Language to Unify

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President-elect Joe Biden’s acceptance speech used language to unite this country. We each can hone our #ListenFirst skills and use the same unifying communication to strengthen and expand our communities.

Biden started with a pledge to unify:

I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify.
Who doesn’t see red and blue states, but a United States.
And who will work with all my heart to win the confidence of the whole people.
For that is what America is about: the people.

Midway through the speech, he acknowledged all of the people from so many walks of life that supported him and then he acknowledged those who did not support him and he called for cooperation:

And to those who voted for President Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of elections myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance.

To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.

The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control. It’s a decision. It’s a choice we make. And if we can decide not to cooperate, then we can decide to cooperate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate. 

Biden concluded with the benefits of being unified:

This is a great nation. And we are a good people. This is the United States of America. And there has never been anything we haven’t been able to do when we’ve done it together.

This intentional language of unification is an example we can all follow. We too can set the intention of communicating with inclusive language.  We too can acknowledge and show respect to both those who agree with us and those who do not.  We too can gently point out to those around us that we all have a choice to cooperate.  We too can remind ourselves and others that we all are stronger and more content when we are unified as a community and as a country.

Inspiring Leaders: Students’ Perspectives

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We all have somebody who inspires us – to work harder, to stand up for what we believe in, to be the best versions of ourselves.  This post reveals such leaders. This October, my students in Leadership Communication at San Francisco State University created artwork to convey leaders who inspire them.  The leaders were poets, politicians, educators, families, entertainers, athletes, healthcare workers, and executives. In the hopes that the students’ selection of leaders and artwork brings you as much positivity as it brought me, here are some examples (shared with students’ permission). 

Human-First Communication

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One silver lining to our work-from-home situation is that we often hear more about the human side of our colleagues.  Taking a step back to realize that the person on video is also dealing with everything 2020 has brought helps us to see their humanity.

Instead of the typical sports and weather topics that we often chat about face-to-face before diving into a meeting, now we often get to hear about family members and pets and emotional states as we share common struggles. People are making more self-disclosures and revealing their humanity. This human-first communication makes finding commonalities and building strong relationships easier, and that is a good thing.

Communication research shows that when people make emotional self-disclosures there are benefits to themselves and the relationship.

  • Greater Self Affirmation – We feel more supported and confident after we share with others.  Recent study participants demonstrated this empirically by being less defensive toward threatening information, which is correlated to greater self-affirmation.
  • Higher Perception of Relationship Quality – We believe that we have a stronger relationship with the person to whom we self-disclose. Study participants reported that their conversation partner was warmer, that they enjoyed the interaction, and they even tended to like the partner more.

We receive these benefits because we feel others understand us and because we do something scholars call  ‘cognitive reappraisal’ wherein we think of situations in a new light and gain a broader perspective. Connecting on this human level is mutually beneficial.

Hopefully these improved relationships are lasting, and we can see them as a positive aspect of our otherwise tough situation. That seems to be a trend as we round into the third quarter of this year.  According to a recent poll, two-thirds of Americans believe the troubles of 2020 have made them a better person and 38% indicate they want to create more meaningful personal relationships.

We can embrace the greater human connection and foster stronger relationships for the future.  We can even “take your colleagues to the proverbial watercooler with you as you move around your home” expanding our shared environment and opening up greater creativity that is usually found away from desks at work.

When we slow down and remember that the person on our screen is human, we can appreciate the house tours and family interruptions that occur on video meetings.  Instead of seeing them as disruptions to work, we can see them as opportunities for building stronger professional relationships.

“What?” The Art of Communicating While Masked

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We are masked most of the time these days, but we are still communicating with people we encounter in public, and being intentional about that makes for clearer communication and can create a sense of belonging.  Even though we have masks over our noses and mouths, we are still communicating with our upper face and our body language, in addition to what we choose to say and how we say it.  But, many of the verbal and nonverbal social cues we use to make meaning have literally been muted.

