Ignite CSP

Stop (unnecessarily) apologizing

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Last year I was directing a play with an actor I had never worked with before. Great guy, very talented, doing a terrific job in rehearsal.

 

Except for one thing. Every time he would “mess up,” he would apologize to his scene partner, to me, to the whole room.

 

There are a couple of things about this I want to surface. First, he wasn’t messing up. It’s rehearsal–the whole point is to try something, see if it works, learn from it, move on. No need to apologize; the process is for figuring these things out. Everyone in the room is making choices and seeing what happens.

 

Also, every time he would apologize, it turned the focus of the room to him. I know it’s the last thing he wanted—the apology was meant to serve as a way to  lower his own status in the room. But instead it meant everything had to stop while we all said “No, no, don’t worry about it.” He was creating the very thing he was trying to avoid.

 

Some apologies are very important. We screwed up; we need to own it. Others are a form of social nicety–I’m in front of the marinara sauce you want at the store, I say “oh sorry, excuse me,” and we move on. Others, like these my actor was giving, are unnecessary and actually disruptive. Let’s see if we can reclaim apologies for when we really need them!

Read the room.

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If someone just told you how excited they are about a particular something, say an upcoming trip to Bermuda, that’s not a great time to trot out your horror story of the time you went and there was a huge storm and you didn’t have power the whole time you were there.

 

As my kids learned in preschool, “don’t yuck someone else’s yum.”

What’s now?

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“What’s next?” seems to be the engine of modern life. What’s next on the list? What do I do next?

What if we ask, instead—

What’s now?

The attention hog in the audience

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What to do about the attention hog in the audience?

 
A few years ago I was moderating a session at a conference, and one of the attendees seemed to harbor a desire to be the main speaker. She piped up at every possible opportunity, giving her opinion at length every time. I could see that the other people there were tuning out, and the session was losing momentum.

 
The next time she spoke, I leaned in, nodded throughout her first phrases, and when she stopped for breath, said, “I love your enthusiasm about this! I want to make sure we can hear from many people, so I’m going to turn your question over to this person.” Then I reoriented my body away from her.

 
I know this may sound harsh. But I was in charge of the room, and I had to get the other forty people back in the game. By showing them that I was aware of the impact she was having on the dynamic of the discussion, I invited them to be more vocal. The session got back on track, and we got to hear a much more diverse set of voices.

Tomorrow’s you

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What does the you of tomorrow, literally the day after this one, need to know?

 
Putting the lists and appointments aside, what’s important?

 
What do you need to remember about yourself tomorrow in order to show up powerfully, to be generous, to be kind?

 
What would you write down on a Post-It and put in tomorrow’s lunch box as a reminder?

Feedback, the other “F” word

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In order to be great at what we do, we need to know how we’re doing. What’s already working? How can we improve?

 

This simple idea, get a response to how things are going so I can make adjustments, has grown so complicated that it spurs dozens of articles and books every year.

 

I remembered that the latest issue of Harvard Business Review has a cover story about feedback, so I Googled “HBR feedback” just to get a quick look at how much is out there from that one source. I was struck by this visual:

 

 

So depending on what HBR article your boss happens to read, you might get more negative feedback, or less, or maybe they’ll be wondering how you’re rationalizing the negative feedback you got, or, or, or…

 

Let’s go back to the original premise: get a response to how things are going so I can make adjustments. If you’re the giver of feedback, it’s worth thinking long and hard about intention before you say anything. “What do I want the outcome of this conversation to be? How do I want this person to feel about what I have to say?” If you want them to be able to hear you, to see you as someone who is invested in their development, that’s going to give the feedback a different flavor than if you want them to straighten up, to get their act together.

 

Maybe we don’t need 6,660,000 articles instructing us in the finer points of feedback. If you can position yourself as the ally of the person you’re talking to, that simple action goes a long way.

Making a difference wherever you are

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Last weekend I roped my son into returning some purchases to the mall with me. It was an annoying errand but one I couldn’t avoid any longer, so we piled the stuff into the car and headed over.

 

To get to the store we needed, we had to circumnavigate the entrance to find the up escalator and balance unwieldy boxes all the way there.

 

When we got to the top of the escalator, something kind of wonderful happened. A tall man in the uniform of a security guard greeted us, saying, “Welcome! I hope you all have a great visit to our mall today!” He made warm eye contact and tipped his hat.

 

I have never seen this before in my life. And in fact, the other security guards I saw in the same mall on the same day were quietly fading into the background, leaning against the wall or on railings, talking to each other or checking their phones. Every time we saw the first guard, though, he was welcoming people to the mall and in many cases, answering their questions or giving directions. Always, he made eye contact. Always, he tipped his hat.

 

This shift in intention works on so many levels. By taking the initiative to greet people, he is letting them know he is a resource. He is also subtly making his presence felt to those people who might be troublemakers of some sort. He is making an active choice to engage, rather than defaulting to “get through his shift.”

When does your presentation start?

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When does your presentation start?

 

As soon as anyone from the audience can see you.

 

If there are people in the room as you are setting up your PowerPoint, you’re on. If your class starts to assemble while you’re putting handouts on the table, you’re on. If you have to enter and cross the room to a certain place before you start talking, you’re on as soon as you enter the door.

 

Think of it like being the host at a party. If you’re still putting out the hors d’oeuvres when your prompt guests get there, you welcome them in with a big smile and keep getting ready. When you’re the one in charge of the room, you don’t suddenly become that person when the clock strikes the minute you’re supposed to start.

 

You are making an impression from the moment they see you. Are you harried? Are you stand-offish? Do you seem happy to be there? Are you in charge of the room?

What are you honking at?

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I was behind a couple of cars the other day on the two-lane road that leads out of my neighborhood. We were stopped at an unusual spot for the time of day, and it was hard to tell why we weren’t moving.

I’d been sitting there about 15 seconds when someone behind me honked. Just then, an older woman using the crosswalk came into view, making her way across the road with a walker. Suddenly we knew—we had stopped so this woman could safely cross the street.

The driver who honked didn’t know we had stopped for the older woman. But he did have other information; namely, that the drivers in front of them were waiting for something. They hadn’t suddenly decided to quit moving their cars; something had occurred that became a priority.

The not-knowing makes us feel powerless, so sometimes we act out in anger or irritation. What would it look like to acknowledge, instead, what we do know? “Well, we must have stopped for a reason, so I’ll chill out until we can move”?

We only ever know a tiny piece of the picture. Suspending our irritation and leaning into curiosity until we learn more is a great practice.

Standing with your back to the action

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I was watching a basketball game recently, a big, high-stakes game. In one shot of the crowd, I saw a security guard standing directly behind the bench of one of the teams. He was wearing a bright blue jacket with SECURITY across the back, and he was stock still.

 

It was just a fleeting glance, but I started thinking about this man. He was right behind the bench of the biggest game in basketball, probably thirty feet from the court, but he couldn’t see what was happening. On the other hand, that’s not why he was there.

 

It’s an exercise in perspective, isn’t it? For me, it’s hard to imagine standing there for the whole game, unable to turn around and see what the thousands of people around you are cheering or booing.

 

But his story was completely different. He had a different intention. He was surveying the crowd, keeping the area safe for the team and the coaches. In his experience, he was facing the action, not turned away from it.