CHAPTER 5
Go Ahead, Trip Over
Your Own Perfectionism
Up until now the discussion was all about intention—understanding it, creating it, and keeping it. In cultivating executive presence, intention is your aim. It creates the basis from which everything else follows. By practicing intentionality, your presence will benefit immensely, even if you do nothing else. But if you want to build the kind of compelling presence that draws others to you, then you need not just intention, but connection.
The second part of I-Presence is about individual connections—how we bring people closer to us, invite them in, and build trust. If intention is your aim, then individual connections are your target. In the workplace, strong connections make us more productive employees, better coworkers, and motivating leaders. Connections provide us with influence, a critical art that has reached must-have status in a marketplace where the old rules don’t always apply. Once upon a time, when you wanted to win someone over you’d do it informally; you’d walk down the hall for a friendly chat or catch up at happy hour. But when your colleagues are scattered across the country (or around the world), that becomes considerably harder to pull off. Furthermore, workflow has broken free from the boundaries of strict hierarchies, with many projects getting done through a web of matrices that require relational influence and personal connection.
Connections are tricky: We must wait for an invitation to connect to someone. Access to others is granted, not automatically conferred. Sheer will or endurance doesn’t work here (in fact, it usually has the opposite effect). We can spot someone pushing too hard from a mile away.
Access to others is granted, not automatically conferred.
For leaders, and in particular those new to leadership positions, it is a frustrating experience to learn that your title only gets you obedience (if you’re lucky). Winning over hearts and minds requires a nuanced approach of making yourself someone others want to trust and follow.
You may already be a natural at building close relationships. You may be someone who easily makes friends, both inside and outside the workplace. Perhaps you work in sales and relationship building is a critical success factor that you’ve mastered for your job. If that’s the case, you may wonder why I’ve even included a chapter on this topic. It’s because for many others, it’s not so cut-and-dried. And connections built around work and management are especially tricky. In the course of my work, I often hear people discuss the challenge of making individual connection. For example:
“As the leader, I’m close to some people on my team but can’t seem to get through to others.”
“I’m not sure how much people buy into my vision.”
“I don’t know how to play the political game at the office. It’s hard to figure out whom to trust.”
“I have some good relationships in my immediate work group, but no one else here knows me very well.”
“I tolerate my boss/colleague/client, but I don’t like her.”
“I have a full life outside of work, but I keep it totally separate.”
“My client often goes around me to someone more senior.”
“I’ve tried everything to get him to improve his performance, but I can’t seem to make a difference.”
Rather than present a strict program of must-do practices, I’m going to explore how we make connections authentically and suggest some avenues that should feel natural and right to you. The exercises in this chapter and throughout Part 2 can help you determine if there’s “static” in your connections to others so that you can get clearer communications all around. In the process, I hope to also illuminate the ways to build connections at work that propel careers and create more daily joy in the workplace. It just may be the opposite of what you think.
Approachability Creates Hard Business Outcomes
Some of you may already be raising your guard, concerned that we are venturing into touchy-feely territory. To a certain extent you would be right. This isn’t a bellicose leadership book about forcing your people into submission. But connection creates powerful business outcomes that you need to do your job well and advance your career. Don’t confuse so-called “soft skills” with weakness. People want to work with people they like. If you’re someone with whom your colleagues want to work, you’re going to have more opportunities thanks to your portable business network that’s so essential these days.
You need multiple connection points in a company to get the full undercurrent of workplace communications.
Without multiple connection points, you’ll be excluded from the critical undercurrent of information that flows through companies. You know what it feels like when you start a new job at a company where you don’t yet have trusted sources. When you need information, but you’re given only the company line, you’re lost. You need the real story, or the subtext of the culture, to be truly effective in your work. Though information is more available than ever through instant electronic communications, online communities, and social media, it’s also harder than ever to sift through and determine what’s valid. Trusted individual connection is the only way to separate rumor from fact. You need information, and you need interpretation.
This need for direct lines of communication becomes even more critical for leaders: They need it the most but find it hardest to come by. In an article in Harvard Business Review, Stanford management professor Robert Sutton wrote about the fallacy of centrality—the flawed assumption that because leaders are in the middle of things they have all the information to lead effectively.1 Sutton cites studies showing that leadership actually makes people more self-absorbed and less attuned to others’ perspectives. Add to this “toxic tandem” (Sutton’s description) the fact that people searching for information watch every move leaders make, and it can create a ricochet effect of disconnection and disaffection. Leaders need to be vigilant!
One important way to prevent this toxic tandem is to keep reliable information flowing back to the leader about what’s happening in the organization, what problems are emerging, and how the leader is perceived. It takes a certain comfort level, and guts, to speak truth to power. This won’t happen without a leadership presence that fosters connection and approachability. There are many companies where, to the organizations’ detriment, honest feedback to leadership doesn’t happen. I had a front-row seat watching dozens of Internet companies implode overnight in the technology bust of 2000 because no one would tell the emperor he had no clothes. But boy, did everyone talk afterward.
Balancing Competency and Vulnerability
Whether you are a leader or not, without connection you will lack presence. You may have perfect oratory skills, deliver impeccable work, and have the focus of a laser, but if you aren’t someone that others relate to on a human level, you will at best be admired but never fully trusted.
