Chapter 2

Finding Common Ground with Your Audience

In This Chapter

Getting to know yourself

Figuring out others

Developing relationships

How often do you take the time to consider what matters to you and what motivates and drives you to achieve your goals? Likewise, how often do you take the time to consider what matters to others, including your clients and colleagues, as well as your partner and your family and friends. What motivates and drives each unique person you encounter to strive for her goals? If you’re anything like most of the people I know at work and in life outside the office, the answer to all these questions is, ‘Not often enough.’

Getting caught up in day-to-day tasks and obligations can easily lead you to forget to take the time to think about yourself. Furthermore, you need to see the people around you as individuals – not just as means to an end. If you want to persuade people, you need to know what matters to you, what matters to them and how you can put the two together.

An ancient Chinese proverb states that if you don’t know yourself or your enemy, you always lose the battle. It goes on to say that if you do know yourself and your enemy, you always win. While ‘enemy’ may be too harsh a word in the context of getting to know the audience you want to persuade or influence, the principle still applies. The more you know about yourself and the people you want to persuade, the better your chances of convincing them that your way is the way to go.

In this chapter I take you through the process of self-reflection, understanding others and building relationships – all with the goal of helping you to better reach mutually satisfying outcomes.

Considering Yourself

Understanding and knowing yourself means various things to different people. Self-knowledge includes knowing:

What you want in your life

What your strengths and weaknesses are

What motivates you and brings you peace

What you want to change about yourself or about your life

What you have achieved so far

How you prefer to relate to others

What your most important values and beliefs are

How you view yourself

The best leaders have a high degree of self-awareness. They take the time to know themselves, including what matters to them, what motivates them and what holds them back. On 9/11 and the days that followed, Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, dealt with unimaginable demands including encouraging the workers at the disaster site and consoling the bereaved. In addition, he was fighting his own private battle with prostate cancer. In his book, Leadership (Miramax Books), Giuliani says that in spite of sharing the grief of those who looked to him for hope, he couldn’t let his emotions override his duty to serve the people who elected him. Oprah Winfrey is self-aware enough to recognise that by revealing her personal story, taking risks and getting attention she can influence others and make big things happen, whether it’s building a school for girls in South Africa or creating one of America’s most successful and longest running television programmes. She also knew that after 25 years of hosting her show it was time to call it a day to focus on new ventures. Both Winfrey and Giuliani know the value of self-awareness when it comes to making the right choices at the right time.

My American Journey by General Colin Powell (Ballantine Books) and Leadership Lessons from West Point by Jim Collins and Major Doug Crandall (Jossey Bass) are filled with insightful and inspirational anecdotes highlighting the value of self-awareness. For a funny, profound and enlightening tale of self-awareness pick up a copy Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love (Bloomsbury) or see the film.

The following sections cover a bevy of tools and techniques that can help you dig deeper into yourself – and, in the process, hopefully discover new, powerful truths.

Looking in the mirror

Much of your awareness of your thinking, reactions and behaviours is subconscious. While you may notice that you’re in a good, bad or mediocre mood, unless you’re already well-versed in self-awareness, chances are slim that you know the root cause of your attitude and feelings – and, even more importantly, what to do about them.

By taking the time and making the effort to know yourself, you’re able to observe and reflect on how your thoughts, words and reactions impact on you as well as on others. When you grasp the effect of your behaviour, you’re able to do something about it, including doing more or less of something, or making alternative choices.

The more you grasp what is true for you – your values, attitudes and points of view – the more you’re able to grasp the impact of your thoughts, words and behaviours on others. Truth can be tricky to define. While there are objective truths – the sun rises in the East and sets in the West; you need nourishment to survive – there are subjective truths that come from your personal beliefs and experiences. What’s true for you may not be true for your neighbour. That’s okay as long as you and she respect one another’s right have your own personal truths and take them into account when you’re negotiating property lines, noise pollution or the best day to hold the village picnic.

Listen to your inner voice to get in touch with yourself. What you say (and don’t say) during your internal dialogues helps you understand what your body, mind and soul are experiencing and communicating. When you combine listening to yourself with self-reflection – taking the time to figure out who you are and what makes you tick – your self-awareness increases, enabling you to make more judicious decisions than if you were shooting in the dark. Investing time in self-reflection, recognising your core values – those things that are most important to you – helps you clarify what you want to be, do and have in your life, including how you want to feel and behave. Self-reflection allows you to identify your traits and monitor your interactions with others. Self-reflection isn’t easy, and you may find out things about yourself that you don’t like. Stick with it. The more time you spend digging deep while considering who you are, the more you understand yourself. The more you understand yourself, the more you can direct and control your behaviour and create positive, productive relationships.

Numerous instruments and tools can help you find out more about yourself. The Internet abounds with an array of tests, tools and tips to guide you on your journey to self-discovery. These include:

Personality questionnaires to help uncover your personality type and current mindset

Aptitude and ability tests designed to assess your logical reasoning or thinking performance

Feedback appraisals to help employees recognise their strengths and weaknesses and become more effective

While you can utilise these tests and evaluations on your own, you gain the greatest benefit when you work with a qualified administrator, coach or counsellor who understands the implications and can explain the findings in a positive, productive way. Whoever interprets the information is there to help you recognise your behaviours and how others may view you. You must trust the person you choose to work with because of the personal nature of the findings, so interview several professionals before making your final decision. If you decide to go down the route of working with a professional to learn more about yourself, expect to pay her for her expertise.

