Archive for the ‘Communication is about relationship’ Category
Melted Crayons: What Writing Collaboration Looks Like
Not yours. Not mine. But a new thing created between us.
Years ago we took our kids on the consumerist hajj to Florida’s Disney. We’re more national park vacationers but we resolved to make the best of it. So we battled through the hucksters and scam artists on every corner in Orlando and made our way to the magic kingdom.
It was…ok.
Some of our kids were scared of the rides. Some were thrilled at points. Others (including parents) grew weary of the constant stimulation. I would not be a good spokesperson for Disney.
The most memorable part of the trip was post-Disney, on a drive through the orange groves. At one point we left the rental car for not too long a time to see some Florida oddity. We came back and found crayons melted on the back seat. It gets hot in a Minnesota summer, but I don’t recall crayon-melting hot.
Turn up the heat.
Melted crayons are not any one color. They are a new color that has no name.
Recent writing collaborations got me thinking about those crayons again. Some of my favorite clients invite me into the process by explaining what they want to accomplish with their target audience. They outline the main messages but do not hold those main messages too tightly. They point out the content and invite me to organize and hone the argument so it makes sense. They invite me to retell the main messages. When I come back to my client with something they can react to, we talk and the work gets better and more solid.
The thing is, what we create is not totally mine and not totally theirs. It’s a melted melding of motifs, which we continue to sharpen and fit to the purpose.
It’s a process I enjoy very much.
And it’s a process that is not that much different from our best conversations, where we generate some surprising new thing between us, beyond what either of us set out to say. A sort of intentional, verbal, melting of crayons right before our eyes.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
The Lunchbox: Tell to Not Forget
Tiffen Delivery by Dabbawallah
The Lunchbox is a fetching fiction.
Lunch delivery is quite real:
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Joe Lueken: The Grocer With Something To Teach CEOs About Leadership
Joe Knew Where His Success Came From
Are you one of those poor souls who does not read the obituaries?
Pity: so many memorable stories.
Like the story of Joe Lueken. A couple years ago Mr. Lueken turned down the opportunity to make buckets of cash by selling his Bemidji-based grocery store chain. Instead, as he retired, he set up an employee stock ownership program and transferred the company to his workers.
He was a philanthropist who stocked shelves and took his break with the other workers in the break room. And—most telling for me—the people who worked for him had great respect for him. He was a guy whose work ethic and his caring demeanor touched lives. And it seems—at least from my reading of a couple of articles—he did so with joy.
Mr. Lueken died on July 20 after a long battle with cancer.
As we watch the explosion of CEO salaries and look with wonder on the board members who agree to these ridiculous payouts, it’s hard not to wish many of the current batch of muckety-mucks had worked for Joe. Maybe his humanity would have rubbed off.
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Image credit: StarTribune
…The…Slow…Talker…. So Boring.
What can you learn from the slow guy?
Q: My colleague is the slowest talker in the world.
Each sentence he forms takes forever and we can all see where he’s going long before he gets there. I’m tempted to take up knitting whenever he makes a point in a meeting. We all finish his sentences.
Is that so wrong?
Not every conversation is electric quick.
A: Some people want to be sure of what they are saying. For some people the internal editor stands with a bullwhip as words cower by the tongue. It could also be your colleague is intimidated by your work team. Do you or your team tend to jump in to argue or quickly quibble about word choice?
Consider counting to ten (or 50) when your colleague speaks.
And consider not finishing his sentences.
Being heard is a basic courtesy we offer each other. When we slow our listening to the pace of our conversation partner, we extend a bit of tangible grace and we demonstrate this person has value—no matter how boring they are. Maybe waiting in expectant silence will begin to change our slow-talking colleague. Maybe he will begin to feel more confident and less like he’ll be mugged for his word choices.
But even more importantly, waiting and expectantly listening trains us to listen for more than words, with more than our ears, to more of what might be going on. We’re used to instant, but not all of what we have for each other lends itself to instant. People need to process words and experiences and thoughts. If we rush them to the end, we likely speak for them, with our words, not theirs.
If your slow-talking colleague drains you with his long pauses and predictable boring comments, consider limiting time with him, just to save you both hassle. But when with him, give him time.
You may be surprised.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Loose Lips Link Scripts
Open(ish) access for tight-lipped companies
Technical people can learn something from advertising people.
My creative director friend presented advertising concepts by first showing how his agency team came up with the idea. His presentations took a bit more time, but along the way he restated the problem, showed visuals of how competitors attempted to solve the problem and then revealed stumps of ideas that never really worked. Then he got to the solutions he hoped the client would pay for.
