Who’s The Most Important Person In The Room?

When I’m leading a workshop or facilitating a group session I often ask who the most important person in the room is. The answer I’m hoping to hear is a resounding “I am” from each of them. But people are often reluctant to say so, deferring to their children or other loved ones, and with good reason. Love makes us want to put others first, so does our natural sense of empathy. We consider people who put themselves first to be selfish or grasping, but that isn’t what I mean.

Being able to demonstrate our empathy or love for others requires us to be at our most personally resourceful. To be at our best requires that a) we know ourselves well enough to get us to that position; and b) we have access to those personal resources that enable us to perform consistently well.

Leading thinkers like Martha Nussbaum talk of the need for society to become more outward looking and empathetic rather than persisting with the perceived narcissistic self-examination that is a feature of movements like Positive Psychology.

A world that is rich in empathy needs us to go beyond hand-wringing sympathy and actually consider how we can affect the situation we see before us – if indeed we feel that is the right thing to do.

So if you are reflecting on 2010 and thinking about what you might like to achieve in 2011, consider where you add value in the world, in your family, among your colleagues; think about the personal resources you need to make that difference; then plan how you are going build those resources to benefit those around you.

Put yourself first so you can be fantastic for those who need you.

Now, who’s the most important person in the room?!

Why Being Gorgeous Can Be Bad

I have a friend who is gorgeous. Not only is she attractive, she is an immensely talented thinker and business leader. Men react instinctively when they meet her and often grin stupidly and become suddenly tongue-tied – you can imagine can't you?

In many respects it's flattering that someone finds you attractive, I'm sure you find it so. But what happens when that reaction becomes a barrier? When the fact of someone's reaction to your appearance gets in the way of decisions you have to make togehter for example? The same principle can be applied to someone with a physical disfigurement – remember the Rowan Atkinson sketch when he tried desperately to not say 'mole' as he was distracted by a large facial blemish.

Watching one of the RSA's excellent animated speeches I was struck by a reference to developmental psychologist Robert Keegan's statement that

'...successful functioning society with its diverse values, traditions and lifestyles requires us to have a relationship to our reactions rather than be captive to them...'

That's what we're talking about isn't it: our initial reactions to people we meet.

Throughout the 90s workplace diversity training tormented us with guilt over our reactions to people who are different to us, we agonised over how to not say things and tied ourselves in knots with politically correct language – all well intended, aimed at improving inclusivity but actually doing the opposite by making it even less likely that we would have a conversation with someone very different to ourselves. We were captives of our reactions.

I couldn't help but think of Reactolite sunglasses lenses, the ones that automatically adjust to the brightness of sunlight making it comfortable to carry on your business. I'm going to invent a new lens – one that adjusts to the inner glare we get from an instinctive reaction to someone. The lens will darken whenever we react suddenly to someone's appearance, accent, education or any of the other items on the long list of things that hit our 'hot-buttons'.

The potential market is huge, for example I'll sell them to anyone taking home their boyfriend or girlfriend for the first time – it will help get over the “Oh my God, he/she is white/black/male/female/ugly/gorgeous/wheelchair-bound moment”.

They will be compulsory for meetings where important decisions are made – government, local authorities or courts for example. They will become essential equipment for police officers, doctors and teachers.

Until I've invented them though, I'm going to encourage everyone I know to think and talk about how they can help themselves temper their reactions. Maybe someone else will invent a reaction-o-meter to be worn like a wristwatch, it will have a dial and a pointer to help us understand when our behaviour is a based on an initial reaction rather than a more balanced view.

It was quite an eye-opener to hear my gorgeous friend talk about how it takes longer to build a useful working relationship with people because of her appearance. It took me only a few seconds to realise that is exactly how it is for anyone whose appearance is significantly different from most other people around them.

I'm interested to learn what personal strategies people use to protect themselves from that initial often unhelpful reaction to people.

Oh, by the way, here's the RSA video, it's a super watch:

Three Questions To Ask Yourself - Frequently

One of my colleagues was late arriving for a meeting. She was flustered and apologetic. Almost immediately she was asked to account for actions allocated in the last meeting. She struggled, despite having done the work. It looked like she was making it up on the spot - others had done less but made a better job of giving and account of the little they had done.

When I spoke to her later, Tracy told me she'd had problems with her childminder and had to drop her son at school herself. Her mind was 'all over the place'. Here is the question I suggested she might have asked herself before getting out of the car:

Am I OK?