In the workplace, it is common for the human resources and learning and development departments to administer tests and surveys to measure skills and effectiveness. If you want to find out more about yourself and haven’t been offered an assessment, ask for one.

To help you gain an understanding of who you are, write ten honest endings to the phrase ‘I am . . .’ by filling in the blank with a phrase that sums up your current view of yourself and shows how your behaviour supports this view. If you want, you may replace the word ‘am’ with ‘feel’. For example, you might say, ‘I am positive and outgoing, and demonstrate this by the way I take on challenges and show interest in other people’ or ‘I feel anxious about what’s coming next in my life and show this in my hesitancy to begin projects and my reticence to engage with others.’ Although you don’t have to, you may want to share your responses with a trusted friend or colleague who will listen without judging or refuting what you say. While you may feel comfortable doing this exercise with your partner, you may want to pick someone more neutral to avoid any possible conflict or argument about what you reveal.

Making the case for self-awareness

All this talk of spending time with yourself may sound selfish, but it’s not. If you don’t look after yourself and come to know who you are, no one else will bother either.

People who lack self-understanding, including understanding the reasons why they think, feel and behave in the ways they do, are doomed to a Groundhog Day way of life. Over and over again, they make the same mistakes, creating the same results.

When you harness your self-awareness – and in the process get out of a seemingly unending loop of disappointments – you also:

Enhance your decision-making process. No longer confined to subjective reasoning – in which you view issues based strictly on your personal beliefs, ideals and opinions – you can stand outside of yourself and look at situations from an objective point of view. The benefit of considering people, events and issues objectively is that your decisions are uninfluenced by your personal opinions, emotions or prejudices. You make your decisions based on real facts not conjecture. When you detach yourself personally from the issues and consider them from the other person’s viewpoint, you gain a wider perspective that leads to fairer decisions. Fair decisions tend to be rooted in ethical behaviour, which you can read about in Chapter 5.

Get better results within your relationships. Other people – including your friends, family, colleagues and staff – appreciate your willingness to share the real you, which enhances your interactions. Knowing who you are frees your energy, so you’re more open to understanding others.

Communicate more effectively. By cutting to the core of the subject under discussion, you’re able to share information with openness, honesty and integrity. (Flip to Chapter 5 to find out more about integrity and persuasion.) You’re also more open to understanding your listeners’ concerns, allowing you to better tailor your message to address their needs. You can find out more about tailoring your message in Chapter 12.

Increase your prospects for career progression. Demonstrating self-knowledge requires maturity and a willingness to dig deep to get to the important stuff. In addition to discovering what makes you good at what you do, you may discover what holds you back from achieving your goals. By identifying negative beliefs that drive destructive behaviour, you can change your approach to one that brings you prosperity, peace and happiness, both in your working life and in your life with friends, family and acquaintances. The more you know about yourself, the more likely your life is to flourish, both at home and in the office.

Instead of thinking of this process of self-discovery as navel-gazing, actively embrace the opportunity to go deeper into truly understanding yourself. The worst that can happen is that you become a more effective leader and, as a result, your business success increases. For those of you who don’t work outside the home for pay, self-awareness can lead to personal contentment and productive relationships in your daily interactions with others.

Looking through the Johari Window

In 1955, the American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham developed a simple and useful model to demonstrate and enhance self-awareness and mutual understanding between individuals and groups. They named their model Johari, a blend of their first names.

It continues to be relevant and valuable for personal and group development, including for improving communication and developing relationships, because of its emphasis on behaviour, empathy and cooperation. For more information about the power of empathy when influencing others, see Chapter 3.

If you think of a four-square grid, like a window with four panes, you can visualise the concept of the Johari Window. The horizontal axis represents the individual, including what she knows and doesn’t know about herself. The vertical axis represents others and what they know and don’t know about the individual.

Over the years, users of the Johari Window have adapted its terminology, particularly when describing the four regions. You may come across different names for the four quadrants shown in Figure 2-1, but the meaning of each region is similar to what I describe in the following sections.

The process of self-disclosure and seeking feedback can be filled with landmines. Be aware of your own limits and sensitivities. The extent and depth that you want to go into in understanding yourself must always be your own choice and not foisted upon you by someone whose intentions may be good but whose ability is lacking, or someone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart, because you may discover traits, feelings and characteristics you’re unable to cope with on your own. If you find that you’re in over your head, seek advice from a trusted advisor, colleague or professional who has experience in providing feedback. And if you want to bow out of a situation or conversation graciously, say something along the lines of, ‘Thank you for your interest and concern. I’d like to take away what you pointed out and think about it in my own time.’

Quadrant 1: Open area

In this space you find information about you that both you and others know. Examples can include your eye colour, your knowledge level, and your feelings and emotions.

The more open you can be with others about who you are, the more effective and productive both you and the people you work, play and live with can become. When your Quadrant 1 is brimming with information, and good communication and cooperation occur, you are much less likely to experience distraction, mistrust, conflict or misunderstanding.

If you know someone well, this area is probably fairly large and well-developed. If you don’t know her well, the space is probably smaller and filled with fewer details. Don’t be hard on yourself about the size of a Quadrant 1; if it’s small, you probably just haven’t had time to get to know one another.

In order to expand your Quadrant 1 you need to:

Explore your blind spot (see the following section), which expands the quadrant horizontally. Solicit feedback and actively listen to it. See Chapter 7 for more on active listening, and Chapter 5 for more on feedback.

Disclose information about yourself, which expands this area vertically. Answer questions posed to you by others or offer relevant information on your own.

Quadrant 2: Blind spot

This space encompasses information that others know about, but that you don’t know yourself.

