Does your team operate as a healthy community? Here are the three things we had to do to stay sane under one roof:

#1: Trust Each Other

To build trust in a relationship, everyone should be able to say the following statements to their colleagues and leaders.

1. I believe that you care about me as a person.
2. I believe that you won’t judge me on second-hand information. If you hear someone saying negative things about me, you will vow to check this out for yourself.
3. I believe that you won’t talk negatively about me to others. If we have a problem, you will come to me to talk about it. If you have to sort things out with someone else first, you will come to me shortly after.
4. If I have a problem with you, I will ask to speak to you privately soon after the offense occurred. I will then:
   • Get clear about what I believe happened that made me feel the way I do.
   • Listen to your perspective and try to understand what you meant
   • Work toward an agreement with you about how we will handle these situations better in the future.

#2: Honor the changes we are all experiencing

Every time priorities, job responsibilities and the make-up of the team changes, so do we. Plus, our lives outside of work are constantly changing. Therefore, we should honor and support each other as we live through change. Periodically, we should renew our relationships by asking:

• How do we describe our relationships? Are they easy? Hard? Why?
• What needs to be celebrated about how we have related so far?
• What can we agree to leave behind?
• What should we agree to continue/stop/start doing from this point going forward?

This is an especially useful exercise when one peer is promoted or given a great new assignment above his or her friends. Looking at the new relationship will help to relieve hard feelings.

#3: Commit to playing together

There is nothing more nourishing and renewing than play. To create healthy bonds at work, you need to laugh with your colleagues and share fun experiences.

Good peer relationships are vital to your success. Bad relationships can be fatal. It’s not enough to make sure everyone is talking. You have to continually talk about how you can get along better to reach your peak of effectiveness. Create a healthy community to ensure your team’s success.

© Marcia Reynolds

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Every afternoon he’d come toddling in and the wait staff would fall in behind him as wound his way through the bar and headed to the patio where we offered draft beer for a buck a glass.  WE called it our really, really happy hour.  The first brew would land nearly simultaneous with his arrival at ‘his’ table.  He would smile a broken smile and settle in, shoulders slouched, ankles crossed, and adopt the thousand yard stare of a man who has been too many places but no place to go.

We became friends of sorts. I’m not good at having ‘buddies,’ especially when I have a restaurant to run.  He loved to start a conversation knowing it would lead to prolonged discussion.  Sometimes I could feel the day growing longer, passing in slow motion, but for him, I think the conversations made days going slowly nowhere feel a little more life-like.

He was a smart man.  He talked about encounters with great thinkers whose names I knew and books I had read but never dreamed of meeting.  And to be really truthful,   my little judgmental voice oftenwhispered that he hadn’t met such people either.

We sold the restaurant and I gave no thought about what would fill his long afternoons.

Within a month a flat, letter-size envelope arrived looking for all the world like it had been carried in a back pocket for a week.  The return address, written in dull-pointed pencil, read “Richard Cage” in block print letters that looked not much better than mine.

I thought, “Who the hell is Richard Cage?” and turned envelope every which way in a futile attempt to divine the answer.

Buns had just finished with her pile of mail and with the eagle-eye of a BINGO player poked her finger at the slab of Manila and pronounced, “You know Richard. He’s the buck-a-beer guy!”

Sliding the contents the envelope onto the table revealed a letter. Nine pages. Little did I imagine that this scene was to be repeated every month or so. Each envelope followed by as surprisingly artful rendition of an armadillo?

There were letters, all of them long, on a wide range of topics.  We discussed, via old fashioned post, aerodynamics, hydraulics, basic physics, management, history, and more. His final letter was on philosophy and his big point was, “You can’t punish or embarrass someone into doing something.”

Our hometown weekly paper includes a column by a local radio personality and, in this particular issue he told the tale of a local builder attempting to file a request for an inspection.  Being close to City Hall the builder entered the appropriate department and stated his business only to be told by the clerk that all inspection requests must be phoned in. (The system allows requests to be logged and performance measures to be reported.  In the vacuum of an office it makes pretty good sense.)

Not thinking, the busy clerk said she could not accept his request in person. And without further thought or explanation told the gentleman to just use his cell and an inspection would be scheduled right away.

Now there is some debate as to whether or not he was denied use of the department phone or whether or not it was suggested that he leave the building to place his call.

Even if you don’t believe the entire story there is still plenty of reason to shake your head and think, “Your tax dollars at work.”

If you think about it, someone who cares about the city might have called for a supervisor. But if your goal is not to solve the problem but to rub a face in an innocent mistake, you take the story to the media. Where it grows with each retelling.

Perhaps the intent was to make things better by “punishing or embarrassing someone into something.”

“Oh, golly!” said the poof of silvery hair that sits across the table from me at breakfast.  “Richard Cage died.”  I thought instantly of the pile of letters I had received and the pile that would go unwritten.

