenderness and sense of vulnerability that comes with asking for help.  Yes, I’m talking about me.  But I’m also talking more generally.  I would even go so far as to say that we live in a culture which frowns on the honest request.
In case you doubt this assertion, here are just a few examples of the ways in which we have learnt to bypass making requests – which I share alongside the invitation to notice how many you use yourself or notice in others:
  • One way that springs to mind is to make a “requorder” (“Take this to the post room, will you?”  “Get this done by five o’clock, won’t you?”).  This is an order or instruction embedded within a request.  Beloved of parents, managers and other figures of authority, the desired response is implied in a way which makes it just a bit more difficult to say no than an open honest request;
  • Another way is to hold in mind an expectation that is never openly shared (“Any normal manager would have noticed how upset John was feeling”  “Who on earth would turn up to such an important meeting without preparing?”  “Do you think anyone has told her that trying to go through a 60-slide deck in half an hour was bound to bore the pants off everybody?”);
  • Giving feedback is also often a way of making a hidden request (“This document is in a terrible state.  I found at least six mistakes on every page – it’s just not up to scratch!”);
  • And of course, there’s always the option of giving an order (“You need to complete this document by 5 o’clock at the latest!”  “Make sure everyone has the minutes at least two days in advance”).

As ways of getting things done, these tactics vary in their ability to achieve a desired outcome.  One of the least successful is to complain around the water-cooler (or at home to our husband or wife):  talking about what someone should have done or should do in future rarely leads to a change of behaviour on the part of the person concerned.  More successful is the option of giving an order – at least in the short term.  Over time, though, the use of a coercive style of leadership can have a corrosive impact on how people feel at work.  (If you haven’t already read it, read Daniel Goleman’s article Leadership That Gets Results for an introduction to research in this area.)

Having said this, one thing that all these approaches delivers is this:  it protects us from all the feelings we have when faced with the possibility of a “no”, and one laden with judgement at that.  For many, our feelings of tenderness and vulnerability when making requests reflect all sorts of experiences from our earliest years.
The art of asking
This blog posting takes its heading from a talk on TED.com by singer Amanda Palmer.  If you recognise the challenge of making requests or find yourself wondering if some of the strangest behaviours of those you lead come from avoiding making requests, then you may enjoy hearing what she has to say.  For my part, these are a few things that work for me when I’m making requests:
  • Recognise my emotions around making a request:  There are times when the thought of making a request brings up some emotion for me.  An example of this is the anger I feel when faced with a car, loud music and a number of teenagers in the car park opposite my house at bed-time.  I always start by noticing my emotion and noticing what the emotion is;
  • Get clear about what I really want:  With the young people in the car park, for example, I may recognise how early I need to get up the next morning and how much I’m longing for sleep.  I want to be confident that when I go to bed in a few minutes time I’ll be able to sleep without a background noise of voices and loud music.  This is a way of giving myself empathy and tends to soothe the emotion.  It’s also important to help me make a request that really does meet my needs;
  • Think about different ways of getting what I really want:  As long as the only way for me to get to sleep is to get those youngsters out of the car park, it’s difficult for me to make a request rather than a demand:  I know people sense the energy of a demand behind the words of a request.  Thinking about a variety of ways forward makes it easier for me to make a request.  Before I make a request, I take time to think about different options;
  • Get curious about what others may have on their minds:  The kids in the car park have a reason for being there.  Taking time to imagine what those reasons may be helps me to connect with others as and when I do decide to make a request.  And because I still remember my mother telling me “I want, doesn’t get”, it helps to remind myself that actually, we all like to contribute to the well-being of others;
  • Get clear about what I want to request:  Sometimes, the request I end up making is not the one I first thought of.  I’ve learnt, for example, to ask the youngsters in the car park how long they’re planning to be there and to explain why that’s important to me.  They might feel unhappy to be asked to leave right now, but it’s hard to find a reason not to share their intentions.  In the workplace, I may want someone to do something for me but first, I want to know if there’s anything standing in the way.  Often my first request is a request for information about the other person (“Is this something you’d be willing to do?” “How does this idea land with you?”);
  • Make the request when I can easily accept a yes or a no:  Especially when my start-point has been one of emotion, I take time to reach a point when I can hear a yes or a no with equal ease before I make the request.  Only at this point do I open the door and walk across the (real or metaphorical) car-park;
  • Make a simple action-request:  I may say hello and check in.  Quite quickly though, I cut to the chase.  I make my request and explain why it’s important to me.  I make sure my request is specific – describing the action I want someone to take.  Then I wait for – and welcome – the answer.

I recognise that there may be unanswered questions for you.  (“What about when you do need the report done by 5pm?”  “What about the staff member who always says no and needs to say yes?”).  Please ask me those questions in the comment box below and I promise to write a response.  For now, though I wonder – how do you manage the art of asking?