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Environments, Rats and Your Neurochemistry - How words can create a toxic environment.
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You ever experienced an embarrassing situation? You probably still replay it over and over again in your mind. It’s likely you still experience the pain, stress and neuro-chemical trauma of that experience, even though it’s just a memory.
In this episode of What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®?, Lyn Christian and Judith E. Glaser discuss how the words we use in conversation can create a long-lived, toxic environment—an environment where the stress hormone, cortisol, leaves everyone feeling anxious and traumatized. They also discuss compassion and Judith’s Trust Model as a means to combat the detrimental effects of cortisol and neuro-chemical stress. Find out how you can create a better conversational environment and foster the potential for human brilliance. In this episode of What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®?:
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|Episode Transcript|
Judith (00:20):
We are 99.9% like rats with the exception of the FOXP2 gene, which is the language gene. So, if rats had that FOXP2 gene in them, they could be talking to each other! And they could be building communities. Those rats in a big space—they were productively working together.
Lyn (00:21):
Let’s see how you do with pattern recognition. I’m going to share results from four different research projects, and your job is to determine: What’s the common thread here? What do they all have in common?
So, let’s first review a 1984 scholarly paper from Cleveland State University. This paper tells us that the relative location of people’s offices in the physical structure of a building can influence behaviors. The nature and placement of furnishings can also influence the occurrence and type of interaction that takes place in a setting. And finally, people positioned around a rectangular table prefer corner-to-corner seating for casual conversation. They prefer side-to-side for cooperative activities, and face-to-face seating for adversarial interactions. So, that’s the first study.
Let’s look at the second study, which was published in Psychological Science in 2012. And it examined how creative problem solving (activities like divergent and convergent thinking) were influenced by literally the embodied metaphor of thinking outside of the box. And what happened was researchers constructed a box out of PVC pipe and cardboard that measured about 5 feet by 5 feet, so an individual could comfortably sit in this space. And then the individuals in the study group were asked to complete a 10-item test. The test was designed to measure creative thinking.
Well, students were placed inside the box, or students were placed right outside the box, or there was a control group where the students in the study were not even doing the test in the presence of a box.
And, the results? The results found that the participants who completed the test outside the box generated more correct answers than those both inside the box and in the control participants. So, this is our second piece of research. Are you finding a common thread?
Let’s go to the third piece of research. This occurred in October of 2008. Williams and Bargh, from Yale University, both psychologists, published research showing that our judgment of a person’s character can be influenced by something as simple as the warmth of a drink that we hold in our hand.
To be specific, people judged others to be more generous and caring if that person had just held on to a warm cup of coffee. And you and I are prone to judge people as less generous if we’ve been holding on to something cold like iced coffee.
In a second related study, these researchers showed that people were more likely to give something to another person if they had just held something warm, and they were more likely take something for themselves if they had held on to something cold. So, that’s the third piece of research.
Finally, let’s look at some work done by Gallup, a worldwide organization that, in particular, was looking at the influence a city could have on the entrepreneurial spirit here in the United States. And what they did is they took Austin and pitted it against Albany, and San Francisco against Detroit. And what they found out was, to be specific, Detroit went from being one of the richest cities in the world to being one that Gallup classified as a spectacular failure, because right now what they are saying is that the leadership, the principles, the policies, the values, the beliefs within San Francisco encourage a thriving entrepreneurial and business element. But in Detroit the opposite is the case. In Austin there are deeply caring, highly engaged business, political, and philanthropic leaders that are encouraging thriving, growing economies through business and entrepreneurship. But the opposite is occurring in Albany.
So, did you see a pattern? Is there a connection between these four pieces of research?
Lyn (04:53):
Hi! This is Lyn Christian and you are listening to What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®, the podcast where we use neuroscience to support you to be a stronger leader, so that you can build trust and take yourself and those that you are working with to that next level.
I’ve shared the excerpts from these four studies that I shared earlier with you. I’ve shared them with dozens of people. And the most common thread that people pull from this exercise is the word “environment.” That’s right, most people see a theme orbiting around the concept of environment and how it influences our behavior when I give to them the results I just gave you. So, what we’ve done is to set ourselves up to bring Judith E. Glaser, an organizational anthropologist and consultant for Fortune 500 companies, to this discussion. Judith has both a master’s in human behavior and development and a master’s degree in corporate political communications. As the CEO of Benchmark Communications, Inc., and author of Conversational Intelligence, she astutely understands the impact environment has on our neurochemistry. And, thereby, how it influences our behaviors, our moods, our outlooks, and even our productivity.