You may notice when you are on an outing and you encounter others with masks, some seem to pretend that you are not even there.  It is as if covering noses and mouths prohibits communication.  It reminds me of toddlers who cover their eyes and then think you can’t see them.

I don’t know about you, but when I encounter such people, it is off-putting, raises my already-elevated sense of COVID-19 anxiousness, and reduces my sense of belonging in community. 

Yet, I have been that person!  Focused on task at hand in a store or on a walk and pretending that nobody else exists.  It seems easy for us to fall into these silos in public these days. Adding a hat and sunglasses makes it even easier to socially disappear.

The opposite also happens. I am on a walk and smile underneath my mask and say hello and the other masked people smile, nod their heads, and/or say hello back.  Sometimes I even get a ‘what a cute dog’ or a ‘have a good day’ response. Then I feel the world is still a friendly place and my mood brightens.  That experience has given me reason to consider more intentional communication.

I have been coaching leaders all summer on how to communicate more effectively on Zoom, and I realize that just as there are techniques to counter reduced human interaction on video, there are also techniques to compensate for communicating while wearing a mask.

We can use other forms of nonverbal communication and adapt our verbal communication to compensate for having our mouths and noses covered.

Nonverbal communication techniques we can employ while masked include:

  • Head movement – taking a page from the book of the India head hobble, we can tilt our heads to show listening and nod or shake our heads to communicate if we agree
  • Eyes – we can make direct eye contact to show that we want someone to listen and that we care, and we can smile underneath the mask, which makes our eyes visibly smile too
  • Foreheads – we can raise or lower or furrow our eyebrows in a more dramatic way than usual to express our emotions
  • Shoulders – we can raise them up when we don’t understand, and we can move them toward or away from a person as a means of connection or distancing
  • Wave – the popular way to finish Zoom calls, the wave is also an effective form of masked communication to indicate friendliness when passing by or signal completion of an interaction at a store or restaurant

Adjusting our verbal communication while wearing a mask also improves interactions and creates more of a human connection.

  • Slow down and enunciate – to be understood even though our mouths are covered, we need to speak at a slower pace and consciously enunciate our words
  • Speak louder – it is just harder to hear with a mask on and sometimes a shield in between, but it is worth the effort to raise our volume in order to converse
  • Say hello – just a short greeting will increase the sense of connectedness when a lengthy conversation is too much effort
  • Be respectful – ‘yes please’, ‘no thank you’, ‘have a good day’ — these short salutations are easy and foster friendliness

All of these masked communication techniques, while seemingly minor in consequence, can actually go a long way in helping with clear communication. They also may alleviate pandemic anxiety and increase our sense of human connection in a time when we all could use a little more understanding.

Team of Teams Leadership with John Kammeyer

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Leadership titles line our bookshelf, but recently my husband, John Kammeyer, insisted that I immediately read Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal just as he finished it because the book was so insightful for him.  After I read the book, our internal conversation inspired me to share John’s leadership perspective.

Why did you insist I read McChrystal’s Team of Teams right when you finished it?

I have read so many leadership books that focus on productivity or ‘hacks’ to accomplish more in less time. What I like about this book is that it explains why the processes we have been using for the last hundred years — originating from Taylor’s 1911 principles of scientific management — don’t currently serve organizations well. It recommends that instead of striving for efficiency, organizations shift to adaptively solving complex problems.

What is the core concept of Team of Teams?
McChrystal proposes a new way to solve problems by breaking down silos and unifying different parts of an organization through extremely transparent communication and decentralized decision making.  For McChrystal, this method shifted the way the United States addressed the dynamic threat in Iraq by unifying different elements from special operation forces to the CIA. The core concept is that in our information-heavy, ever-changing world, being adaptive must be valued at the same level as being proficient for organizations. To be adaptive, all teams must understand and be working toward the larger organizational goal and communicate with every other team. This makes a Team of Teams.

You have an academic understanding of leadership with a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership, leadership experience as a Fire Chief, and now lead Training in a humanitarian rescue organization. Why is this Team of Team concept appealing to you?
It addresses a problem I see of leaders, including myself, struggling to apply traditional methods in a world becoming increasingly complex. Complex is different from complicated. Complicated can be difficult, but also predictable, so the Taylorism organizational principles of the 20thcentury worked well to solve the problems in the industrial and early informational ages.

