Say it Better

Be Someone Who Attracts Smart Support ... Sooner

Research shows that Americans are most likely to trust and support someone who exhibits strong listening and inclusion skills. These traits matter even more than charisma. Those sought-after people - the major nodes on the invisible organizational chart that reflects the real centers of influence - are different than the leaders of just a decade ago.

"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind
than in the one where they sprung up."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

In this Age of Engagement, the trait they are most likely to share is the capacity to speak to the sweet spot of mutual interest.

In most conversations they begin, not by talking about themselves but byaddressing the other person’s specific need or opportunity.

Then they move on to describe how there’s a shared interest or way of accomplishing something together that cannot be done alone.

While many experts on leadership such as Warren Bennis and Steve Covey offer valuable ideas on what leadership should look like, two research studies, one by the U.S. Air Force and another from M.I.T. show that people are more likely to seek out and support people who exhibited at least three of seven behavioral traits of what I’ve dubbed the “Synthesizer-Style Leader". Remarkably, these traits mattered more than ethnicity, sex, ethnicity, apparent wealth, physical size, education or even appearance.

“A true leader is not one you look up to because they are the best.
A true leader is one that draws the best out in you.”
~ Anne Warfield

These leaders succeed because they bring out the most productive side of their colleagues. While this new style of most valuable player (MVP) does make her presence felt in her organization, she is much less likely than old-style leaders to take center stage, voice an opinion early in a situation or take charge of projects. Instead she sets a single goal and a goal for each team and each person, leaving it to them to propose the smartest path forward Thus these leaders do not need total quality management programs because they set a goal for and reward self-organized teams.

“All value resides in individuals.
Value is distributed in individual space.
Relationship economics is the framework for wealth creation.
Deep support is the new metaproduct.”
~ Shoshanna Zuboff

The Synthesizer-Style Leaders' behavioral traits are described here as rules to work by. Often, I find them difficult to follow yet not as arduous as ignoring them:

1. "Go slow to go fast"
At the beginning of every task or interaction, do everything lower, slower less - in moving and speaking - so that you get "in sync" and can then establish a common direction and involvement so that when you pick up speed later on, everybody is eager to be on board.

2. Create the Common Vision
Vividly characterize the direct benefit to the listener up front, for providing support, even if it is a part of his job anyway. Then characterize how the expected support directly relates to one of the top goals of your organization, the upside and down side of doing the work.

3. Play Straight
Announce the rules upfront - penalities and rewards for participation in a team activity or project or job - and don't change them mid-stream without a compelling reason.

4. Play it Back
Seek and reward candid feedback on an ongoing basis, and respond specifically and soon to what you’ve been told, including the rational about the action you will or will not take, based upon that feedback.

5. Synthesize the Best
Listen, ask, ask more, then synthesize others' ideas as a way of proposing new action.

6. Give Third Party Endorsements
Offer specific, genuine praise for others' contributions from anywhere in the company; praise them to those who are important to them and in ways that reflect their highest self-image and values.

7. Walk Your Talk
Demonstrate a congruency in all that you do; make and keep agreements; reflect a clear set of core personal values that people can trust you'll keep, regardless of whether they share those values.

“In everybody’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.
We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner fire.”
~ Albert Schweitzer

Pecha Kucha Nights Speed Knowledge-Sharing.

Pecha Kucha Night was originally conceived as a way for young architects and designers in Tokyo to gather and “show-and-tell” their work, leaving enough time to compare notes afterwards. Each person who wants to talk about her or his work presents a slide show (a PowerPoint presentation). They are limited to 20 images, showing for no more than 20 seconds. Thus each presenter get six minutes and 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter pops up to present a pithy message. Think of it as speed dating for meetings where the goal is to quickly learn a great insight from each other. This format has spread throughout the world, from Amsterdam to here in San Francisco. Watch one in Hamburg. By the way, Pecha Kucha is Japanese for chit chat.

I find I get more clear and specific about my main message when I am forced to present this way. And I get to the point faster. Less likely for eyes to glaze over. More people get to present their best shot - and look better in so doing.

What if your organization ran some of its meetings this way? Less chance for Death by Meeting, perhaps? What if your annual conference included this format? More inclusive? More time for Q & A? You’d get more snapshots of people you might want to kibitz with during breaks or at that cocktail hour? This format helps us be smarter together than apart - and enjoy more camaraderie along the way.

Save Yourself From Death by Meeting

Avoid making sarcastic comments out of the side of your mouth or worse. You know you want to bop that long-winded dolt over the head or flee screaming from the conference room. We’ve all been there. Instead read this pithy list of rules for making meetings more productive:
1. Sterile Cockpit (maintain focus)
2. Jackanory (no story-telling, i.e. reasons, explanations, justifications, causes)
3. Sherlock Holmes (reveal rather than conceal)

See the other four rules from Irish IT engineer-turned virtual collaboration expert and “Bumble Bee” blogger, Ken Thompson.

Ken’s notes:
1. Sterile Cockpit is an aviation term which means that during critical phases of flight, such as takeoff and landings, nothing else should be discussed by the flight crew. Even if it is important keep it for later.

2. Jackanory is Cockney rhyming slang for 'Telling A Story'. When we tell a story about why something has happened we usually, without realising it, begin to defend and justify. This wastes time and energy. We only need to give the absolute minimum facts to allow the meeting to determine the correct action. The time for stories is really after the meeting.