Lyn (06:27):
Judith, you know and I know that environment and space, in particular those which we live in and work in, have an impact. And you’ve shared that story with me and others about the “Rat” study. I’d like you to get into that. And also, Judith, would you mind sharing your idea about how come people are not more aware of the influence that environment has on us?
Judith (06:53):
Again, it's like other things—if we don't know it has an impact, we ignore it. People have not thought about spaces being an environment that has some impact on our being, our human being. I was so excited to find the research about the rats. It wasn't my research. So, what they did is they took a family of rats, divided it in half. (It was to see what environment does to activate different parts of our brain and behavior. So, it was to intentionally see that.) They put half the rats underground in a small space. They put the other half . . . same family of rats but just split . . . the other half in a bigger space. I think they gave it 48 hours where they could let them hang out with each other and then come back and see what happened. Some things had to be the same so that they could count out above ground [or] below ground as anything that had to do with anything. They were both below ground kind of like were under the subway stuff is—very dark and damp and the whole deal.
It turned out, when they went back to the small space, they got a completely different behavior coming out of the rats than when they went back to the big space. And it was the first time that the scientists ever realized the extent to which space around us has an impact on our behavior. It was always thought you're born with certain genes. They're called template genes, they template you and tell you who you're going to be. And if your parents have certain behaviors, you are going to have those behaviors, so the parents influence children. Well, they were right that parents influence children, but they were wrong about how they influence. It's not through template (which is passing along genes that your parents have); it was by transcription. Meaning, as we interact with each other, as a parent interacts with a child and says certain things to that child, they are turning on or turning off genes. And to go a step further, Dr. David Haig from Harvard University, who studied this for well over 35 years at this point, said it happens in the belly. He has pictures of genes getting turned on and off in the stomach.
So, the space that we’re in influences us. And depending on where it is, where that space is, it influences us differently. So, the rats that were in the small space—when they shrunk down the space so there really wasn't enough defined space where a rat could say, “This is my space, this is my space, this is my space,” there just wasn't enough room—they were eating each other when they came back in 48 hours later, the rats were consuming each other.
It turns out, we are 99.9% like rats with the exception of the FOXP2 gene, which is the language gene. So, if rats had that FOXP2 gene in them, they could be talking! Those little animals, running around, doing what they do, they could be talking to each other! And they could be building communities. Those rats in a big space—they were productively working together. And there was a dish, and they were crawling around on the edge of the dish, and they were kind of taking care of it, and making sure it was going to have enough water in it for everybody to
share. So, they got into sharing, and caring, and all of those attributes that we think are human. Those rats in a big space . . . meaning, that space has something to do with how their brains process the world.
Lyn (10:28):
So, I'm curious. (This was so fascinating to me—going through the immersion class, and expanding my mind and thoughts this way, and my heart and soul just kind of opened up. And so, I have used it with clients and I've used it in my personal life.) I'm curious about how, when you work with clients, or other people or even in your personal life, how do you use this concept of space to work differently, to be different?
Judith (10:53):
A good example is another client situation where I worked with Coach; I worked with Donna Karen. I was doing a lot of work with designers. And Coach was having trouble convincing the world that they were going to move from a pocketbook company that made brown bags, to a designer oriented company. I don’t know if you know . . . I guess it was at the beginning of 2000 or so, maybe a little bit before that . . . Coach was a spinoff from Pepperidge Farm or something like that. Anyway, they decided to change who they were. And they had to go around to different [companies], making presentations at Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s and all these places to convince them to take their pocketbooks, their handbags. And nobody wanted to do it.
So, I said: Well, tell me about what it's like when you get into the meeting? And they said: Well, usually there is a long table. And somebody from Coach sits here and somebody from Bloomingdale’s sits here. And then they kind of argue about why they shouldn't take the product. And everyone was like on repeat—people in different clothes, same script. And 41 of their sales reps had the same experience (which Mary Wong shared with me). And she was given two months to turn around Coach. So, I said: Let's see if we can prime the space. Let's see if we can do something to change the chemistry of what happens. I said: We’ll deconstruct it together.