For example, you may have annoying habits – like interrupting, judging or criticising – that you don’t realise. You may be blind to the fact that you consistently push your own agenda and fail to consider how your words and actions affect other people and their feelings.

You can decrease the size of this area and increase your open area by soliciting feedback from others and taking on board what they say. You want to reduce the size of your blind spot as much as you can because this is neither an effective nor a productive place to hang out.

When you’re in your blind spot, you’re ignorant about yourself and are possibly deluded about particular issues. Others may purposely withhold information from you, either because they don’t want to hurt your feelings or they want to sabotage your career. By keeping you in the dark – restricting access to data and decisions or conveying incomplete, inaccurate or exaggerated information – someone can contribute to your lack of knowledge about what’s going on with you, your career or your relationships. Whether you’re blind at work or in personal relationships, being unaware of what’s going on is a hard place in which to create productive relationships.

Phillipa was happy in her marriage and thought it was strong. She and her husband, Stewart, are financially well off, share common interests, have four healthy children, two homes and an active social life. When one of her friends intimated that Stewart was having a long-term affair with a mutual acquaintance, Phillipa was devastated. Furious with her friend for destroying her picture of reality by planting doubt in her mind, she confronted Stewart and the other woman. They both admitted the affair, saying that it was just physical, they had no intention of breaking up their marriages, and they thought that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Phillipa’s marriage is in tatters, her friendship with the person who told her about the affair is strained, and Phillipa’s belief in the sanctity of marriage has been severely tested.

Quadrant 3: Hidden area

In this area you know things about yourself, but you keep them hidden from others. Information you keep here may include fears, feelings, hidden agendas, secrets, sensitivities – anything you know about yourself that you choose not to reveal.

Keeping certain personal and private information under wraps is natural and even appropriate as long as the information has no bearing on the health, safety or productivity of others. However, if the information you’re keeping hidden can benefit others and enhance relationships, then I encourage you to disclose and expose it – in an appropriate amount and way, of course. Too much information is of little use to anyone and can feel like a self-serving information dump with little or no benefit for the listener.

The less you hide about yourself, the more chance you have of finding common ground with others, developing rapport (see the ‘Building Rapport’ section later in this chapter) and creating understanding, cooperation and trust. In addition, as you reveal yourself to others, you reduce the potential for misunderstanding, poor communication and conflict, all of which undermine the possibility of building rapport and finding common ground.

The amount you choose to share about yourself must always be at your own discretion. Pace your disclosure and reveal only as much as you’re comfortable sharing. In addition, consider the other person and how much she can handle at the time. For example, if you tell someone something really personal about yourself – like details of a recent indiscretion – too early in your relationship, you could put the other person off you forever.

While you may feel comfortable disclosing personal information about yourself, others may be less keen or able. When it comes to finding out about others, don’t push someone to reveal herself until she’s ready. You may appear nosy instead of simply interested.

Quadrant 4: Unknown area

In this quadrant, no one knows anything about you – not others, not you yourself. The issues tucked inside here take a variety of forms, including:

Underestimated or untried abilities, as a result of lack of opportunity or trust

Unrealised natural abilities or aptitudes

Unknown fears or aversions

Unknown illnesses

Repressed or subconscious feelings

This information can be deep down inside you or right up at the surface influencing your actions and behaviour. People who lack experience or struggle to believe in themselves tend to have fairly large Quadrant 4s.

If your Quadrant 4 is larger than you’d like, you can reduce it by making a conscious effort. Go on a journey of self-discovery through soliciting feedback from others, trying out new behaviours or working with a coach or a counsellor. If you do decide to seek the support of others, make sure they’re credible and experienced if they are providing support. Make sure you trust the person to be sensitive and discreet, because you may uncover issues that leave you feeling vulnerable. Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up if something previously unknown and unanticipated suddenly appears. Getting to know yourself is a journey and, like all journeys, some parts are fun and easy, while other parts are more challenging. It’s how you manage the journey that shows who you really are.

Identifying your values

In the simplest terms, what you value is what’s important to you. Values drive your behaviour, and they can stop you in your tracks. Your values affect your choices, regardless of whether you’re conscious of your standards or not. From your selection of friends, to the jobs you take, to the purchases you make, your values drive your decisions.

Your values motivate you to behave in one way while prohibiting you from behaving in another. For example, if, while working late, you find a folder at reception with your boss’s name on it, marked ‘private and confidential’, you may be sorely tempted to look through it. But if you value honesty, trustworthiness and integrity, these principles will probably keep you from taking a quick peek or having a good long read-through, no matter how tempting the contents may be.

Regardless of the role you’re playing in your working life – boss, client, colleague or subordinate – or in your private life – partner, parent, friend or customer – your core values remain the same. Some values change across different contexts, but your core values stay with you no matter what. For example, when you get your first job, you may value money and status. Once you have a family, you may value work–life balance more than the balance in your bank account.

Values determine your priorities and serve as a measure for how well your life is turning out. When the choices you make match your values, life is usually pretty good. When your choices don’t align with your values, that’s when things go wrong. Outside influences such as your culture, family and life experiences establish these essential foundational principles at different stages in your life, determining what matters to you.

Examples of core values include:

Service to others

Self-control

Dependability

Tolerance

Order

Curiosity

Accountability

Being the best

Happiness

Love

In addition to core values, you have secondary values that are important to you in some contexts but are less important in others. For example, you may value feeling loved in your life away from the office, while at work you value achievement; in fact, you may not even consider love in the context of work. Then you find someone to share your life with, and possibly have a family. While one of your core values is love and you’re working 70-hour weeks, you may find that career achievements take second place to family as internal stress and conflicts rise.

