I wonder if this sounds familiar at all. Have you ever had this experience at work? Begun a meeting or a conference call, or even initiated a project, running full steam ahead and expecting others to keep up. Or perhaps you’ve been the one pulled by someone else. We do it all the time.

In my pursuit and practice of Working for Good over the past three decades, I’ve found that how we work is as, if not more, important than what we do. We can work in a green business, a social service organization, or some other endeavor focused on making the world a better place, but if we treat others and ourselves with disregard or disrespect in the process, we end up creating something far short of our intention. The process is the product.  And the process is about connecting.

The more I practice the skills of Working for Good–which I identify as awareness, embodiment, connection, collaboration, and integration–while carrying the intention to serve through my work, the more I relate to an insight by Mother Teresa:

I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time—just one, one, one. So you begin. I began—I picked up one person. Maybe
if I didn’t pick up that one person, I wouldn’t have picked up forty-two thousand. . . .The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin—one, one, one.

Working for Good is essentially about how we show up for one person at a time, and for each person we encounter. There is no “saving the world,” but there is co-creating it with one another. To do that, we have to truly be with one another. The place we start from is always the same. Right here. And the time of our departure is always the same. Right now.

Try this: Slow down. Connect with yourself. Connect with whomever you are with. And move from there.

Image courtesy www.sxc.hu.

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For several years, StoryCorps has been running stories of everyday people on National Public Radio, and in the process has evoked memories of people coping and celebrating the challenges and joys that life presents.

While StoryCorps is focused on personal stories, it teaches us key lessons that leaders can practice.

One, listen to one another. StoryCorps invites relatives as well as close friends to venture into their special recording booths to tell their stories via personal interviews. Leaders need no booths or recording devices. They simply need time. And time is what few leaders have, but savvy ones realize that if they can carve out time for their people, dividends in the form of information and insight are valuable. Surveys and polls cannot share the up-close and personal views that individuals carry with them. Listening in can open the leader’s ears to what is happening as well as what is not happening.

Two, share your experience. StoryCorps interviewees become interpreters of unique experiences, such as coping with loss, raising a child, caring for an elderly person, or helping a neighbor. A bond between interviewer and interviewee is shared by radio listeners. The same can occur, but much more directly, when leaders sit down and converse with their people. Genuine leaders are those who can make their listeners feel as if they are the only people in the room. That creates a foundation of trust that is essential to getting things done right, especially in tough times.

There is a third lesson, as evidenced by the vast collection of stories gathered by StoryCorps: all of us have a story to tell. Leaders need to spread the stories of their people as a means of creating meaning as well as purpose to their organization. These stories come in all flavors. Celebrate the good things that employees do for customers. Most often this comes through in customer service people going the extra mile for their customers. But they also come in the stories of volunteerism. So many organizations encourage their people to participate in community service programs, even on company time. The best way to encourage such participation is to allow people to share their stories through the corporate website. Do it via podcast or simple videos, or simple newsletter items.

Stories, as StoryCorps reminds us, are acts of sharing that enables others to gain insight into your own personal experience. Leaders who spread stories are encouraging the practice of learning in ways that extend behind words to create experiences reinforce organizational culture and purpose.

Photo courtesy www.sxc.hu.

Related posts:

1. Listening: An Act of Love
2. “Teaching” Collaboration: Preparing for the Future

Buon Giorno Coffee, located about a mile from my office, has built a booming business for that very reason.  It sells good coffee, but those who gather there go for connection.  It’s definitely a destination stop; there are no other shopping attractions nearby.  On any week night, you’ll find teens hanging out there to do their school projects.  On weekday mornings, moms meet for muffins, Bible studies, investment seminars, and after-workout lunch dates.  Business professionals take their laptops there to work out spreadsheet data with a colleague.  Couples meet friends there after a ball game.  Lines are long, but nobody seems to mind waiting for a table.  Tables are not the point; hanging around is.

What do they all have in common?  Talking to someone who cares to listen.

Starbucks also generates buzz because it creates community for those who gather there.  A couple of years ago, it “featured” a book called Listening Is an Act of Love, a collection of compelling excerpts from more than 10,000 interviews recorded and compiled by StoryCorps founder Dave Isay.  Each story—a single moment in time, either historical, emotional, or personal—grabs the essence of that person and reflects their human struggles with love, family, loyalty, or whatever.

StoryCorp’s founder had a correct hunch: Many people feel invisible. They believe that what they think, feel, and say doesn’t matter.  They fear they’ll be forgotten once they leave planet earth—that their lives will not have mattered.  So all the producer had to do was to provide a facility, recording equipment, and a facilitator, and then wait for people to invite their family members and friends to sit down and talk.

The results:  Poignant stories for those willing to listen.

French philosopher Voltaire summed it up well:  “The shortest route to a man’s heart is through the ear.”

As you approach the high school or college reunion, graduation ceremony, wedding, family gathering, or other social event, consider your listening-talking differential:  Which body part does most of the work when you’re with friends and family—ears or mouth?   Where’s the love?