3. Sherlock Holmes was a famous but fictitious detective who had a fantastic ability to uncover the truth in difficult circumstances. A team should not expect their team leader to have the same level of investigative and deductive skills as Sherlock.

Follow-up by reading Patrick Lencioni's “easy-to-read novella,“ the “business fiction” book, Death By Meeting.

And, if you want your group to become better co-creators, try the Four-Player System designed by David Kantor and described in William Issac’s book Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. (Thanks again Ken).

Here’s the roles that participants must adopt for a collaborative conversation:
1. Mover
Without Movers there is no direction.

2. Opposer
Without Opposers there is no correction.

3. Follower
Without Followers there is no completion.

4. Bystander
Without Bystanders there is no perspective.

Stay Connected While Avoiding Annoying Sales Pitches From “Friends”

Like to poll your colleagues and friends for feedback on your new project? Sometimes those in your circle - or their friends - may have helpful insights or contacts. Like others at SpeakerNet, I’ve found the LinkedIn approach to connecting with my “network” is helpful for several kinds of research. Plus (and this was vital to my choice to participate) LinkedIn’s design weeds out those annoying sales pitches and meaningless “hellos” that pseudo friends tend to send on some sites. Founder, Reid Hoffman tells a Stanford University audience some ways to use the site. Peruse more reasons to link in, offered by the Thinking Home Business blogger and Guy Kawasaki.

You may find that the 11 million people, now loosely joined there, can demonstrate how the sum of us can be greater than apart.

The New Normal World Favors MVPs

In this flattening world, dedicated to “the power of us” no skill is more vital than your capacity to work with people extremely unlike you. Want insights on becoming a sought-after, MVP (Most Valued Player) in your work and social world? Listen to three trailblazers. Their insights are helpful even if you don’t work in technology or even in business.

Kim Popovits on Recruiting a Passionate, All-Star Team, Vinod Khosla on Strength of a Team and John Doerr on Helping Teams Work Together.

Q. Who’re the prosumers?

A. They are those of us who act as both producers and consumers. That’s the new label to, as TechCrunch explains, “perfectly describe the millions of participants in the Web 2.0 revolution.”

Italian Internet consultant, Davide Casaleggio offers a captivating video vignette to show a future media scenario and predicts your role in it, once Google takes over the world in 2050."

Turn Conferences Inside Out

Ballrooms with rows of chairs, cloth-covered tables, the panel or expert speaker up front (we'll talk at break). It's been that way for over 30 years. As a former journalist and full-time speaker for several years I've never understood the lack of change in conference and meeting formats - especially in this peer-powered New Normal World. Every once in awhile someone suggests radical changes to the meeting professionals, most recently Eliott Maisie.

Better Biz Networkers. Women or Men?

Mongolia-born, Bat Batjargal is a lecturer in social sciences at Harvard plus he’s an Oxford-trained political scientist. And he’s been studying intercultural business networks for over 12 years in China, England, Germany, Japan, Russia, the Philippines, and the United States. And he teaches and consults in Boston, Moscow, Tokyo, and Beijing, where he is on the faculty at Peking University.

So, he sure seems to be a credible expert. In February he reported differences between female and male entrepreneurs with one culturally - expected study result:

1. “Women entrepreneurs have larger social networks for advice and resources.”

… and two other findings that may surprise some people:

2. “Men have larger 'emotional' networks - the complex of associations that provide warmth, praise, and encouragement.”

3. “Men apparently profit more from these emotional attachments than women do.”

Wow. Well, remember this is about building relationships for business, not for one’s personal life, yet those are murky boundaries these days. For many men and women entrepreneurs, there may be few boundaries between their work and their life. But back to that at the end of this post.

Even more fascinating to me: In this first part of his wide study, he was observing, not Americans, but entrepreneurs in China and Russia.

Read more in Corydon Ireland’s article for the Harvard News Office that I discovered via this goldmine of a site.

Here's more highlights. Perhaps amusingly, Batjargal told Ireland that, “Men who are entrepreneurs have a lot in common with their female counterparts: They are young, energetic, and focused to the point of being obnoxious.”

According to Batjargal, women entrepreneurs develop large networks, but these connections not only hurt profitability, "They are not only useless, but even toxic and harmful," said Batjargal.

The bigger the networks are for female entrepreneurs, the more they seem to drag down revenue growth. Women have big networks, he said, but they include "lots of the wrong people, and people who have no useful resources."

Notes Ireland, “Batjargal, a self-described ‘survey guy’ who loves numbers and tabulation, hopes that his study will point women entrepreneurs in a different direction.

The research is not meant to perpetuate old stereotypes about gender and business – ‘Our aim is more noble,’ he said. ‘We want to give tailored advice to women. That means finding those conditions and nuances in which women might outperform men.”

Batjargal speculated that "women network for the sake of relationships, and men for utility."

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Where Are You?

Much to my surprise 773 people have looked at the Frappr map of the Say it Better community (see it at the bottom right of the blog) and many have also put a pin in on our Frappr map to show the rest of us where in the world they are.

I know that most of you prefer to send me emails in response to my posts and far more of you "lurk" as the geeks call the behavior of viewing yet not commenting (that's ok I grew up shy and more of an observer) yet your thoughts would be most welcome here. I look forward to seeing you on the map.

Happy weekend.