First of all, if you have two people sitting at the heads of the table, you're activating the lower brain, you're activating the fight part of the brain, because that’s the head of the table, so you have two heads.
We have to do some things to change how we work together. So, let's create an agenda before we come in, so we both get a chance to think about it in advance and think about what we want to talk about.
This is priming the space (then priming the internal space, and then priming the physical space). And so, when we get into the room, instead of sitting at the heads (were you have two people butting heads), sit side-by-side; print out the agenda that you had come up with; say: That was such a great thing that you put on the agenda in advance; congratulating them in some small way, celebrating that you're on the same page. So, you’re doing things to pull them together. As soon as they changed that, we primed the space, they got the business!
Now, Coach is a hugely different company than it was when it was starting out. I worked with them for 10 years during that whole transformation with every division. Those are the kinds of things that we brought into the company and into leadership to understand how to change the external space, to change the internal space.
Lyn (13:46):
That’s beautiful! So Judith, I’m going to segue right now into supporting our audience and help them figure out how they can use this information.
Judith (13:57):
Thank you. Beautifully said.
Lyn (14:00):
So, lets figure out now together, how might you use this information if you know that you can prime the inner space (that’s your inner neurochemistry) to be better prepared for a conversation as well as being able to prime the outer space (the physical structure or the physical presence of space around you) when you're interacting with other people. So what I did is I interviewed five other coaches who have been certified in Conversational Intelligence® and ask them if they could give us some practical tools that you can use right now to prime your inner space and to prime the space around you for conversations.
Peter Yorio - Pay It Forward Leadership Coaching - peteryorio@gmail.com
Let's start with Peter Yorio. Peter is from Pay It Forward Leadership Coaching. Peter can also be directly emailed at peteryorio@gmail.com
What did Pete say? Well, he said first of all start meeting in neutral spaces. He also reminded us to regularly conduct our one-to-one meetings. Yes, if you have one-to-one meetings, hold those religiously. The ritual of holding those will create a space of comfort, of safety, of consistency. He also says be consistent about what you do, and when you do it. So, align your behaviors and your words. And finally, Peter says get input from everybody on the team. So, when you're seeking input, sit with your team, ask for their input and speak last. Thank you, Peter, these are great examples of how to prime the space for Conversational Intelligence®.
Debra Goldstein - Driven Professionals - Deb@drivenpros.com
The next coach I'm going to lean into is Debra Goldstein. Deborah is the founder and CEO of Driven Professionals. You can find her at Deb@drivenpros.com. Deborah says arrive early before a meeting. In the pre-meeting have small talk, which will provide you the opportunity to find common ground and connection with the people who are meeting. When you are holding a meeting, identify your intentions for the meeting. Ask yourself: What do I want to convey? How do I want others to feel during the meeting? What do I want to walk away from? This sort of preparation will help you prime the environment for your meeting. Finally, in terms of priming physical space, Deborah says raise your seat. Use the lever so that you are level with other people. Either raise it up or lower it so that you are at eye level with the other individuals in the meeting. Thank you, Deborah.
Paul Ruez - The Ruez Group - ptruiz@theruezgroup.ph
The next coach I interviewed was Paul Ruez. Paul is part of The Ruez Group in the Philippines. He's an executive coach practicing in Manila, to be exact, and he focuses on helping leaders in transition. You can find him at ptruiz@theruezgroup.ph. Paul has an interesting way of priming a space. When he primes for the space he creates with his clients, he does some inner priming. And what he does is he says a prayer. He was willing and transparent enough to share the prayer! He says: Dearest Lord, get me out of the way. He says this 10 to 15 minutes before he has his session.
So, there's one way to prime yourself before an engagement, to pray! Another thing that Paul says is that you can subtly move into a space that you have primed if you will mindfully build rapport with a person you're about to meet with. Go deeper than just small talk. Actually spend some time visualizing what the world looks like from the other person's lenses. And, before you ask questions, ask permission. So, the first step is what he calls imagination empathy, where you allow yourself to step inside the other person's world for a moment and then you ask permission to enter before you ask questions. Thanks Paul!