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Are you upset with your sweetheart; unsatisfied with your raise; bearing physical pain; worried about something; suffering from depression; feeling ignored?  Yet you say “I’m fine” and sweep your emotions under the rug.  We’re not dealing with burnt toast, folks.  The experiences and issues that weave the threads of your life together warrant both attention and discussion.  What’s worse…many of you keep silent the good stuff as well.  If you’ve got a brilliant idea; can help out a situation, love someone with all of your heart… Well, SPEAK ON, DEAR FRIEND!  We spend half of our lives biting our tongues when we should speak up and share ourselves!  Chat up your truth –the connection you make will bring solution, satisfaction and peace of mind.

Net-net:  You want to “stickitivity”, folks? Create an unshakably positive, people-packed future by seeking authenticity in all who surround you.  But more importantly, choose respect for yourself by unabashedly standing in truth and talk it up!  Reveal its power and revel in the liberation it returns.

©2000-2009 by Kimberlie Dykeman. SOAPBOX® is a registered trademark of Kimberlie Dykeman.  This article contains excerpts from copyrighted SOAPBOX® vignettes and Kimberlie Dykeman’s book “Pure Soapbox”.

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Most of us tend to think of the first conversation, the content, as the important one. We worry a lot about what to say when we’re preparing for an important meeting, giving a big speech, or proposing marriage. We rarely give as much thought to the second conversation: the body language.  Then when the communication doesn’t go well, we’re surprised and don’t understand why.

The reason is usually that our two conversations have been in conflict with one another. Our words were confident perhaps, but our body language — the second conversation was nervous. And as research into how the brain works grows in depth and sophistication, we’re coming to understand that what I’m calling the second conversation is actually more important in some ways than the first one.

What we’re learning is that we get nonverbal, unconscious impulses for a lot of the important things that drive us: relationships, safety, emotional needs, fears, desires, meeting new people, seeing old friends, and so on.  Our bodies immediately start to act on these impulses, and then, a bit later, we form a conscious thought about what we’re doing. It’s as though our rational minds are explaining to ourselves after the fact why we’re doing something.

For example, we are all unconscious experts at reading other people’s body language. But few of us are good at reading body language consciously. Instead, we get impressions and ascribe intent to the other person. We think to ourselves: “He doesn’t like me very much,” or “She’s trying to cut me out,” or “They really think I’m funny.”  And it’s at this level of intent that most of our own body language begins.

If you start to think consciously about your body language because you want to control it and make it align with your content, you run into a problem: you’re thinking consciously about an unconscious activity, which slows your body language down and makes it happen just a bit late. The people around you, those unconscious experts, sense that something is wrong, but they can’t put their fingers on the problem precisely. They’ll think something like: “He didn’t seem real” or “She looked fake — scripted or something.” They won’t tell you the real problem — that your gestures and content are out of sync — because they’re not consciously aware of what’s going on.

Instead, then, of trying to control your body language consciously, work on it unconsciously.  Get an emotional attitude, and because emotion drives gestures, that will take care of your body language.  So, if you’re giving a big speech, decide what your emotional attitude is toward it:  excitement, passion, fun – anything but nervousness.  Then focus on that emotion hard before you start to speak.  Think to yourself: “I’m thrilled to be able to speak with these people. It’s a great opportunity.  I’m going to rock!” You’ll find that your body language and content are aligned when you do this, and you will become a persuasive, effective communicator.

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A message’s effectiveness decreases in direct proportion to the number of people that message is addressed to.

Selling soap or cheese or sedans, this meant that our target was never “women”, but “college-educated women living in urban centers”–or better yet, “women who ride mass transit, read The Daily Beast and buy fresh flowers from the Korean deli once weekly”, or what you whippersnappers call “personas.”

You can extrapolate from that to communicate more effectively with almost everyone by learning to talk to just one person, no matter what your medium: a presentation to hundreds, a podcast to thousands, an article to millions.

Okay, so there aren’t a million people who actually read anymore. Point is, picking one, specific person you know who could benefit from whatever it is you have to talk about will help you craft and deliver your message so it lands with many more. (For those of you who with on-camera or presenting experience, the effect is not unlike “placing” one person in the lens or connecting with one member of the audience so that everyone feels like you’re speaking directly to them.)

To figure out what kind of content will work best, look at your material as it relates to this one person:

• If I did a perfect job of relaying the information, how would my boss respond? Would she know enough to make a certain decision? Would she be excited enough to sneeze about it?
• How much does my uncle know about this subject already? Can I start in the middle, or do I need to ease into it for him?

Then you can work backwards from the desired result to figure out some “ways in”–how to communicate in a way that’s relevant, meaningful and effective:

• Will Chris respond to stories? Hard data? Images? Zen koans?
• What is my hair colorist’s main concern in life? His sense of humor? How can I connect with each of these so my message “lands”?
• Is my sensitive next-door neighbor going to have a negative reaction if I swear like a drunken sailor?
• Is my 90-year-old grandmother going to be able to read this if it’s printed in 8-point type?

In the end, of course, you’re probably speaking to more than one person. But if you start out with a laser-like focus on one, you’re more likely to reach them all. Because not only will you have a real understanding of what your audience wants and needs, you’ll reconnect with what it is about this message that ignites your own passion.

And nothing communicates better than passion…

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