At the funeral there was a small clutch of Masons and, other than ourselves, only one couple who we guessed managed the small apartment complex where Richard had spent his final days.

When the preacher spoke we were surprised to learn that Richard had been CIA and Special Forces, an expert in the martial arts.  That he held numerous degrees from elite universities explained the long and thoughtful letters he shared with me.  He was someone. But I knew that.

And so I suspect that the clerk who just for a moment got a little stupid is also someone. Maybe she is a good mom, a loving daughter, and who knows, a budding musician or a community volunteer.  I’ve got a feeling that had Richard Cage been the one applying for the permit the situation would have turned out differently.  He would have recognized that this clerk was ‘someone’ and that you can’t punish or embarrass anyone into something.

(Richard, I owe you another seven pages.)

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I’m guilty myself. I see a problem. I assume other people see the problem and that they will define it the same way that I define it. I assume that we all understand what the criteria for a “good” solution will be. And I dive head-first into a conversation where I try to “sell” my solution to the problem as I see it.

Here’s a thought: stop discussing the solution until we agree on the definition of the problem.

In the process, you might ask questions like:

• Do we both agree that there is a problem?
• What is the problem?
• What is the scope of the problem?
• What is causing the problem?
• What would a good solution look like?

Until we reach agreement on these starting questions, we can never agree on the solution to the problem.

How many conflicts could we resolve, reduce, or even eliminate if we all stopped talking about the solution long enough to understand our different ways of defining the problem?

Photo courtesy of www.sxc.hu.

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Part One: Focus on “Strengths”
Starting a new collaborative effort means getting to know each individual’s strengths (the ways that person excels). Listening and watching for what excites an individual can provide powerful clues to his/her unique abilities and interests. Often friends or colleagues can offer useful insights as well.

After identifying individual strengths, we determine what the student group, as a whole, is good at. Are many members good at the same things?  That’s where the group’s success will lie. Do members have varying talents? Then the group’s success may mean fusing their strengths into something new.

Part Two: Share the Power
Once a group begins working from collective strengths, it is important to foster shared power. Students find it useful to determine- ahead of time- how they will work together when issues arise. This involves recognizing who has well-developed communication skills and can encourage others to contribute when things get tough. It also involves deciding in advance how conflicts will be managed- through compromise, reframing, voting or what? When people share equal power- not just at the beginning but throughout the collaboration- they are more apt to freely contribute their resources and gifts to create a real win-win.

Part Three: Approach challenges with a positive “learning focus”
When challenges arise, and they always do, I encourage a positive, “learning focus.”  No matter what happens, there is always a way to learn something new. This approach may not come naturally; today’s students are not used to persisting when their vision gets clouded. But, if their work stops, they lose a valuable chance to learn. That’s why emphasizing a “learning focus” becomes critical.

Collaboration in Action
One semester my students worked with a local nonprofit to design a new brochure. The students were excited about creating something innovative. But the community partner wanted a brochure like those from the past. It seemed there was an impasse- the community partner wouldn’t give in and the students grew discouraged. The challenge: break the collaboration or learn. Fortunately, the students persisted.

Their solution? They made two brochures and let the community partner decide which one to use. The students learned, produced some great samples for their portfolios, and the community partner got the unexpected benefit of two brochures.

Celebrate Successes
These out-of-classroom experiences are gratifying for me and eye opening for students. It’s rewarding to see them recognize their strengths, develop ways to share power, and cultivate a “learning focus.” I know their collaborative work gives them important leadership tools for the future. That’s something to celebrate- and we do!

Photo from www.sxc.hu.

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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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Delivering bad news is as undesirable as it is unavoidable. Nobody wants to do it. Yet sooner or later, most of us have faced the agonizing responsibility of communicating a message about corporate downsizing, quarterly losses, or poor job performance. Even the highest-ranking executives take extreme measures to sidestep the task—they hide out in their offices or delegate the duty to the next in command.

When it comes to delivering the tough stuff, we tell ourselves:

• If I wait, the situation will resolve itself.
• This isn’t a good time; I’ll do it later.

Most likely, these statements are unfounded and thinking them only puts off the inevitable.

Here are some tips on serving up bad news with compassion and dignity:

1) SET THE STAGE for the relationship between the presenter and audience. Identify the goals, needs, and expectations of the audience. Consider the emotional temperature—the nature and intensity of the audience’s thoughts and feelings—that will be brought into the meeting. For example, how will the company downsizing impact them? Then take your own emotional temperature as well.

2) SEND THE MESSAGE. Think about what the audience should be inclined to do, think, or feel at the end of the presentation. Avoid generalities like, “I want them to understand the infrastructure changes.” Instead, think along the lines of “I want them to be excited about the direction our company is taking and see this as a positive change.”

3) ACKNOWLEDGE THE PROBLEM. The Good News: “Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to Managing Director!” The Bad News: “Despite increased performance, there will be a substantial cut in your bonuses.” This message was not likely to be well-received by my client’s group. After Setting the Stage and rehearsing, she began announcing the news by acknowledging the problem, then continued with an outline for turning the situation around. She complimented them on effective teamwork, while keeping the focus of her presentation on how this would translate into future financial rewards for everyone.