Deborah Naish - Naish Partners Executive Coaching - Debra@naishpartners.com
Some other tips on how to apply priming the space comes from Deborah Naish in California from Naish Partners Executive Coaching. You can find Deborah at Debra@naishpartners.com. What she says is you can prime for trust with other people by simply putting a smile on your face. A heartfelt smile while looking someone in the eye is a very easy way to open the space for trust. She also suggests to be interested in care. Find a personal connection by asking a few questions that let you know something about the other person's life. Finally, Deborah says be positive. Acknowledge something that person is doing or has done and show appreciation for what that person has done or who that person has been. You're just simply inviting connection. Thanks Debra.
Lisa Heart - Leadership career and transitions coach - Lisaheartconsulting.com
Our final bit of information comes from Lisa Heart in New York City. Lisa is a leadership career and transitions coach. You can find her at Lisaheartconsulting.com. And what she talks about is something that comes right from her home city, New York. She says when you're standing on a platform in the subway you have all kinds of signs and announcements that frequently remind you to mind the gap—meaning the space between the platform and the train. That's really important for those of us who have stood on those subway platforms. Life and death can be a matter of listening and adhering to this advice.
As Lisa writes, “The pace and the energy of the city means there are throngs of people who are listening to their own internal musings. When they're standing on the platform with other people, you want to tune into conversations with other people. You don't want to just be in your own head.“ So, what Lisa tells us is what neuroscience teaches—that our feelings, our perceptions, our beliefs and conclusions are a function of neurochemistry. They can leave us believing that what we've seen and what we've heard and what we thought are actually what occurred.
And knowing this is powerful because it allows us the possibility of figuring out that there might be something else that was seen, heard, or experienced. So, minding the gap in Lisa’s words reminds us that there's a reality gap between our experience and the other person. To mind that gap, to shift the gap to a space that fosters both people having the ability to have safety to express whatever they need to express, so that they can have a shared reality. Don't get lost in the gap between your internal reality and what's really going on out there in the minds and hearts of others.
To do this Lisa says before you enter a conversation, pause. Notice where you are, noticed your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own assumptions, and your own beliefs. She also asks us to be aware of our conclusions if we've drawn any. And noticed that, while they are yours, they may not be a shared reality or true for someone else. So, set them aside. Be curious. Ask questions for which you have no answer. Listen and build trust. This is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and co-creation. It’s the starting point for all intelligent conversations. Thank you Lisa, great advice!
If you found this advice from these five coaches useful, you'll probably want to go to the show notes of this episode and download the one-page worksheet we have with bulleted items and suggestions from not only these coaches but from myself and from Judith.
Lyn (22:11):
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®. If you like this episode, go out to iTunes and give us a rating or review. We really would appreciate it and it helps us spread the word about Conversational Intelligence®.
The research for this episode of What’s Your Conversational Intelligence® was completed by Judith E. Glaser and myself, Lyn Christian.
Editing and Sound by Jessica Draper. Logistics and scheduling by Shannon Dee and Anna Polak. What’s Your Conversational Intelligence® is a joint venture between Benchmark Communications and SoulSalt, Inc. If you’d like to connect with me, Lyn Christian, or have me speak or work with your group inquire at www.soulsalt.com. Special thanks in this episode to: Deborah Naish, Naish Partners Executive Coaching + Consulting, www.naishpartners.com
Resources
Davis research source:
KREITZER, Mary Jo R.N., Ph.D., ZBOROWSKY, Terri, Ph.D., EDAC, LARSON, Jean, Ph.D., CTRS, HTR. (2016) What Impact Does the Environment Have on Us?. Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing. University of Minnesota. https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/healing-environment/what- impact-does-environment-have-us
Outside the Box Thinking source:
LEUNG, Angela K.-Y., KIM, Suntae, POLMAN, Evan, ONG, Lay See, QIU, Lin, GONCOLA, Jack A., and SANCHEZ-BURKS, Je rey. (2012). Embodied Metaphors and Creative "Acts". Psychological Science, 23(5), 502-509. http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1077
Hot and Cold Studies source:
HATHAWAY, Bill. (2008, Oct. 23). With Hot Coffee, We See a Warm Heart, Yale Researchers find. Yale News. https://news.yale.edu/2008/10/23/hot-coffee-we-see-warm-heart-yale- researchers-find
City Influences Entrepreneurial Spirit source:
CLIFTON, Jim and BADAL, Sangeeta Bharadwaj, Ph.D. (2014). Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder. New York, NY: Gallup Press. See pages 26–27
We are 99.9% like rats with the exception of the FOXP2 gene, which is the language gene. So, if rats had that FOXP2 gene in them, they could be talking to each other! And they could be building communities. Those rats in a big space—they were productively working together.