“Things that are complicated may have many parts, but those parts are joined, one to the next, in relatively simple ways…they ultimately can be broken down into a series of neat and tidy deterministic relationships… Complexity, on the other hand, occurs when the number of interactions between components increases dramatically; this is where things quickly become unpredictable.” 

The information revolution and current speed of technological innovation has moved the world from complicated to complex.  Access to information has changed not only what we know, but how the whole world acts, increasing dependencies between moving parts and making prediction near impossible.

That is why there is a need to change the functioning of organizations away from optimizing process to being adaptable. I saw this increasingly in the fire service and now in humanitarian aid.  Being adaptable means that every individual needs autonomous decision making at some level, and the only way that works is if they have the right information to make a decision that best serves the organization. The Team of Teams’ leadership facilitates both the distribution of information and a sense of camaraderie among members in an organization so that every function is working toward the same broad goal and can quickly adapt as unpredictable environmental elements change.  These environmental elements change more quickly in organizations that are focused on crisis, such as the military and emergency services, but they are changing quickly in most organizations. And recently the pandemic and civil unrest in the U.S. has created unpredictable factors for every organization. 

‘Shared consciousness for empowered execution’ is a key Team of Teams concept. What does that mean in practice?
In a word it means trust, organizational trust. Most of us are wired to be competitive or accomplishment-based and, because those two terms are usually measured against other people, it can create an unhealthy environment or organization. ‘Shared consciousness and empowered execution’ in practice mean that organizational objectives are known throughout and everyone feels they are contributing to those objectives.

One of my favorite stories in the book is about the janitor who works at NASA who, when asked what his job is, said, “to put a man on the moon.” I think that kind of shared consciousness and empowered execution requires a lot of trust throughout the organization and acceptance that everybody has their unique role within it. The idea is to be competitive to the problem not each other. What McChrystal makes clear is that shared consciousness must come before empowered execution.  Prematurely giving autonomous decision-making power can lead to undesirable results where people and teams are doing things in their own best interest and not the interest of the full organization.

As you know, my greatest area of interest in all subjects is communication. What is the communication role of a leader in this method and why does it matter?
First and foremost it’s important to understand how change happens within an organization and how communication plays such a critical role. It’s easy to read a book likeTeam of Teams and want to go and change the world or maybe just your own small piece of the world, but change takes time and consistency. Communication is really the key to this change. Of particular importance is communication in the form of widespread sharing of organizational objectives and clear setting of individual and small group expectations. The responsibility for all of this falls on leaders at every level, and my experience has been that good communication about objectives and expectations decreases anxiety among teams.

To put a fine point on it, people often confuse leadership communication with talking but really, it’s more about listening. In my last few years as fire chief I knew a meeting with my staff was successful when I emerged from the meeting having said very little and learned a lot through listening. In the Team of Teams method, leaders of all teams and the top leader need to actively listen to others in order to gain the information needed to make strategic decisions about what to do next. 

What benefits are derived from this organizational leadership method?
A key benefit from this method is looking at problems differently, bringing in more information from many different areas of the organization to get a bigger picture and gauge all of the influencing factors. This has become more common with increased access to more data, but data in itself isn’t actionable. What is also needed is the connections within the organization to understand multiple changing factors of influence and potential outcomes in an uncertain environment.  The term ‘mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive (MECE)’ is one McChrystal uses to describe the old way of using information when things were complicated, but gathering enough information allowed predictable outcomes.  Those days are no longer, so the massive amount of information gathered needs to be paired with this intense interorganizational connection – shared consciousness.

Why is micromanaging counterproductive?

Often people think of leadership in an egocentric perspective of how their own leadership qualities or abilities affect the organization, rather than how the whole organization is functioning with many different leadership elements. Micromanaging is a top-down leadership problem that occurs in the leader who doesn’t feel confident or  doesn’t understand their purpose of motivating and enabling others. Ultimately, micromanagement is counterproductive because people in the organization become disenfranchised when they don’t see how they are contributing unique value. 