When you define your values you discover what really matters to you, and by understanding your values and priorities you can determine how best to live your life.

When you live by your values, you feel at peace. You’re confident, constructive and in control. When you compromise your values, you feel uncomfortable and uncertain – as if you’re living a lie. Knowing what matters to you and living by those values makes living with yourself easier and provides a platform for further understanding who you are.

Understanding who you are and what makes you tick can provide direction in your life. Use the following activity to discover your core values:

1. Read over the entire list of values that appears in Table 2-1.

This is merely my partial list of values. You may have other values that I don’t list in the table, so feel free to include any words that are appropriate to you in the blank spaces in the table.

2. Identify which values are most important to you in your life right now.

Choose the values that jump out and feel absolutely integral to who you are. Circle these values or highlight them with a marker.

At this point, choose as many words as you want. You’re looking for values that are important to you here and now that can serve as a common point for understanding yourself.

3. Review your selected values and group together the ones that are similar.

For example, you may group enthusiasm and exuberance together as one larger concept.

4. Indicate with an A the values that are absolutely fundamental to your life, and with a B the ones that are nice to have.

5. Look over your A-category values and choose your top five most important values – the ones that you simply can’t live without.

If you’re struggling to figure out your top five values, pretend that you’re on a lifeboat that’s sprung a leak and taking on water fast. Because of the weight of your values, you can only take five with you unless you want to go under!

Working down to your top values may take some time and effort. Don’t worry if you feel conflicted as you weigh the relative importance of two values. You’re getting deeper into your heart and mind now.

6. Reaffirm your values. Make sure your values fit with your life and your vision for yourself. Ask yourself the following questions to help you confirm your choices:

• Do these values make me feel good about myself?

• Am I proud of my top five values?

• Do I feel comfortable and proud to tell my values to people I respect and admire?

• Do these values represent issues and causes I’d support, even if my choices aren’t popular and put me in the minority?

7. Write your five selected values on a separate sheet of paper and list your reasons for choosing each.

For example, fun is one of my values, both inside and outside the office. Everything I do needs to include an element of fun, or I have little reason to invest my energy in doing it. Another value of mine is making a difference, because I feel I’m privileged in my life and want to give back to others.

8. Share your results. Whether you choose to write your values on a sheet of paper and tack it to your refrigerator, bathroom mirror or workspace, carry them with you in your wallet, or share them with someone you trust, make your values public. Work through your values on your own and then share them with someone you trust.

Personally, I’ve found this type of activity useful to go through individually and then share with a partner/spouse or a good friend. Discussing your results and listening to another person’s can solidify your choices as well as open your eyes to where another person is coming from.

Noting your beliefs

Beliefs are the foundation of all you say and do. They impact on your values and attitudes and are reflected in your behaviour.

Beliefs aren’t true in the sense that you can scientifically prove them. However, they are what you believe to be true for you. Even more importantly, beliefs direct behaviour, as Figure 2-2 shows. Some beliefs are empowering, while others limit your possibilities.

When people’s values or beliefs are diametrically opposed to yours, you may struggle to connect. In order to persuade others, you don’t have to share their beliefs. But you do need to acknowledge their beliefs are core to who they are and they have the right to believe what they do – just as you do.

Spotting your attitudes

If you were to sum yourself up in a word or two, which would you choose? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Open-minded? Tight as a turtle? Being aware of your attitudes, moods and points of view goes a long way in understanding yourself and finding common ground with others.

If both you and the person you want to get to know are open-minded optimists, you’re going to have a relatively easy – and perhaps even uplifting – time finding common ground. The same goes if you are both pessimists and worriers. While pessimism may be a dreary place to hang out, knowing that you share common attitudes can still feel comforting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.’ When you’re seeking to establish common ground with people whose attitudes are different from yours, keep listening and show you’re interested in understanding where they’re coming from. You don’t have to agree with or even like their attitudes in order to understand. The more you show other people that you value their right to hold their own attitudes, the more they’re going to open up to you, giving you information that will serve you when the time comes to persuade them to see things from your point of view. Who knows, you may even be able to change their attitudes, depending on how well you listen, absorb and reflect back what you hear! The point isn’t about who’s right and who’s wrong, the point is about figuring out how people’s attitudes make sense to them. You don’t have to share similar attitudes to everything to make a connection.

Fred is a right-wing Republican and Len is a left-wing Democrat. In terms of political preferences and beliefs, their attitudes couldn’t be more different. During their discussions over the strengths and weaknesses of social and fiscal policies, they found common ground in their attitudes towards family and the right to make informed decisions. While their attitudes towards many issues are different, through conscientious effort they managed to find common ground upon which they’ve been able to build a friendship.

Your attitudes are based on a combination of beliefs, values and life experiences. Your attitudes are your established way of responding to people and situations. In other words, your attitudes drive your behaviour.

Although values and beliefs are tightly interwoven – both share the idea of individual choice and are used to guide your actions and behaviour as well as forming your attitudes – you can distinguish distinct differences between the two concepts. Beliefs are personal convictions people hold to be true without actual proof or evidence, such as all people being (or not being) created equal. Beliefs are assumptions people make about the world and grow from what people see, hear, experience and think about. Values are concepts that people consider pure and inviolate; they are standards people turn to when defining what is moral, right and desirable, and serve as broad guidelines for behaviour.