I don't like complicated approaches to personal development or problem solving. By asking ourselves a simple three word question we are allow ourselves the opportunity to take charge of our own destiny.

So what would Tracy have answered? She would have said 'No, I'm not OK, I'm late and I feel unprepared'.

Here's the next question:

What's My Plan?

Tracy may have said, 'I need to be ready for the meeting - so I need to be in control, calm and anticipate what's going to happen' So her plan may have been to sit and gather her thoughts running through her apology for lateness, the topics she might have to cover in the meeting (and the answers she might give to questions), and once she'd rehearsed how she was going to get through the door without seeming out of control, she might sit still for just one minute until she could confidently answer the third question:

Who is in charge of me?

What!? I hear some of you ask me. But how often do you feel at the mercy of events? How often do you feel truly in charge of what is happening?

Even when bad things happen we can all choose how to respond. So when Tracy found circumstances messing up her day, she could have decided to take action there and then by phoning a colleague who she knew was in the meeting and who could pave the way for her apology. She could have added a few extra minutes on to her estimated time of arrival to give herself breathing space and time to relax instead of hurtling along the motorway in blind panic.

White Space

Finally many of you will remember when US President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. Malcolm Gladwell talks, in his book Blink, about how Reagan's bodyguards could not have been any better trained nor better equipped to look after him. But he still got shot.

After watching hours of video tape again and again the agents learnt there was simply nothing they could have done. There was simply not time enough available to react to the threat before he'd pulled his gun and fired. This simple fact radically altered the way secret service agents protected their VIPs. They introduced the concept of 'white space', simply meaning time to react, time to allow all the training to kick in.

When my colleague Tracy burst into the meeting in a rush, she had left no white space for herself, she was as close to events as it was possible to be - and it showed.

By asking those three simple questions throughout each day as you move from task to task, or meeting to meeting, you give yourself White Space and make sure you have the chance to be best you can be at that moment:

Am I OK?

What's my plan?

Who's in charge of me?

How to Nurture Your Powerful Personal Network

In my last blog I wrote about how to build a powerful personal network. I'm guessing you now know who your most powerful contacts are, so how do you go about keeping them, and benefiting from their special personal traits?

You probably don't need reminding that relationships only exist when something happens between people. So if your key contacts are not necessarily people you see every day, how do you maintain a useful contact without artificially creating conversations.

It is really easy.

First of all, don't forget these people are the sort you will probably enjoy contact with or certainly benefit from, so time invested will reap a return almost immediately. So how do you make best use of your own valuable time on your network?

Get Your Five A Day

There are probably about twenty or thirty key people in your powerful network. Aim to have some sort of contact with five of them each day. That way you will probably be able to keep in touch with all of them each week.

Sounds a lot? It shouldn't because contact can be anything from a phone call to a two line email.

The point is that by the simplest of contacts they know you were thinking of them in some useful context.

I Saw This And Thought Of You

Remember the Post Office advertisement with the strap line 'I saw this and thought of you'? In the ad someone was surprised and delighted by a card or letter in the post from a friend (or contact) who had thought of them - a really effective campaign based on the simple pleasure of knowing someone was thinking about you.

Next time you come across an interesting on-line article, news story or piece of research, pause for a moment and ask yourself 'who else would be interested in this?' if the answer is someone in your powerful network, send it them!

Simple.

Share the Social Media Love

Social media can be a curse or a blessing. If you can resist the time-thief temptations of Facebook games (Note: there are also many other equally good ways of wasting your time on-line) social media can make the job of showing your contacts you are interested in them and like their work a simple one.

Your contacts probably have similar interests as you - do they have blogs? Or do they use Twitter or Digg? You can invest time effectively by keeping up to date with their work, but also making sure they know you value their opinions by commenting on blogs, re-tweeting their work or using 'like' functions on Digg or Facebook.

Told you it was easy.

Finally you might be at the start of a project where you need the help of your power network contacts to get your idea out there. My advice is to start early by arousing their interest - ask their opinion, let them engage with your ideas, they won't be able to help themselves once they get interested, it's in their nature (remember why you identified them as powerful people in your network?). To use an old-fashioned phrase, court them, they will repay you.

One final thing - the idea of networking is not manipulation and exploitation, people soon see through that. You are good at what you do so be prepared to share and be a part of someone else's powerful network. Don't make networking all for your benefit - people who court you might have less to give in return but the nature of networks is that ideas, power and influence circulates for good.

Be a generous networker.