4) STAY ON TRACK. The stress of telling someone something they don’t want to hear can be paralyzing. Here are some inner monologues to help you avoid “meltdown.” Repeat these phrases to yourself to help you stay on track:

• I need to tell you this
• We need to discuss this
• You must hear this

5) BE SPECIFIC. Start out with a positive statement about the person’s performance. Make sure it’s sincere, not empty flattery. Then get on to the hard stuff by expressing feelings of concern. Start with, “This is very difficult for me to say, but I need to tell you…” Use specifics, stating clearly what happened and giving as much detail as possible. Provide concrete examples of goals for change as well as target dates. Giving critical feedback won’t work without offering alternative actions and a time period for fulfillment. Finally, solicit feedback. Take into account the listener’s thoughts and perspectives and you will dramatically improve their chances of meeting the objectives.

Photo courtesy of www.sxc.hu.

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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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And contrary to the psychology industry’s biological notion that we choose our mates based on a biological desire to keep our species going, we actually come together on a psychological plane. What actually happens as we mature into adults, and experience relationships that do not lead to marriage, is we develop an unconscious picture of this soul mate. Anyone who has met that one person understands that falling in love is not a biological experience but a mental one, that falling in love happens at a speed unimaginable to those who have not had this most wonderful experience.

But now comes the hard part, trying to figure out how to develop a life together. While the falling in love part happens beyond any imaginable time frame, the falling out of love happens at a turtle’s pace. What is needed to understand is this change in the relationship that takes someone from “for better or worse” to it’s over.

As it turns out, we develop our emotional perspectives from birth, by the examples given to us by our parents. In marriages where the couple struggles between sticking together and splitting up these influences can determine the outcome. What cause those conflicts in so many marriages are these negative insecurities from our past that cause us to fear the same result from our partner today.

What we are doing when we introduce anger and arguments into our marriages is projecting these past insecurities onto our partners, fearing those same results that we have seen before. This is where the wedge in the marriage comes from. What eventually happens after we project those insecurities enough times is we transfer those negative emotions from our past relationships onto our partner causing us to decide to get divorced.

The secret to success is confronting our demons and slaying our dragons, as the sayings go. And this takes courage. For us to be able to look at our partners from a clear, objective perspective we must understand and overcome those influences from our past, we must forgive those who we believe have caused us to be fearful of our current relationship. In psychological terms this is called catharsis. What we must do as individuals is realize that we can look anew at our perspective of our own insecurities. Only then will we be able to develop a marriage where we can stick together throughout whatever life dishes out to us.

To give an example, I forgave my parents when I was 25. I had a conversation with a friend where each was trying to outdo the other on who had the worst childhood, only he still loved his parents. I realized after that conversation that I was wrong in the anger I had built up towards my parents. I admitted for the first time in my adult life that I was wrong. Admitting your mistakes gets a lot easier after that first time.

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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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These descriptors almost universally come from clearly observable behaviors, thought processes, or attitudes common to a group of people. In and of themselves, most descriptors are neutral – neither good nor bad. It is what we do with them and how we use them that determines their worth and value relationally.

For example, I am a man and my wife is a woman. I have read many books and articles, listened to many audio programs, and attended many workshops in an effort to learn what I need to learn to make our relationship as powerful and dynamic as possible. In nearly twenty years of marriage and after many efforts to understand this other human in my life, I have come to two startling conclusions:

1. In general, men and women do not process information the same way. They do not tend to see the world through the same lens, interact with people in the same way, or have the same emotional needs.
2. No matter how hard I try, my wife will not think the way that I do and I will not think the way that she does.

There, I said it. Men and women are different.

Now, what do I do with this information?

I see two clear options. One, I can label, classify, and put my wife in the “woman” box so that the word “woman” becomes a label on her and her approach to life. Or two, I can use the  “statistical norm” that describes the female perspective to create a reference frame for entering her world to understand her in a deeper and better way.

The first approach leads to stereotyping, criticizing and tolerating the other person. In my experience, I have never met someone who wanted to be stereotyped, criticized, or tolerated.

The second approach leads me to use what I have learned about the “typical” female perspective to discuss things with my wife. (No, I do not believe that there is a “typical” female response. I am using this phrase very lightly, and just to make a point.) Based on this understanding of how women often interpret a situation, I can engage in conversation and dialogue with my wife to better understand her unique perspective. I use the “statistical norm” describing the general female perspective to help me understand how we might see a situation differently. Understanding the general differences gives me a lens to see into her world rather than to reach a judgment of her.

As we work, interact, and communicate with others, understanding our differences can help us to connect at a deeper level. Using this understanding to build bridges to others rather than to label and judge others creates a positive environment where we can move past tolerance to celebration.

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