Your body and mind – including your body language and your word choices – have a major impact on your attitude. See for yourself:

Stand up and slump into your hips. Let your head drop and your chest cave in. Say to yourself, ‘Life’s so tough. I’m a useless parent. I’ll never be able to finish this project. I’m no good at anything.’ How do you feel? Chances are your attitude’s tanking and heading for the basement.

Stand up and let your shoulder blades melt down your back. Open your chest and lift up from your waist as if you were filled with helium. Hold your head with your chin horizontal to the floor, feeling as if it’s floating on a clear, still lake. Connect with the floor beneath your feet – as if you had a tap root driving deep into the ground, making you strong yet resilient. Say to yourself, ‘Life’s full of challenges waiting for me to meet them. I am calm, capable and confident. I can succeed in whatever comes my way.’ Now check out your attitude. Feeling better?

Bottom line? Whatever you tell yourself is true for you, is true for you. As Henry Ford said, ‘Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.’

You reflect your personal truth in the way you hold your body, in the way you breathe and in the way you speak.

Choosing your attitudes

You always have a choice as to what attitudes you adopt – in fact, I can’t think of a single circumstance in which you don’t.

While I’m ashamed to admit this, I have experienced times when I, the eternal cock-eyed optimist, have said that someone or something made me feel angry, upset, worthless, insignificant or stupid. I know that other people and things do not make me feel a specific way, but still I fall into this trap when I’m tired, lacking in confidence or feeling out of control. It’s always my choice to respond as I do, and the same is true for you. No one makes you carry a particular attitude. The choice is yours.

No one’s telling you what attitude you should have, and if people are, they don’t have that right. If you feel angry about something that happened, that’s your choice. If you feel good about something someone said or did, that’s your choice, too.

Because you do have a choice about what attitudes you take, I suggest that you’re better off reacting in a constructive rather than a negative way. That way you can think and act positively – and live a long and healthy life.

In order to neutralise negative attitudes and develop more positive attitudes:

Surround yourself with people and messages that convey positive attitudes. You’re more at ease when you’re in a positive frame of mind.

When I get stressed out at work, I look at my pinboard filled with motivational quotes I’ve gathered that help spur me on. One of my favourites is by Dale Carnegie and says that you never see an unhappy horse or a bird with the blues, because they’re not trying to impress other horses and birds. Another comes from my late mother, who used to say, ‘I know that if I can laugh at it, I can live with it.’

Focus on the present. You can’t change what happened in the past, nor can you live your life in the future. All you can really affect is what’s happening right now. Observe your thoughts, feelings and everything around you here, now, in this present moment. Let go of any judgment about what you’re feeling, thinking and sensing. Just be aware of what’s happening. For more about the benefits of living in the present, read Mindfulness For Dummies by Shamash Alidina, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies by Rhena Branch and Rob Willson (Wiley).

Look forward to a positive future. Set yourself goals for what you really, truly want and direct your energies towards achieving them. As Buddha said, ‘What we think, we become.’ Create positive images for yourself, filled with motivational sensations including sounds, smells, feelings and colours. Feed your mind with positive messages and good stories to help you realise your goal, letting all your senses take part in fashioning the future you want for yourself. Make your vision of your future as clear and specific as you can and then take the necessary actions towards making your future become your reality.

Focus on the solution. Spending time fretting about a problem ties up your energy. Stop rehashing what went wrong and start thinking and talking about ideal solutions. While problems are negative, solutions are positive. For example, if you’re facing a task that you don’t know how to do, instead of focusing on all the mistakes you might make, break the task down into manageable steps and take action. Once you begin thinking and planning in terms of solutions, you become positive and constructive.

Look for the good and let go of the bad. You could start by taking a sheet of paper and dividing it into two columns. For a few days, jot down all the negative thoughts that come into your head in one of the columns, and in the other rewrite each thought in a positive way. For example, ‘I’ll never get this project finished by the end of the week’ could become ‘I’ll get most of the project finished by the end of the week.’ Tasks become a lot easier when you approach them with a positive attitude.

Look for the valuable lesson. Gain insight and learning from your experiences that you can apply in future events. While valuable lessons are aren’t always fun or easy in the short term, when you look at them with a long-term view, whatever bumps and bruises you encounter along the way take on a whole new meaning. Whatever lessons you learn, integrate them into your goals and plans for the future.

Think like successful people think. Successful people know that a positive mental attitude is their gateway to success. If you surround yourself with positivity, live in the present, plan for the future, focus on solutions, concentrate on the good, and apply valuable lessons, you will receive the rewards that come with a positive mental attitude.

If going for a positive mental attitude currently feels like a step too far, just aim to neutralise your negative attitudes. Doing this is just as good a goal as going for gold. By getting rid of the toxic relentless negativity in your life, you may find you actually deserve happiness and feel-good feelings.

Recognising your drivers

Your alarm rings. You open your eyes. You need to begin your day. But what specifically moves you to get up and out of bed each morning?

Motivation relates to an internal process that propels people to do what they do. Webster’s Dictionary defines motivation as ‘the psychological feature that arouses and organism to action’ and ‘the reason for action’. Robert Dilts, one of the most creative trainers and authors in the world of neuro-linguistic programming, cites needs and desires as internal motivators, and incentives, rewards and reinforcement as external motivators. Sigmund Freud postulates that motivation is ‘the pleasure principle’, in which people seek pleasure and avoid pain, while Aristotle proposes that motivation is, in part, the result of an ‘appetite’ that gets a person pursuing a desired outcome. In its simplest terms, I see motivation as ‘a call to action’ that gets a person moving from point A to point B.

