You Can’t Do It All By Yourself

The hero’s journey is for the very, very few.  I did it my way, I slaved away in a garret and got to the top, I realised the American dream – all good stuff, but an illusion for most.  The reality is there are more of us who need the cooperation of others, than those who can succeed despite others.  The age of the “one” has been taken over by the age of the “many”.  Hero teams are more powerful than individual heroes.

The problem is although we may need the cooperation of others, we are not that good at getting it.  We limit our scope through two key areas – how we communicate and how we react.  We like what we like and we find affinity with those who like similar things.  We like to speak in a certain way and we click with others who speak the same way.  It might be a shared accent, denoting a similar background, and we are all pretty good at spotting the subtleties of dialect.  That is okay, but it still doesn’t help us to go far enough.  You might share a common accent, but that doesn't mean you get on with everyone from back home\

Reflecting the preferences of others is a much more effective way of building trust and cooperation.  Does this mean being two faced and manipulative?  No, it means being flexible and other focused rather than me, me, me focused. 

When we are speaking with others we notice the way they prefer to communicate.  It will vary from very low energy to high output - softly spoken to plain loud.  Neither side likes the other much.  The loud person can’t hear the softly spoken person and feels annoyed, because they have to struggle to hear what they are saying.  The softly spoken person is quietly upset, because they don’t like people who are loud and aggressive.

The key here is to adjust ourselves to suit the situation and the other person, if we want to gain their cooperation.  If you say, “well I am me, I have my rights and they should adjust themselves to how I like it”, then let me know how that is working out for you?

We will need to increase our energy and volume when we speak with high output people.  We may feel like we are screaming, but on their scale all we are doing is communicating normally.  The opposite applies, when we have to drop the volume and the strength.  We may feel like we are whispering and it is killing us, but the counterparty feels very comfortable chatting with you.

Some individuals are really detail oriented, they are constantly seeking data, proof, evidence about what they are being told.  When we interact with this group, we notice the micro focus immediately and so we need to start adding a lot more detail to our explanations or recommendations.  We may feel this is too nitty gritty and frankly, massive overkill, but that is not how they see it.  For them this is absolutely normal and unremarkable.

The opposite preference is for big picture discussions.  Don’t worry about the details, the practicality, the roll out - we will get to that later.  They want to plot the future direction in broad brush terms.  For detail orientated people this is painful, because everything seems fluffy and unrealistic.  Don’t fight it – encourage them to go big and go with them.  Put up some crazy ideas (judged crazy from your evidence based thinking point of view) of your own and don’t feel guilty.  They will welcome all crazy ideas, including yours.

When we hear something we don’t like, we often react first and think later.  Bad approach!  Instead, bite your tongue and hear them out – don’t jump in over the top of them with your counter idea, critique or cutting comment.  Try ear, brain, mouth rather than ear, mouth, brain as an order of approach.  Use a “cushion”, a sentence that is neither for nor against what they are saying.  It is a neutral statement, used to simply break our usual pattern of too rapid intervention.  It gives us crucial time to think about what we want to say and how we are going to say it. 

Before we comment or attempt to criticise them, we instead ask them why they think that or why they say that.  While they are providing some background and context around their position, we are able to bypass our immediate chemical reaction and reach deeper down to our calmer second or even third, considered response.  When we do speak we may even accept their position because the context made sense or be able to suggest a counter position.  We can do this in a calm way, that doesn’t lead to an argument and bad feelings.

These two actions on our part will build the trust and establish the lines of communication required to convince other to help us on our own hero team journey.  Speak in a reflective manner and don’t react immediately to what you are hearing.  You may think this is killing you, because it is so different to how you normally operate, but if you want to be effective with all types of people, this is the secret – adjust yourself first. 

Newtonian physics says for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Fine, but we don’t want that – we want a different and improved reaction, so let’s change our own angle of approach with others, so that we get a much better response.

Action Steps

1. Be flexible and be focused on those with whom you are communicating:

• If they are micro, you go micro
• If they are macro, you go macro
• If they are fast paced, then speed up
• If they are moderate in pace, then slow down

2. When you hear something you don’t like use ear, brain, mouth
3. Before you reply, use a cushion to give yourself time to craft your response