How to build effective connections in the online space
Covid-19 may be with us for some time, which means that social distancing, home working and reduced face-to-face hours in the office could be come the norm for many more months yet. This is having a major impact on strategic thinking, planning and delivery.
When lockdown was first announced, we may have thought that we were making a quick fix and would ‘make do and mend’ for a few months. However, many employees are now saying they don’t want to work full-time in the office and want to remain working from home.
Organisations now face the challenge of how to enable this effectively. Key to this process will be effective conversation that harnesses our ‘humanness’: or what is also known as conversational intelligence.
How to achieve this was the topic of our first Leaders in Conversation event, which I co-hosted along with my friend and colleague Ken Blackwell, a coach based in the US. We were joined by Wendy Swire, certified executive coach and Principal at Swire Solutions, Evan Roth, Professional Certified Coach with specialties in emotional intelligence, conflict competence and Conversational Intelligence and among things, AmandaMichelle Echevarría who is one of only three Latin American coaches certified in Conversational Intelligence and Anne Archer who coaches on performance improvement, wellbeing, and engagement.
What is Conversational intelligence?
Conversational Intelligence is the ability to communicate in ways that create a shared concept of reality. This is not just about persuading people to think in a particular way or telling them about something that has happened, but about connecting, engaging and understanding the person. Each of us views the world through our own lens, with our own experiences as the backdrop. This means our reality might not be what others see or understand. Conversational intelligence is about closing that gap.
Our brains are our greatest attribute and they’re our worst enemy at the same time. Most folks speak around 150 words a minute. But we can process upwards of 500 words a minute. The difference between those two figures leaves us some extra brain power. And inevitably, what happens in that time is we start to leap ahead of where we actually are and begin to make assumptions about where the conversations going. That’s where things can go wrong. So conversational intelligence is being able to put the brakes on, drive a little more slowly and allow the conversations to unfold so that you are present in that moment and truly hear what that other person is saying.
AmandaMichelle Echevarría gave an example of this in practice. “Imagine you are at the negotiating table and you’re told where to sit. Your position is far away from the leader, your brain will start to react. Your thinking will diminish because you feel excluded. You feel judged. You feel limited. So what you need to do, besides breathing, because this is not a touchy feely thing, is understand that your brain has just had a chemical reaction to the situation and that the other people in the conversations you have will have chemical reactions too.
“So when you say something as simple as ‘hey, Joe, why don’t you come sit by me’ the other people in the room will react and feel excluded. Conversational Intelligence enables you to evolve the relationship you have to a place where you don’t have to compete and fight in front of the boss to be heard or valued. When we cooperate, we get better results for ourselves and the companies we work for. When we share, when we ask questions, we start to discover what unites us.”
From dealing with difficult colleagues to addressing your own imposter syndrome, it’s a technique that can offer many benefits for both personal and professional relationships. In my own case, it has helped me understand that the way people behave can trigger responses in others and myself. By changing the way that I regard others can completely change and transform the nature of the relationship. It gets much better results because it transforms awkward difficult experiences into something that is so much more positive.
Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
This way of looking differently at the conversation can also help you interact more effectively with people you perceive as more senior or important than you. As Evan Roth explained: “Imposter Syndrome has different names depending on who you talk to. Some call it the judge. Some call it the Gremlin. Whatever you call it, it tends to come in three forms: we judge ourselves; we judge others; and we judge our circumstances. There is a lot going on in our minds and within the minds of those we’re interacting with, and its important to take this into consideration,” he said.
“What if I just didn’t look at their title and I simply looked at them as a person. How could I listen to them and connect with them in a way that enables me to understand more about what’s really there. Also, what are people’s motivations and what are they fearful of? If I can examine that for myself and the person that I’m having a conversation with regardless of their title, I can now look at them more humanly, I can explore the world and we have a different connection,” he added.
Leadership in a post Covid-19 World
As teams continue to work remotely and we adjust to this new reality, there will be a lot more issues around wellbeing and connection in the workplace. It means the sorts of leaders that were right for us in the past may not be right for us in the future or in this particular sort of short term future.
Not all leaders are responding to this well. Some are having great conversations and are allowing themselves and others to be uncertain and to ask questions to which we don’t have the answers. Others are not doing this. Instead they are bringing tension and anger.
We were reminded of how unhelpful this is by Anne Archer who said that leaders who will be successful as the ones who “can create the conditions where creativity can thrive, where people can have conversations that ask questions that are difficult, name the elephant in the room and say let’s just understand that. And that takes a lot of courage for a leader because we want our leaders to know, to tell us what to do. But they also need to lead with that profound sense of value and belief in the human race. Doing this brings about confidence and reduces the amount of fear, like it’s okay to not know.”
Wendy Swire added to this further with her comments about how Coronavirus has humanized us and made us all vulnerable. Good leaders remember that they are working with other human beings.
“People are thinking about their values, the value of health, family, what’s important to them. As a leader, you have to show empathy. You have to be kind. You have to be a good listener,” she said. “These skills are needed now more than ever and that’s not going away.”
A PDF adapted from the transcript of the event is available here.