Some people want to get away from where they are. Others want to go someplace else. And then there are those who are happy to stay put. Depending on what drives you to do the things you do, you find yourself being pushed, pulled or simply stuck in the middle.

Figuring out what drives you to do the things you do helps you understand yourself. When you’re open to understanding yourself, you’re likely to be open to understanding others. Recognising your drivers helps you figure out what leads you to your goals, which can include finding common ground with others or influencing their beliefs and behaviours. See Chapters 1 and 12 for more on goals.

As I say earlier in this section, concepts and theories about motivation abound. Some say that people are driven by their interest in or enjoyment of a task itself, and that these drivers exist within you – like being motivated by a sense of achievement. Others say that motivation comes from external factors like tangible rewards or the threat of punishment. Still other theories say that people are pushed away from behaving in particular ways while others are attracted to, or pulled towards, their goals.

I say that people are motivated by different drivers at different points in their lives, depending on what they need at the time. When you make the effort to notice your own – and others’ – needs, desires and concerns, you can pick the best driver for the job. If you want to gain further insight into motivational theories, you can start with Neuro-Linguistic Programming For Dummies by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies by Rhena Branch and Rob Willson (Wiley).

To get to know what drives you, begin by exploring motivational theories. While there are countless websites devoted to the subject of motivation, I particularly like www.businessballs.com, where you can explore the theories of numerous highly respected social psychologists in one place, including Abraham Maslow, whose Hierarchy of Needs I look at later in this chapter. Search the Internet for inspirational and motivational quotes. Finally, spend some time reflecting on what you enjoy and what you’re good at. Earlier in this chapter I explore the value of self-reflection and how you can benefit by getting to know who you are. As Mark Twain said, ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.’

Understanding Others

Knowing what ring other people’s bells, float their boats and get them out of bed in the morning is invaluable when you want to influence their outlooks and behaviours. Appreciating their values, recognising their attitudes and being familiar with their fears, follies and fantasies helps you move them from A to B.

You’re educated and experienced enough to know that everyone views the world differently based on individual values, beliefs and past events. Even though you may share similar attitudes and experiences, your unique point of view (see the preceding section) means that your interpretation of events and impressions of people are going to differ from others’. Indeed, personal perspectives are like fingerprints: no two are the same.

Yet in spite of knowing that no two people are alike and that people are entitled to their own opinions, don’t be surprised if you occasionally forget and communicate via your own perspective, leaving the listener wondering what you’re talking about. If the person you’re speaking with looks at you quizzically, stop and ask whether you’re making sense to her. Pay special attention to her body language, which tells you more than the words she says. You can read about body language in Chapter 13.

When you know how someone views her life experiences, you’re more able to find common ground with her than if you spend your time wondering, judging or surmising. Of course, understanding another person and her perspective takes time. But in the end, the results you can produce are well worth your effort.

When you’re seeking to understand someone, open your mind and remove all prejudices, biases and judgments. Listen actively to what the other person says, with the intention of understanding her regardless of the specific role you play in a relationship (see Chapter 7). By understanding other people, you have the key to finding common ground. And when you have common ground, you’re in a position to persuade them to accept your point of view.

Listening carefully and asking questions that show you’re genuinely interested in learning about the other person pays dividends. The more you’re able to establish rapport and build a relationship, the more able you are to persuade and influence that person. I give you some ways of establishing and working with rapport in the ‘Building Rapport’ section later in this chapter. If you want to know even more about rapport and relationship building, read Neuro-Linguistic Programming For Dummies by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton. Or pick up their Neuro-Linguistic Programming Workbook For Dummies, which features a host of exercises to help you improve your rapport-building skills.

Identifying their values

If you want to identify someone’s values, stop, look and listen – and then take the appropriate actions.

Use the words and phrases listed in Table 2-1 to help identify other people’s values as well as your own. Identify the items in the table that connect with how another person speaks and behaves, and use them to create a base from which to identify what matters to her.

Watching them

You can observe someone’s behaviour in order to identify her values. For example:

If she does what she says she’s going to do, if she turns up for meetings on time, if she uses words like ‘commitment’, ‘promise’ and ‘reliable’, you can work out that trustworthiness and dependability are two of her values.

If she uses phrases like ‘going with the flow’ and ‘following her feelings’, dresses in a casual way and has a collection of amusing objects in her office, you may be right in predicting that she values fun and creativity.

Before making any judgments or evaluations, always verify what you observe. Confirm your understanding by asking a few non-judgmental questions and gathering further corroborating evidence, or you may find yourself making incorrect assumptions and landing in awkward situations.

Pay attention to what people talk about as well as their word choices and the way they use their voices (see Chapter 14 for more on the impact of tone and word choice). Watching carefully and listening attentively without judging helps you identify what matters to them.

Asking quality questions

Whenever possible, ask people questions about themselves, their work and what matters to them. I realise this recommendation sounds simple, but for some reason many people don’t make the most of this straightforward technique. When you’re in a conversation, really listen to what the other person’s saying. Pick up on a point with a statement like, ‘That’s really interesting. Tell me more about that.’ Or show that you’ve been paying attention and are interested in what she’s saying by responding with, ‘So, do I understand you to mean that . . .?’ This questioning technique demonstrates that you care about the person and what she’s saying. For more about effective listening techniques turn to Chapter 7.

In order to move from the mundane ‘How are you?’ to the more meaningful ‘Who are you?’ you must practise the art of effective questioning. Open-ended questions – questions that begin with what, how, who, where and when – are much more effective than basic yes/no questions for eliciting detailed information and leading you to further conversation.