How To Build a Powerful Personal Network

It's probably a sign of the times, but increasingly people I coach are concerned about making sure they are match fit to compete in the jobs market. High on the list of the skills they want to sharpen is networking. Here's an exercise I devised to build and maintain a powerful personal network.

What networks do you already use?

Make lists of people already in networks you have. Divide them in to the following categories - some people may be in more than one:

- Social/family
This shouldn't be too hard, these are the few people who matter for more than just work or business.

- Professional/Peers
These are the people you do business with regularly - some might be competitors who you need to keep an eye on, others may be peers whose opinions you value or who you just have to work with.

- Experts/artisans
These are people you need for their particular knowledge or skills. They may not be at the same organisational level as you but they are valuable.

Next list the people you know in the following categories (they are based on Malcolm Gladwell's superb book The Tipping Point), again some of these people will be in the groups you listed above:

Connectors:

People who know everyone. They are the ones who constantly introduce people to each other and know exactly who is the right person to see about everything.

Maverns:

Some of the people in your experts and Artisans list may be Maverns.They are specialists, and are madly passionate about their subject. They're evangelical and eager to share their love of their topic with you. You probably know Maverns on a range of subjects.

Salespeople:

exactly what it says on the tin. Salespeople are great convincers and influencers, the ones with the power to get an idea across.

By now you'll have quite a few names, probably too many to keep in regular contact with all the time. So, how do you work out which of these people are your most useful contacts?

Review your lists and see whose names appear most across the categories. You will probably end up with a list of about twenty or so.These are your power networkers and are the people you want to have around you for whatever project you embark on.

In my next post we'll look at how you nurture and maintain your power network. In the meantime get hold of a copy of Gladwell's Tipping Point, for a great account of how only a few people can make a whole host of difference.

How Mediation Can Help With More Than Just Obvious Disputes

I mediated recently for a public body that had been unable to resolve a complaint. A bereaved family had received very poor service at a tragic time for them.

The investigation had established that no blame could be attributed to an individual - at least not to the extent that it would attract any sanction - but despite an absolute apology by the organisation the family could not move on.

Although they truly acknowledged how awful their situation had been, the organisation felt the family was becoming a thorn in their side, with repeated requests to the CEO's office for face-to-face meetings with individual staff members. So far as they were concerned, the organisation was not in dispute: they had apologised profusely and acknowledged by letter the paucity of service as well

as explaining why no individual blame could be apportioned.

For their part the family remained bitter and angry> They they did not dispute the investigation findings but felt the complaint resolution process, whilst addressing facts, had failed to allow them to vent their feelings sufficiently. They disliked the dispassionate tone of the organisation's letters of explanation and felt the apology lacked humanity.

Individual members of staff had been asked to meet with a member of the family but were uneasy about being the organisation's scapegoat, and in any case could not see why they should put themselves through a potentially stressful situation: after all they had done no wrong.

I was asked if I would help.

having mediated workplace disputes for the organisation before I knew that their preferred method of mediation was to hold one face-to-face meeting with only superficial initial contacts with the parties. That wouldn't do here; I needed to gain the trust and confidence of both parties - not least the nervous middle manager whose team had been involved in only part of the incident. He had been told he had to participate - not ideal for mediation where a key principle is that participation is

voluntary!

I knew from experience that in situations where emotions are high parties often have little idea what they want beyond their outpouring of anger or distress. So my first conversation was a long one as I listened, and listened, and listened.

Where I find coaching and mediation complement each other is in the skill of asking questions that guide a party towards an outcome, or in this case, a resolution they wish to achieve. At the end of our conversation I had a good idea of what to expect and also importantly permission to reassure the other party that their intentions were not hostile.

My meeting with the middle manager was very different. He was defensive - after all he'd done nothing wrong, it was official. In our initial meeting I reassured him that I would be in charge of the session, and to assure him of my credibility as a mediator.

The face-to-face meeting was a success: the middle manager left with a different view of how to manage complaints; the bereaved mother found she was not as angry as she thought when she heard how people had tried their best but just didn't see the bigger picture.

Importantly for me, her parting comment that she 'could take down the bereavement cards now' was a sign that after two years she could see beyond the dispute she'd been locked in.

As a mediator this case reinforced the value of mediation in situations beyond neighbourhood and family disputes, or workplace issues. It also highlighted how vital flexibility of approach is, with particular emphasis on parties' needs being of paramount importance.

I received a lovely thank-you e-mail this week from the family - that meant a lot, not least because despite my independence, I'd been brought in by the organisation.