Lyn (00:21):
Let’s see how you do with pattern recognition. I’m going to share results from four different research projects, and your job is to determine: What’s the common thread here? What do they all have in common?
So, let’s first review a 1984 scholarly paper from Cleveland State University. This paper tells us that the relative location of people’s offices in the physical structure of a building can influence behaviors. The nature and placement of furnishings can also influence the occurrence and type of interaction that takes place in a setting. And finally, people positioned around a rectangular table prefer corner-to-corner seating for casual conversation. They prefer side-to-side for cooperative activities, and face-to-face seating for adversarial interactions. So, that’s the first study.
Let’s look at the second study, which was published in Psychological Science in 2012. And it examined how creative problem solving (activities like divergent and convergent thinking) were influenced by literally the embodied metaphor of thinking outside of the box. And what happened was researchers constructed a box out of PVC pipe and cardboard that measured about 5 feet by 5 feet, so an individual could comfortably sit in this space. And then the individuals in the study group were asked to complete a 10-item test. The test was designed to measure creative thinking.
Well, students were placed inside the box, or students were placed right outside the box, or there was a control group where the students in the study were not even doing the test in the presence of a box.
And, the results? The results found that the participants who completed the test outside the box generated more correct answers than those both inside the box and in the control participants. So, this is our second piece of research. Are you finding a common thread?
Let’s go to the third piece of research. This occurred in October of 2008. Williams and Bargh, from Yale University, both psychologists, published research showing that our judgment of a person’s character can be influenced by something as simple as the warmth of a drink that we hold in our hand.
To be specific, people judged others to be more generous and caring if that person had just held on to a warm cup of coffee. And you and I are prone to judge people as less generous if we’ve been holding on to something cold like iced coffee.
In a second related study, these researchers showed that people were more likely to give something to another person if they had just held something warm, and they were more likely take something for themselves if they had held on to something cold. So, that’s the third piece of research.
Finally, let’s look at some work done by Gallup, a worldwide organization that, in particular, was looking at the influence a city could have on the entrepreneurial spirit here in the United States. And what they did is they took Austin and pitted it against Albany, and San Francisco against Detroit. And what they found out was, to be specific, Detroit went from being one of the richest cities in the world to being one that Gallup classified as a spectacular failure, because right now what they are saying is that the leadership, the principles, the policies, the values, the beliefs within San Francisco encourage a thriving entrepreneurial and business element. But in Detroit the opposite is the case. In Austin there are deeply caring, highly engaged business, political, and philanthropic leaders that are encouraging thriving, growing economies through business and entrepreneurship. But the opposite is occurring in Albany.
So, did you see a pattern? Is there a connection between these four pieces of research?
Lyn (04:53):
Hi! This is Lyn Christian and you are listening to What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®, the podcast where we use neuroscience to support you to be a stronger leader, so that you can build trust and take yourself and those that you are working with to that next level.
I’ve shared the excerpts from these four studies that I shared earlier with you. I’ve shared them with dozens of people. And the most common thread that people pull from this exercise is the word “environment.” That’s right, most people see a theme orbiting around the concept of environment and how it influences our behavior when I give to them the results I just gave you. So, what we’ve done is to set ourselves up to bring Judith E. Glaser, an organizational anthropologist and consultant for Fortune 500 companies, to this discussion. Judith has both a master’s in human behavior and development and a master’s degree in corporate political communications. As the CEO of Benchmark Communications, Inc., and author of Conversational Intelligence, she astutely understands the impact environment has on our neurochemistry. And, thereby, how it influences our behaviors, our moods, our outlooks, and even our productivity.