Begin the questioning process by asking a question of yourself: if you could wave a magic wand and find out everything you want to know about this other person, what would you want to know? Your answer can lead you to formulating effective, specific questions to ask the other person.

Spotting their attitudes

Like yawning, laughing and crying, attitudes are infectious. Before someone opens her mouth, you can tell by the way she positions her body what her attitude is. Is she slumped in her chair, her chin hanging on her chest and a blank look in her eyes? Is so, chances are something’s gone wrong. Conversely, if she’s bouncing in her seat, with twinkling eyes and a big grin across her face, you’re probably right in guessing that something really good is going on.

By observing body language, noticing the words people use and listening to their tone of voice, you can tell tons about others’ feelings, moods and emotions – all of which go into making up their attitudes. For detailed information about the power of body language for understanding people’s attitudes, turn to Chapter 13 or my book Body Language For Dummies (Wiley).

What happens to people tells you a little about them. How they react to what befalls them tells you much more – particularly what their attitudes are. Once you’ve spotted someone’s attitude, reflect back what you observe by mirroring and matching the behaviour. Once you’ve established common ground through the way you’re moving your body and speaking in synch with the person, stay in tune by pacing her. After she’s comfortable with the way you’re interacting, you can then lead her to where you want her to go. For more about mirroring, matching, pacing and leading, go to Chapters 13 and 14.

Recognising their drivers

When you can recognise what drives other people to do what they do, you’re well on your way to finding common ground with them. As I note in the ‘Recognising your drivers’ section, earlier in this chapter, various things motivate people, including recognition, achievement, fear of reprisals, pride, the ability to learn, freedom to do challenging work by themselves, security, power, self-actualisation, meaning, significance and self-esteem.

When you’re finding common ground with others, pay attention to what excites them. Listen to the way they speak and move. If their eyes are bright and wide open, their bodies are leaning forwards and they’re speaking quickly in higher tones than usual, you can be pretty sure what they’re talking about is revving their engines. Encourage them to talk about their aspirations, their likes and dislikes, their families, friends and interests. The more you can find out about what spurs people into action, the better positioned you are to influence their decisions and persuade them to go along with yours.

Ask people questions about their goals and aspirations to help you discover what drives them to take action. Some thought-provoking questions to find out about others in a friendly way include, ‘If your life was a novel, what would the title be and how would it end?’ ‘Which actor would you like to have play the story of your life?’ ‘If you could live your life over again what would you do differently?’ ‘If you could be anything you wanted to be, what would that be?’ In addition to asking others questions about themselves, be prepared to answer questions about yourself to build rapport. You can find out more about how to build rapport later in this chapter.

Building Rapport

Rapport is about making a two-way connection between people. It is the foundation for any relationship. When it comes to building rapport, size doesn’t matter. You can develop rapport on a one-to-one basis or with a group of thousands. Great leaders understand the value of rapport in persuading people to adopt their suggestions and in directing their behaviours.

The word itself comes from the French verb rapporter, which means ‘to return or bring back’.

Without rapport, you have little chance of successful communication – and without successful communication, you have no chance of persuading the other person.

In neuro-linguistic programming terms, rapport in its highest form is a state of affinity with yourself as well as between you and another person. When you’re in a state of rapport, you’re able to create feelings of trust and understanding.

When you’re in rapport with another person, both parties share a sense of trust, harmony and understanding. You’re on the same wavelength mentally and emotionally, joining another person where she is rather than forcing her to go where you want her to be.

When you demonstrate that you accept another person’s point of view, where she’s coming from and how she communicates, the way is clear for you to influence her.

Of course, you want to take other people to some place other than where they are, if where they are isn’t where you want them to be. But rather than shoving, pushing and pressing them into submission, you can build on your rapport to gently pace and then lead them to your new frontier, as I discuss in the later ‘Pacing and leading’ section.

Follow these principles to establish rapport:

Seek connection. Get to know the other person. Take a genuine interest in her. Find out who she is and where she comes from. Uncover what she enjoys doing at work and at play. The more you know about someone – including background, attitudes and values – the more points you have for finding where you connect. See Chapter 3 for more on how to connect with another person at an emotional level.

Reflect back what you observe. Notice how she breathes and match your pattern to hers. Pick up on the key words and favourite phrases she uses in her conversation and subtly build these into your own. Pay attention to the way she likes to handle information. Is she a detail person or does she talk about the big picture? When you speak, replicate her patterns in yours. Adopt a similar stance to hers in your gestures, expressions and postures.

Give her the benefit of the doubt. Believe that whatever she intends to convey is for the good, even if her words and actions may not always seem to support this belief. By treating her as if her heart was in the right place, you’re more likely to establish rapport than if you don’t.

Treat the other person’s resources with respect. Time, energy, favourite people and money are important to people.

Stay in the flow. Rapport is a process not a state. You may fall in and out of rapport several times during the course of a conversation or meeting. Indeed, you may want to break rapport at certain times such as when you have a task to complete, need to speak with someone else, or just want to end the conversation. But like switching on and off a light, you can reconnect whenever you need or want to.

There may be times when you want to break rapport, such as when you need to bring a conversation to a close. At those times, instead of matching your behaviour to the other person’s, create a mismatch by subtly reversing the nonverbal behaviours that led to achieving rapport. You can do this by breaking eye contact, slowly turning your body away from the other person, moving your body. If you’re still having difficulty breaking rapport, tell the other person you’re sorry but you have to end the conversation. That’s bound to do the trick!