“ …containing my desire to micromanage, I flipped a switch in my subordinates …they acquired gravitas that they had not had before  . . . Empowerment did not always take the form of overt delegation; more often, my self-confident subordinates would make decisions, many far above their pay grade, and simply inform me.” 

Top of mind for so many leaders is greater organizational inclusivity. How do you see Team of Teams helping with inclusivity?
The Team of Team concept is designed to have everyone contribute value, so in that way it is inclusive. As I mentioned earlier, everyone in the organization should understand the overall objectives and I think it’s important to be able to talk through a problem involving a wide range of solutions.  When many different voices and perspectives are heard, more options become available.  Part of inclusivity is also transparency of information so that everyone has what they need to benefit the organization. 

When should leaders consider using Team of Teams for their organization?
When an organization has complex problems with multiple disciplines, it would be wise to implement a Team of Teams approach in which you start to bring disparate disciplines together and shared perspectives begin to occur. I’ll go back to the difference between complex and complicated; a complex problem is non-linear and multi-modal. When you’re chasing down solutions to nonlinear problems and you have multiple disciplines across your organization, these are your Team of Teams.  In the fire service this may mean fire fighting crews and emergency rescue crews; in business, product development and sales; and in humanitarian aid, rescue and resilience teams.  In each case the success of the full organization is dependent on the interconnectedness of teams functioning in an ever-changing environment.

How can leaders get started in implementing this method?
Understanding the needs of your organization requires you to listen, gather information, distill that information, feed it back to your teams, and collaboratively determine a productive way forward. Then repeat, and repeat again.

“I needed to shift my focus from moving pieces on the board to shaping the ecosystem.”

A word of caution, though: There is a natural tendency to learn a new method of leadership and look at it as an easy fix. That attitude is what McChrystal calls a LIMFAC or limiting factor. This isn’t easy! It requires you as a leader to step out of the way of your teams, breaking old habits of controlling what happens, and it takes patience in difficult times. This attitude of leadership requires using your head for business and your heart for people – and always keeping the organizational mission as top priority. When organizational values are properly established and everyone is collectively cared for and understands their contribution, then each person and function can participate as a Team of Teams.

 

About John Kammeyer
John Kammeyer was Fire Chief at Central County Fire Department for the last five of his thirty-year career in public service.  He also served in the United States Coast Guard as a Rescue Swimmer, receiving the Presidential Commendation Award for a harrowing rescue.  John is currently leading the training effort at a rapid-response humanitarian organization and continues his competitive athletic pursuits.

Ideate, Structure, Communicate

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Adding the step of structuring your content after you create it and before you communicate it makes it much easier for the audience to understand and boosts your confidence, increasing the effectiveness of an interaction.

Most of us learned the five-paragraph essay in school. When we are writing an academic paper or article we know to first preview what we are going to tell people. Then we share each point starting with a header sentence and give proof through concepts, numbers, and examples. After sharing our ideas, we know to summarize in a closing paragraph. But not many of us are taught to speak that way.

Often, we speak whatever comes to mind, in the order it comes to mind. We may start with one interesting detail and then another unrelated detail and then tie the two together in a relevant concept. Or we may just share a stream of data and let the listeners connect the dots.

Because the brain assimilates information better when it knows what is coming, structuring our communication first is much more effective. In education we call it ‘anticipatory set.’ Think of the process as creating buckets for the brain so it knows where to put the information it receives.

I was recently coaching a young professional who caught on to this structuring-before-communicating concept very quickly and demonstrated it well while giving a speech to a few hundred people. Instead of jumping into the details of a slide, this professional first described what the audience was seeing and contextualized the information. I could actually see the audience following along closely and nodding their heads as they assimilated the relatively complex information shared.