Lyn (06:27):
Judith, you know and I know that environment and space, in particular those which we live in and work in, have an impact. And you’ve shared that story with me and others about the “Rat” study. I’d like you to get into that. And also, Judith, would you mind sharing your idea about how come people are not more aware of the influence that environment has on us?
Judith (06:53):
Again, it's like other things—if we don't know it has an impact, we ignore it. People have not thought about spaces being an environment that has some impact on our being, our human being. I was so excited to find the research about the rats. It wasn't my research. So, what they did is they took a family of rats, divided it in half. (It was to see what environment does to activate different parts of our brain and behavior. So, it was to intentionally see that.) They put half the rats underground in a small space. They put the other half . . . same family of rats but just split . . . the other half in a bigger space. I think they gave it 48 hours where they could let them hang out with each other and then come back and see what happened. Some things had to be the same so that they could count out above ground [or] below ground as anything that had to do with anything. They were both below ground kind of like were under the subway stuff is—very dark and damp and the whole deal.
It turned out, when they went back to the small space, they got a completely different behavior coming out of the rats than when they went back to the big space. And it was the first time that the scientists ever realized the extent to which space around us has an impact on our behavior. It was always thought you're born with certain genes. They're called template genes, they template you and tell you who you're going to be. And if your parents have certain behaviors, you are going to have those behaviors, so the parents influence children. Well, they were right that parents influence children, but they were wrong about how they influence. It's not through template (which is passing along genes that your parents have); it was by transcription. Meaning, as we interact with each other, as a parent interacts with a child and says certain things to that child, they are turning on or turning off genes. And to go a step further, Dr. David Haig from Harvard University, who studied this for well over 35 years at this point, said it happens in the belly. He has pictures of genes getting turned on and off in the stomach.
So, the space that we’re in influences us. And depending on where it is, where that space is, it influences us differently. So, the rats that were in the small space—when they shrunk down the space so there really wasn't enough defined space where a rat could say, “This is my space, this is my space, this is my space,” there just wasn't enough room—they were eating each other when they came back in 48 hours later, the rats were consuming each other.
It turns out, we are 99.9% like rats with the exception of the FOXP2 gene, which is the language gene. So, if rats had that FOXP2 gene in them, they could be talking! Those little animals, running around, doing what they do, they could be talking to each other! And they could be building communities. Those rats in a big space—they were productively working together. And there was a dish, and they were crawling around on the edge of the dish, and they were kind of taking care of it, and making sure it was going to have enough water in it for everybody to
share. So, they got into sharing, and caring, and all of those attributes that we think are human. Those rats in a big space . . . meaning, that space has something to do with how their brains process the world.
Lyn (10:28):
So, I'm curious. (This was so fascinating to me—going through the immersion class, and expanding my mind and thoughts this way, and my heart and soul just kind of opened up. And so, I have used it with clients and I've used it in my personal life.) I'm curious about how, when you work with clients, or other people or even in your personal life, how do you use this concept of space to work differently, to be different?
Judith (10:53):
A good example is another client situation where I worked with Coach; I worked with Donna Karen. I was doing a lot of work with designers. And Coach was having trouble convincing the world that they were going to move from a pocketbook company that made brown bags, to a designer oriented company. I don’t know if you know . . . I guess it was at the beginning of 2000 or so, maybe a little bit before that . . . Coach was a spinoff from Pepperidge Farm or something like that. Anyway, they decided to change who they were. And they had to go around to different [companies], making presentations at Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s and all these places to convince them to take their pocketbooks, their handbags. And nobody wanted to do it.
So, I said: Well, tell me about what it's like when you get into the meeting? And they said: Well, usually there is a long table. And somebody from Coach sits here and somebody from Bloomingdale’s sits here. And then they kind of argue about why they shouldn't take the product. And everyone was like on repeat—people in different clothes, same script. And 41 of their sales reps had the same experience (which Mary Wong shared with me). And she was given two months to turn around Coach. So, I said: Let's see if we can prime the space. Let's see if we can do something to change the chemistry of what happens. I said: We’ll deconstruct it together.
First of all, if you have two people sitting at the heads of the table, you're activating the lower brain, you're activating the fight part of the brain, because that’s the head of the table, so you have two heads.