My friend’s process placed his solution in a context that helped those around the conference table understand why the solution made sense. As he spun out his process, he verbally brought these people with him so they were nodding “Yes” long before they signed off on the solution.
The boardwalk protects fragile land while providing access.
Many of my clients guard their proprietary information with fierce protections. And rightly so: their processes keep things running and bring in the coin that satisfies employees, stakeholders and shareholders. But in a search and share economy where like-minded people find each other more and more often, is a firewall surrounding all information really the best way forward?
The right information presented at the right time (that is, just when someone needs it, which typically coincides with a search for that information) affects buying decisions and brand loyalty. Interestingly, your technical people are right now busy working through the context that, if properly presented, would draw others to your product.
People are searching for your information.
If only they could find you.
My more innovative clients are finding ways to help their problem-definers and solution-makers talk more publicly. And as these discussions move outside the corporate walls, they best ones are finding ways to combat the PR department temptation to suck meaning from the words. Because sharing useful information happens person-to-person. And useful information will always have something of an unfiltered quality to it.
How is your organization preparing to share details with those who can help you move forward?
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
George Trow: On a Reporter’s Appropriate Subjectivity
Subjectivity is part of the human condition
I dislike all talk about “bias” and “lack of objectivity” in a reporter. He is there to clue you in to his best assessment, his reading of the code of events. He has no way to be objective (other than not to have a personal stake in the argument); he doesn’t know the real facts; or if he does, it’s so rare as not to be worth the mentioning. He can’t read Arafat’s mind , or Assad’s, or anybody’s. In a way, what you value most about him or her is his or her appropriate subjectivity; his or her feel for events.
Trow, George W. S. My Pilgrim’s Progress (NY: Vintage Books, 1999) 42
Question Authority: “I wonder if that’s true.”
Is suspension of belief the same as active doubt?
Strangers, colleagues, friends and family are adept at sounding like they know what they are talking about. It’s a piece of the human condition in our U.S. of A. to come across with confidence (even better—hubris—if you can manage it). Use a certain tone of voice, jam words together quickly, toss in a few technical terms, keep your head steady and hold someone’s gaze, and—presto!—you’re an expert.
And your word matters.
Back in college studying philosophy I might have been an irritating presence with friends because the most common, most innocuous comments could elicit questions. Over time I learned to hold those questions to myself and mull things over in a less public way. But whenever I find myself in the presence of people who wrap themselves with authority, those questions pop out.
I’m attracted to Robert Sokolowski’s take on phenomenology. In particular, this notion of bracketing our natural thoughts and suspending a belief to ask about it and examine the pieces and parts and moments and manifolds of that belief. It’s a great thing to do in conversation, and many generous-minded thinkers and experts will walk that direction with me. But those intent on cloaking themselves with authority—those using bits of knowledge as rhetorical tools to one-up their conversation partners—see ordinary questions that come from bracketing as weapons of aggression.
And in truth, sometimes they are. To respond to the expert with “I wonder if that is true” is to question authority, to question context, to question orthodoxy. It also brings common relationships into question. Can we be friends if you question this basic statement?
And yet the most marvelous thoughts follow those ordinary questions. Thoughts that propel forward with much deeper motivation and insight.
Friends who allow you to ask very basic questions are a gift to be cherished.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
How To Rip The Top Off Your Club
Work or church or bowling: It’s easy to mistake why we’re here
First a quiz:
- My company exists to give me a job. True or False?
- My church exists so I can feel better about myself once a week. True or False?
- I’m part of a bowling league so I can practice bowling and maybe get better. True or False?
Lately I find myself using “club” to describe those organizations that have turned so inward they have forgotten their purpose. Sometimes clients forget they got into the business to help customers live better lives. Sometimes they spend their days fixated on managing up. Sometimes pastors think all these people show up to take direction, fill the offering plates and carry out the pastoral vision. Sometimes parishioners show up thinking this hour will medicate me—I’ll be inoculated from the mundane horror of daily life for about a week.
Of course, none of this we say out loud. We also try not to say these things to ourselves. But our attitude gives us away.
When I teach college writing classes and we talk about finding jobs, we spend a lot of time talking about how work is thing we do together for others. Work is not a thing set up for the sole purpose of getting money. If you think the former (work is about helping others) you’ll have an enduring, meaning-making attitude that will help you accomplish stuff in the real world. If you think the latter (work is for me to get money/fame/prestige), you will never be satisfied. Might as well trade derivatives on Wall Street.
It is true that we each stand at the center of our world. Philosopher Robert Sokolowski calls that stance our “transcendent ego.” And that’s just how we experience all there is to experience in the world. But it takes a maturing person to step away from the giddy, teen-age fiction that all of everything revolves around me for real.