Including the preparation of structuring content between ideate and communicate is even more important when on video conference because the higher level of distraction inhibits focus. The audience has distractions in their own environment and also on screen. The more you guide their focus the more effective the communication.  The implicit nature of structure (preview, signaling, summary) is a means for guiding their focus.

We already know how to do structure in writing, and it works well there. It makes complete sense to do it while speaking. It is just a matter of preparing a bit in advance. That preparation can be done far in advance for really important interactions and in the moment every day.

30-Second Prep– Pause for half a minute to formulate your thoughts and articulate what overarching concept you want to express.

 2-Minute Prep– Before a meeting, scratch on a piece of paper or capture notes on your phone the key points you want to share and the theme that ties them all together.

1-hour Prep– Prepare talking points before a meeting or delivering a presentation that begin with the overarching concept, specify key points, and then give details on each key point.

Try one of these content structuring preparation options this week and see how it changes how you speak and how your audience reacts. The advance structuring has the benefit of the audience better assimilating the information you are sharing and the bonus of increasing your confidence. Both improve the communication interaction.

 

 

Be The Steady Hand

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With a steady hand on the tiller, you can set the direction and guide the course. Leaders of the 21stcentury are frequently encountering times of uncertainty and chaos, including the current pandemic. Your leadership can be the calming factor that allows others to be their best no matter the external factors. But, conscious and centered leadership during difficult times requires an established practice to build the skill and discipline to leverage mindfulness when others are freaking out.

It only takes one person with collected presence to calm and steady others. You can be that person. With practice and intention, we all have the ability to generate the collectedness and clear-headed perspective needed to move forward in unpredictable times. One leader who is doing his job “with a steady temperament that inspires confidence” is U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome ‘Jay’ Powell who is leading the effort to stabilize the U.S. economy with a myriad of lending programs and reductions in the benchmark interest rate.

“None of us has the luxury of choosing our challenges. Fate and history provide them for us. Our job is to meet the tests we are presented.”  Jay Powell, Federal Reserve Chairman.  He is meeting the test presented to him with quick action with a calm demeanor.  He is being a steady hand.

To be leaders with the steady hand we need two elements: self-composure and a calming communication style. 

Self-Composure

Self-composure cannot be faked.  We need to lead from our own foundation of grounded strength, checking in on and managing our own internal state before we engage with others.

 “Here [from the inside out] is where leadership presence is cultivated, and only then can it be felt and shared by the team.” Center for Compassionate Leadership.

We can each cultivate an inward focus and strength to find the place of calm within us when needed. In my work with leaders I hear many different ways that people hone their inner strength. Many read to learn, some meditate, some journal, some find introspection through exercise, some have formal coaches that guide them.  Once a base level of self-centeredness is established, it is real life practice that allows us to develop self-composure in all types of situations.  Tapping into that inner assurance, accepting what is in the moment and knowing we will do what is most needed next — that is the steady hand that can guide the course.  Then we can bear witness to others experiencing anxiety and dissonance in times of uncertainty and be a grounded empathetic force so others can do their jobs well.

Calming Communication

Calming communication style can naturally arise from a state of composure, but there are certain speaking characteristics that are typically associated with calm communication. Public safety professionals such as police and fire use ‘command and control’ in emergencies and speak in a low and slow voice to keep the calm for others so they can achieve the task at hand. Research shows that voice pitch and speech rate have a statistically significant correlation with perception in crisis communication.  The two primary characteristics of calm communication are a slower pace of speaking and lower pitch of voice.  The slower pace of speaking also includes more pauses and more distinct enunciation of words. A common association of voice pitch is the higher the pitch, the greater the excitement, the lower the pitch the more mellow. The structure of the communication is also important; well-organized information implies the leader is in control of the interaction, even if the outside circumstances are not controllable.

Silveria Jacobs, Prime Minister of Sint Maarten, demonstrated a steady hand style of communication in her ‘Simply. Stop. Moving.’ speech that went viral.  Her word choice was both assertive and empathetic and she used a low and slow voice with many pauses.

As leaders, we cannot always control external circumstances, but we can control our reactions.  We can use our foundation of grounded strength and a calm communication style to be the steady hand for others. 