When you’re building rapport with someone, you’re creating similarities between yourself and the other person. A simple mantra you can recite to yourself as you develop and utilise your rapport skill is ‘Build similarities, diminish differences.’

Mirroring and matching

When two people are in rapport with one another, it’s as if they’re dancing, moving as one. You don’t even need to hear what they’re saying to know that they’re in unison, with their energy flowing elegantly from one to the other and back again. When people are in this state of rapport, they’re mirroring and matching one another’s behaviour and attitude.

When you mirror and match someone, you become highly tuned into thoughts, feelings and how the other person experiences the world. You may feel as if you’re listening with every fibre of your body. When you’re in rapport with another person, simple mirroring happens naturally. If you find that you’re struggling to build rapport, you can deliberately mirror and match someone until the rapport becomes natural. Chapter 14 covers everything you need to begin matching vocal tones, breathing rates, energy levels and body movements and postures.

Pick someone you want to build rapport with. As the two of you converse, notice how the other person’s breathing rate and speech patterns reflect each other. For example, if she’s speaking quickly, her breathing rate is likely to be quick as well. After a minute or two of observation, begin to subtly match the way the other person speaks and breathes. (You never want to seem as if you’re disrespectfully mimicking the other person.)

Practise mirroring the behaviours of people you see while watching television. Not only can you practise in the privacy of your own home, but the other person never knows what you’re trying to do! Chat shows and interviews are ideal programmes for this exercise.

When it comes to building rapport, you want to match the way someone speaks as well as the words she says. For more about speaking in a way that your listener can relate to, turn to Chapter 10.

Pacing and leading

When you’re finding common ground with other people and building relationships, get into their rhythms by pacing them first – with the goal of eventually persuading them to accept your point of view.

Pacing is when you listen attentively to another person with the intention of understanding what’s going on for her. You really listen. You acknowledge someone for who and where that person is, right now.

Think of pacing as running alongside a train that you want to be on. If you tried to jump straight onto the train from a standing position, you’d most likely get whacked by the moving carriages and never stand a chance of catching the train. Another choice is to run alongside the moving train until you’re moving at the same speed, and then jump on. (Please do not attempt this example, because the consequences can be most unfortunate!)

When you’re pacing, you’re demonstrating patience, flexibility and respect. You’re picking up and matching other people’s behaviours and vocabulary (see the preceding ‘Mirroring and matching’ section), while actively listening for the values, moods and attitudes that lie behind the data and details they’re telling you.

Pacing to lead is a gradual process and requires patience. While pacing is great for establishing rapport, if all you did was pace someone, you both might be breathing in the same rhythm, matching one another’s speaking patterns and moving in harmony, but nothing much beyond that would happen. If you want to change someone’s point of view – if you want to lead her to new ways of seeing things or behaving – you have to slowly change what you’re doing to get the other person to follow.

You can think of pacing and leading like the martial art aikido. When a person attacks you, rather than returning the attack with a similar force, you incorporate your attacker’s energy into yours and move in synch with her energy. Then you can take the lead. While the concept of attacking may be counter-intuitive to building rapport, the image of going with the energy flow and turning it around to take the lead is an elegant explanation of pacing and leading.

St Francis of Assisi spoke of seeking to understand before being understood. When you want to persuade someone to see your point of view, seek to understand how she sees her world first before taking her into yours. In other words, pace then lead.

I recently attended a conference where I experienced a clear example of pacing and leading. The programme organiser came onto the stage and said, ‘It’s Tuesday morning, 8 a.m. You’re all here because you accepted the invitation to come, and you may be wondering what’s going to happen over the next two days. We’re all here for the same reason: to connect with our colleagues, learn about our goals for the coming year, and celebrate our successes. I know you want to meet – if not exceed – your targets, and I know you’re interested in finding out how we’re going to do that.’ If you look at what the organiser said, you can see how she paced the group by meeting their reality: it was Tuesday morning, 8 a.m., and they were all there for the same reasons. Once she had paced the group, she then began leading them by indicating where she wanted them to go: ‘you may be wondering what’s going to happen . . .’ and ‘I know you want to . . .’ By pacing first she built rapport, which then enabled her to lead her listeners to a new point of view.

When you’re leading, you go from pacing the other person to guiding her to see a different point of view.

No one wants to be led to a new way of thinking until she has first been paced – listened to and acknowledged. If you want to be a persuasive persuader or an influential influencer, pace the other person’s reality – how she currently views the world – before leading her to your point of view.

If you want to experience pacing and leading, start off with a friend or trusted colleague. Begin by making verifiably true statements about where you currently are. For instance, you could say, ‘So, here we are. It’s Monday morning, 8 a.m. – the start of another week. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and the kettle’s boiling.’ Continue until you have made at least ten statements. She may make confirming noises like ‘Um hum,’ or ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Note your friend’s body language and reflect it back in yours. Approximate her breathing and speaking patterns as well as her body language. When you’re ready to lead, slightly shift your body position and make a subtle change in your voice and breathing patterns. Say something like, ‘I know you want to make a difference in how we work together and are wondering how you can do that.’ By making this slight alteration in your pattern, having first established rapport through pacing, your friend should be ready to move along with you. If you observe resistance, go back to pacing her, reflecting what you observe in her behaviour and words. You might say something like, ‘I thought I heard a little hesitation in your voice. Am I right?’ If she agrees, let her take the lead in the conversation, matching and pacing her until rapport has been re-established, and then try leading her again.