Is it time to call your club back to the central purpose—the purpose that people signed up for in the beginning—making a difference in the world? If it is, you’ll likely have uncomfortable conversations with your friends in the club. You may even cause current programs to jump the tracks. But that’s ok: that’s what happens when we refocus on the bigger purposes of why we are here.
That is a work that helps all of us in the club.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
“Good to Know” and a Failure to Communicate (DGtC#23)
I’ve said too much already.
If you hear this, you’ve said too much. You’ve said more than someone wanted to hear. “Good to know” is a polite way for your listener to indicate, “Please. Shut it.”
Why do we say too much?
Maybe we are excited about a topic. People will often have mercy with this motive. Sometimes the excitement rubs off. Our favorite professors and speakers demonstrated their enthusiasm for a topic by going on. And on.
Maybe it is a nervous tic that flows from fear of awkward silence.
Maybe we are hiding our tracks, like the alcoholic filling up verbal space to avoid the obvious question. Maybe our rush of words is like throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, to throw our interrogators off our track.
Maybe we’re signaling dominance. Stringing together buzzwords at a rapid pace is a time-honored tactic in corporate meetings where you have no clue how to respond. The tactic usually ends in promotion because higher-ups read “kindred spirit” in your fast mumbling. Maybe our club or church or group listens for key words to show who is in and who is out, so our rush of words is a frantic attempt to show we are in.
“Good to know” is a proper, dismissive response to much of the advertising done to us: superfluous, out of step with regular life and an obvious pitch for our pocketbook.
But when we hear “Good to know,” it may be worth stepping back and getting momentarily meta, and thinking, “Oops. I might have misjudged this person’s interest. How can I get back to connection?”
Connection is the place to be. Connection gets along well with enthusiasm and does not mind probing into track-hiding. But connection does not abide dominance.
See also: How be a verbal philanthropist (#14)
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
How to help your teammate hatch an idea (Dummy’s Guide to Conversation #22)
The satisfying work of relating
Some of us find great joy in the work itself: left alone to turn the block on the lathe or write the intro paragraph—we get a tad giddy. Like we know what we are doing (more or less) and this process is stimulating and fun and I can see stuff taking shape.
A friend with a VP-of-Meetings type brain would often jab me with his love of meetings:
Meetings are great. I don’t know why people hate them so. We get so much done.
When he said this I assumed they were great for him because he enjoyed telling others what to do. And his lackeys went and accomplished real stuff. Were meetings great for his lackeys? I have my doubts.
But for many of us, it is difficult to get that sense of getting stuff done with people. Conversation is a messy business that seems to typically lead into a wilderness of tangents and false starts rather than to a place where real stuff happens. Washington is the current poster child for conversation thwarted at every turn.
Must it be that way?
Can you see how a lot of freight gets shifted in a conversation?
I can’t prescribe a cure for Washington (though targeting the removal of big money would be a positive first step), but here’s a few suggestions for helping each other hatch big ideas and get stuff done:
- Listen. For real—really listen. And repeat back what your colleague says to make sure you get it and to give yourself time to process what your colleague said. Resist the temptation to formulate a counter-argument while appearing to listen. Listen for potential.
- Ask your colleague to say more. Gain clarity for yourself and your colleague. Work out the idea together through a volley of responses.
- Breathe. That’s right, take a breath so you can stay in the moment and hear your colleague. They might just do the same for you.
- Use your words to precisely parse an idea. It’s easy to get sloppy and quickly dismiss ideas (and people, for that matter). Instead, tease out the potential idea you saw. Give it some kindling and fan it and get the fire going.
- Say it out loud to get something done. Pulling together an idea that is scattered before a team is sort of like nailing it to the wall for all to see. Once everyone sees it, they can respond. Grabbing the idea and saying it aloud can often feel like work accomplished. It feels that way because it is exactly that.
We do well to pay attention to what our colleagues are saying. And the more attention we pay, the more wealth of ideas and practical insights we might just find. In fact, some people work this way all the time:
When we toss things back and forth, there is no compromise at all. That is when it is magic.
–Millman, Debbie. How to think like a great graphic designer. (NY: Allworth Press, 2007). From Emily Oberman & Bonnie Siegler/ Number 17, p.96
Also: consider returning to David Rock’s Quiet Leadership and check out his tidy six steps
- Think about thinking
- Listen for potential
- Speak with intent
- Dance toward insight (Permission + Placement + Questioning + Clarifying)
- CREATE New thinking
- Follow up
People are never tools or things we manipulate to achieve our desired end. But honoring each other by listening and talking—that’s how real stuff gets done in the real world.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
conversation is an engine 