Where to Look and Other Video Conference Tips

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Bringing forth our best communication skills on a video conference makes interactions much more engaging.  It is not quite in-person, but video is a much richer interaction than over the phone.  What do we need to keep in mind on video?  The question I get most often is,  ‘where do I look on the screen?’  If we look at the people or content it can seem to others like we are looking in our laps. Not good. The short answer to that common question is move your eyes around, just like you would in person.  The long answer is part of my  four tips for better video conference communication: 

  1. pretend you are in person
  2. use both verbal and nonverbal communication
  3. avoid distractions
  4. stay audience aware

1) Pretend You Are In Person

It is easy to feel more casual when interacting over video, but it is better to treat the situation as if we are in person.  We can ask ourselves, ‘would I be dressed this way and doing what I am doing if that person was here with me?’  That typically means that we are dressed professionally (at least on the top half). It also means we are sitting in a chair at a table or desk.  Importantly we are notmultitasking getting some other project done or checking email while engaging with someone. 

2) Use Skillful Verbal & Nonverbal Communication

Our voice can be interesting if we vary our pitch, volume, and speed of speaking.  Our voice can put others to sleep if we keep the same tone, volume, and pace the whole time.  It helps to remember we are speaking with someone, not to someone.  We can speak faster to show excitement and slow down when a point is super important.  It also helps to call in on a phone instead of using computer audio because the sound of our voice is clearer and there is less environmental noise.

Effective nonverbal communication shifts a bit from in person to on video.  On video only our upper torso is visible and therefore body language expression needs to occur in that area.  Our facial expressions need to animate more, and we can use head tilts and nods to show we are listening.  Now to the details on where to look, the most common question.  Going back to the first tip – pretend you are in person – we look many different places when we are in person, so we should do the same on video.  What is different is the many different places are spatially limited to the screen. I recommend looking directly in the camera because then it appears we are making eye contact.  But don’t looks just there because then it is like a broadcast reporter staring into the camera.  Move from the camera to the other people on video, to the content displayed on the screen and then back to the camera.  This way it will appear more natural, much like it would in person. It helps to drag the box with the video of other participants to the top of your screen so when we look at them, our eyes are just adjusting slightly, and our heads don’t need to move down to see them.

The last element of nonverbal communication on video is hand motions.  If we use hand motions where people can’t see them, they may wonder what exactly we are doing with our hands.  Better to move our hand motions up to the level of our chest and shoulders.  It might feel a bit odd at first, but when we watch ourselves on video it looks natural.  We also need to move our hands more slowly to avoid blurring in the video. Keeping our voice, face, eyes, and upper body animated on video conference shows we are engaged and helps keep others interested.

3) Avoid Distractions

We are curious beings and if there is something visually interesting going on in video behind the speaker or listener, we can easily get distracted.  Before getting on a video conference, test the system and look at all that is in the view window.  Do we want people looking at that picture of us in our bathing suit or dancing on a rooftop? Is our to-do list on the whiteboard?  Is there an unmade bed or unfolded laundry visible in a home office? Clean up the view window to reduce the distractions.  We can also give officemates or roommates heads up that we are jumping on video, so they don’t inadvertently come into view.  Turning off alerts or going into Do Not Disturb mode on our devices eliminates another form of distraction.  Not touching our hair, face, or clothing is another way to avoid distraction.  It helps to remember we are being watched and to look at ourselves as well as the other participants as we are moving our eyes intentionally around the screen. 

4) Stay Audience Aware

On video we only get a little square headshot of our audience to receive nonverbal listener feedback.  That means we need to be acutely aware of the nonverbal signals given and we need to seek more verbal feedback.  Take turns looking at every person who is in the meeting.  This is more easily done if we use the gallery or multi-person video option.  Still remember to look at the camera in between looking at people.  If we see someone distracted – either looking down or up or (worse case) leaving the video screen – we can stop talking and ask questions. Overall it is just a good idea on video to pause more often and ask more questions.