We have to do some things to change how we work together. So, let's create an agenda before we come in, so we both get a chance to think about it in advance and think about what we want to talk about.
This is priming the space (then priming the internal space, and then priming the physical space). And so, when we get into the room, instead of sitting at the heads (were you have two people butting heads), sit side-by-side; print out the agenda that you had come up with; say: That was such a great thing that you put on the agenda in advance; congratulating them in some small way, celebrating that you're on the same page. So, you’re doing things to pull them together. As soon as they changed that, we primed the space, they got the business!
Now, Coach is a hugely different company than it was when it was starting out. I worked with them for 10 years during that whole transformation with every division. Those are the kinds of things that we brought into the company and into leadership to understand how to change the external space, to change the internal space.
Lyn (13:46):
That’s beautiful! So Judith, I’m going to segue right now into supporting our audience and help them figure out how they can use this information.
Judith (13:57):
Thank you. Beautifully said.
Lyn (14:00):
So, lets figure out now together, how might you use this information if you know that you can prime the inner space (that’s your inner neurochemistry) to be better prepared for a conversation as well as being able to prime the outer space (the physical structure or the physical presence of space around you) when you're interacting with other people. So what I did is I interviewed five other coaches who have been certified in Conversational Intelligence® and ask them if they could give us some practical tools that you can use right now to prime your inner space and to prime the space around you for conversations.
Peter Yorio - Pay It Forward Leadership Coaching - peteryorio@gmail.com
Let's start with Peter Yorio. Peter is from Pay It Forward Leadership Coaching. Peter can also be directly emailed at peteryorio@gmail.com
What did Pete say? Well, he said first of all start meeting in neutral spaces. He also reminded us to regularly conduct our one-to-one meetings. Yes, if you have one-to-one meetings, hold those religiously. The ritual of holding those will create a space of comfort, of safety, of consistency. He also says be consistent about what you do, and when you do it. So, align your behaviors and your words. And finally, Peter says get input from everybody on the team. So, when you're seeking input, sit with your team, ask for their input and speak last. Thank you, Peter, these are great examples of how to prime the space for Conversational Intelligence®.
Debra Goldstein - Driven Professionals - Deb@drivenpros.com
The next coach I'm going to lean into is Debra Goldstein. Deborah is the founder and CEO of Driven Professionals. You can find her at Deb@drivenpros.com. Deborah says arrive early before a meeting. In the pre-meeting have small talk, which will provide you the opportunity to find common ground and connection with the people who are meeting. When you are holding a meeting, identify your intentions for the meeting. Ask yourself: What do I want to convey? How do I want others to feel during the meeting? What do I want to walk away from? This sort of preparation will help you prime the environment for your meeting. Finally, in terms of priming physical space, Deborah says raise your seat. Use the lever so that you are level with other people. Either raise it up or lower it so that you are at eye level with the other individuals in the meeting. Thank you, Deborah.
Paul Ruez - The Ruez Group - ptruiz@theruezgroup.ph
The next coach I interviewed was Paul Ruez. Paul is part of The Ruez Group in the Philippines. He's an executive coach practicing in Manila, to be exact, and he focuses on helping leaders in transition. You can find him at ptruiz@theruezgroup.ph. Paul has an interesting way of priming a space. When he primes for the space he creates with his clients, he does some inner priming. And what he does is he says a prayer. He was willing and transparent enough to share the prayer! He says: Dearest Lord, get me out of the way. He says this 10 to 15 minutes before he has his session.
So, there's one way to prime yourself before an engagement, to pray! Another thing that Paul says is that you can subtly move into a space that you have primed if you will mindfully build rapport with a person you're about to meet with. Go deeper than just small talk. Actually spend some time visualizing what the world looks like from the other person's lenses. And, before you ask questions, ask permission. So, the first step is what he calls imagination empathy, where you allow yourself to step inside the other person's world for a moment and then you ask permission to enter before you ask questions. Thanks Paul!
Deborah Naish - Naish Partners Executive Coaching - Debra@naishpartners.com
Some other tips on how to apply priming the space comes from Deborah Naish in California from Naish Partners Executive Coaching. You can find Deborah at Debra@naishpartners.com. What she says is you can prime for trust with other people by simply putting a smile on your face. A heartfelt smile while looking someone in the eye is a very easy way to open the space for trust. She also suggests to be interested in care. Find a personal connection by asking a few questions that let you know something about the other person's life. Finally, Deborah says be positive. Acknowledge something that person is doing or has done and show appreciation for what that person has done or who that person has been. You're just simply inviting connection. Thanks Debra.
Lisa Heart - Leadership career and transitions coach - Lisaheartconsulting.com
Our final bit of information comes from Lisa Heart in New York City. Lisa is a leadership career and transitions coach. You can find her at Lisaheartconsulting.com. And what she talks about is something that comes right from her home city, New York. She says when you're standing on a platform in the subway you have all kinds of signs and announcements that frequently remind you to mind the gap—meaning the space between the platform and the train. That's really important for those of us who have stood on those subway platforms. Life and death can be a matter of listening and adhering to this advice.
As Lisa writes, “The pace and the energy of the city means there are throngs of people who are listening to their own internal musings. When they're standing on the platform with other people, you want to tune into conversations with other people. You don't want to just be in your own head.“ So, what Lisa tells us is what neuroscience teaches—that our feelings, our perceptions, our beliefs and conclusions are a function of neurochemistry. They can leave us believing that what we've seen and what we've heard and what we thought are actually what occurred.
And knowing this is powerful because it allows us the possibility of figuring out that there might be something else that was seen, heard, or experienced. So, minding the gap in Lisa’s words reminds us that there's a reality gap between our experience and the other person. To mind that gap, to shift the gap to a space that fosters both people having the ability to have safety to express whatever they need to express, so that they can have a shared reality. Don't get lost in the gap between your internal reality and what's really going on out there in the minds and hearts of others.
To do this Lisa says before you enter a conversation, pause. Notice where you are, noticed your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own assumptions, and your own beliefs. She also asks us to be aware of our conclusions if we've drawn any. And noticed that, while they are yours, they may not be a shared reality or true for someone else. So, set them aside. Be curious. Ask questions for which you have no answer. Listen and build trust. This is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and co-creation. It’s the starting point for all intelligent conversations. Thank you Lisa, great advice!
If you found this advice from these five coaches useful, you'll probably want to go to the show notes of this episode and download the one-page worksheet we have with bulleted items and suggestions from not only these coaches but from myself and from Judith.
Lyn (22:11):
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®. If you like this episode, go out to iTunes and give us a rating or review. We really would appreciate it and it helps us spread the word about Conversational Intelligence®.
The research for this episode of What’s Your Conversational Intelligence® was completed by Judith E. Glaser and myself, Lyn Christian.
Editing and Sound by Jessica Draper. Logistics and scheduling by Shannon Dee and Anna Polak. What’s Your Conversational Intelligence® is a joint venture between Benchmark Communications and SoulSalt, Inc. If you’d like to connect with me, Lyn Christian, or have me speak or work with your group inquire at www.soulsalt.com. Special thanks in this episode to: Deborah Naish, Naish Partners Executive Coaching + Consulting, www.naishpartners.com
Resources
Davis research source:
KREITZER, Mary Jo R.N., Ph.D., ZBOROWSKY, Terri, Ph.D., EDAC, LARSON, Jean, Ph.D., CTRS, HTR. (2016) What Impact Does the Environment Have on Us?. Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing. University of Minnesota. https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/healing-environment/what- impact-does-environment-have-us
Outside the Box Thinking source:
LEUNG, Angela K.-Y., KIM, Suntae, POLMAN, Evan, ONG, Lay See, QIU, Lin, GONCOLA, Jack A., and SANCHEZ-BURKS, Je rey. (2012). Embodied Metaphors and Creative "Acts". Psychological Science, 23(5), 502-509. http://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1077
Hot and Cold Studies source:
HATHAWAY, Bill. (2008, Oct. 23). With Hot Coffee, We See a Warm Heart, Yale Researchers find. Yale News. https://news.yale.edu/2008/10/23/hot-coffee-we-see-warm-heart-yale- researchers-find
City Influences Entrepreneurial Spirit source:
CLIFTON, Jim and BADAL, Sangeeta Bharadwaj, Ph.D. (2014). Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder. New York, NY: Gallup Press. See pages 26–27