Video conference is a great way to have more of a human connection when you cannot meet in person. Being intentional about how we communicate through this method improves our interactions.  When we pretend we are in person, skillfully use verbal and nonverbal communication, avoid distractions, and stay audience aware, then the people on the other end of this technology will be much more interested and engaged. 

What is the Connection? Find Commonalities for Better Conversations

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Conversations bring people together or drive people apart based on our perceived commonality or differences. All humans are 99% alike from a DNA perspective. What is missing from the equation for harmony is just the perception of similarity. Luckily, our perceptions can be changed. With a bit of intention and effort, we can perceive others as similar to us and increase the chances we can get along.

I invite you to experiment with two methods for finding connections and improving interpersonal interactions. The first is discovery of similarity and the second is reminder of humanity.

Discovery of Similarity

We can find surface-level commonality with people we meet, such as a hobby or an element of our work. Taking it on as a discovery process can be fun. Austin, Nevada City, San Francisco, Tampa – what is the connection? Places I’ve travelled in the past month and met people just like me. They might be a different gender, from a different culture, or their skin might be a different color, but we can still find commonalities. Meeting new people, what comes to my mind first is:  What do I have I common with this person?  I discover connections by asking questions: ‘where are you from?’  ‘what do you do for fun/work/hobbies?’  ‘how was your weekend?’  These small talk methods are simple ways to find connections. Typically, conversations will proceed at a surface level with these types of connection creators until we find something in common. Then we tend to dive deeper into that topic, be it food, kids, sport, music, books, or recent movies. Generally, it feels good to be connected, but that is not always how it goes.

Reminder of Humanity

Sometimes initial interactions seem to bring up differences rather than commonalities.  They may reveal a difference in culture or political leanings. In these cases, we may feel separation and perceive that the ‘other’ is not like us.  It is in these times when we can remind ourselves of all being human – that we are 99% like each other.  As humans, we have more in common than we have as differences. The exercise here is to repeat the phrase ‘just like me’ and follow it by a basic human condition:  ‘just like me this person wants to be understood,’ ‘just like me this person is forming their opinions based on information they have received,’ ‘just like me they want to be healthy, happy, and loved.’ In really challenging situations it is helpful to drop to an even more basic level: ‘this person has a beating heart and their lungs are filling with oxygen, just like me,’ ‘this person is somebody’s daughter/son, just like me.’

Human commonalities are so much more significant than a political opinion, religious practice, or social norm. When we see this reality of sameness as more significant than difference, our perspective changes. With that internal perspective shift comes a subconscious change in body language – facial expressions and stance – that others perceive. It often also leads to a shift in our language to be more inclusive and accepting. The result is the other person feels more accepted and is more inclined toward getting along.

For example, in a recent interaction someone used the term ‘God fearing’ frequently in conversation. At first, I was put off by the term as it reminded me of the judgment I felt from some religious people having grown up Catholic. That brought up difference instead of sameness in my mind. Then I remembered that we were both human and I made a conscious choice to listen for commonalities from this person. I heard common values of family and integrity and dedication. With that I was able to shift my perception toward sameness and I could hear the term ‘God fearing’ to mean trusting in and leaning on a belief in times of uncertainty. We had in common the human desire to feel a sense of security.  

This skill of seeing commonality takes time to develop, and it can be helpful to practice on strangers with whom we are not interacting. Airports are a perfect practicing ground. Particularly with people for whom our initial reaction is irritation or judgement. I practice the ‘just like me’ exercise and seek to find a commonality. I see that the person standing in the wrong line has a kid in tow and I remember what it was like to travel with young ones. I hear that the person talking loudly on the phone next to me is appeasing an upset boss and I connect with the feeling of being stressed and striving to meet high expectations. Once I find something in common, I am amazed at how quickly my perspective and attitude toward them changes. I also enjoy this free ‘Just Like Me’ meditation.

The start of every good conversation begins with a connection between people. When we find that connection it changes our perspective and likely our language and approach to interacting with that person, bringing us together instead of driving us apart.