Connection increases when you balance competency with vulnerability.
Which brings me to what I believe is the core of this relatedness or connection as it relates to presence: a person’s ability to balance competency with vulnerability. Balance is the operative word here. Too much competency can be intimidating. Too much vulnerability can be read as weakness and ineffectiveness. So, by no means am I saying that you should share your deepest secrets at work, or promote an office culture where group hugs are expected. We’re not going there. But when we show our power alongside our humanity, others will connect to us. It’s the combination that creates great presence.
This notion of showing vulnerability can be hard for successful executives to digest. I’ve had a fair share of initial pushback on this point from clients, until they see the effect in practice, either by trying to communicate differently themselves or by observing someone they admire in action. There’s cultural pressure at play: Somewhere along the way, in business schools and popular culture, we developed the idea that we must hold back our real selves to be effective at work. It probably started with the tightly wound capitalistic culture of the 1980s, when our role models were Wall Street executives (or actors playing them) who seemed to have it all by being serious, relentless, and unilaterally focused on business success. We’re a long way from that time, but I still glimpse vestiges of that culture in the work world. Being called “all business” may not be as much of a compliment as it used to be, but it’s not quite an insult, either. While we may take offense at corporations that prioritize profits over people in general terms, corporate extremism across industries has been a recurring story line for three decades.
Consider what qualities make for a great boss or colleague. I’ve gone through this exercise in multiple settings with various audiences across different industries. The answers are always the same: Most of what makes a leader or colleague memorable to us is the connection piece. “All business” is never how we describe the people who have meant the most to us. The competency piece is simply the price of admission. You felt a connection, and chances are you worked harder for them.
What Makes a Great Boss or Colleague?
Do the following exercise and see what you learn:
1. Think of five people who have been influential in your career. They can be supervisors, colleagues, or mentors. Whom would you go and work with again, in a heartbeat, if given the opportunity?
2. List five qualities to describe each of them.
3. Go back and divide the qualities into two categories: “Competence” or “Connection.” Competence refers to hard skills, such as intellect or functional expertise. Connection refers to social skills, like emotional intelligence, empathy, or shared values.
4. What is the ratio of Competence to Connection? Do you notice a pattern?
We Like Human Beings … and Other Lessons from Politics
Much of the country looks at politics as a warning for what not to do, but as a former political campaign insider, it taught me how people form connections with others in the toughest of circumstances. Think about it. Many voters are mistrustful of the candidates seeking elected office. There is negative information swirling continuously; personal attacks are commonplace. Voters rarely meet the candidate personally, thereby negating the most reliable means of establishing trust.
The only chance political candidates have is if voters feel a connection to them and grant them their trust (and then their vote). It boils down to the human component, which is told through the story of the candidate.
When I worked in politics, I was part of the creative team for a political consulting firm that developed print ads and direct mail messages for candidates. Each election year we represented about 50 candidates competing in everything from U.S. presidential to statewide campaigns. Our firm’s process was like all the others in the industry. When we got a new candidate, we would learn all the compelling points about her: professional history, family life, personal story, challenges, and successes. Usually we also had polling data showing voter opinion on general issues, the candidate’s positions on those issues, and her personal attributes. We would also read through a very thick book of research on her opponent (“Opp research”) that detailed all of his negatives and weaknesses: tax liens, lawsuits, sketchy business dealings, untoward associates, fabricated or incendiary public statements, issues with educational background, and personal malfeasance. (When we were lucky, there was so much research it ended up being two thick books.) We would take all of this information and go into a closed-door meeting for hours—sometimes over the course of days—and pore over the details of our candidate’s life and the political environment in her district.
We were keenly aware that in another room just like ours, our opponent’s political consultants were going through a similar process, with their own research book about our candidate.
Our job was to create a strong individual connection between voters and our candidate. We had to find links so compelling that even a barrage of negative attack ads couldn’t sever it. So what did we do? We looked for a blend of competency with vulnerability in the candidate’s story. Political advisers do extensive polling throughout a campaign on their candidate’s positives and negatives to see which ones land with voters. We had actual, hard statistical data about what voters liked about the candidate to back up our messages. Time after time, it was the candidate’s connection on a deeper, human level that polled best with voters.
We developed messages about a candidate’s rags-to-riches background, or her ability to build a business from nothing. We wrote ads about her strong family roots in the community through PTA and charitable endeavors. We preemptively exposed struggles the candidate had experienced, and how she overcame them through perseverance.
We turned a face on a campaign sign into a human being you’d invite into your home.
And we knew that a perfect history did not translate into a perfect campaign. The perfect candidates were the absolute hardest. Someone who’s had it too easy doesn’t sit well with voters. A perfect childhood, a prominent family, and a skyrocketing career were a recipe for voter apathy. There was nothing to hold on to. Voters needed to see that their leader was like them, a real person who works hard, has some trials along the way, and learns how to rise to the occasion. That’s what creates a compelling presence.
You’re the Only One Who Believes You Can Be Perfect Anyway
Hand in hand with the “all business” persona is the perfectionist. This is a challenge, especially for all you Type A personalities out there (yes, that means me, too). In an effort to be great, we try to get everything right: right people in the right jobs with the right outcomes. Many of us layer in the right personal life, the right accoutrements, and the right attitude. Everyone expresses it differently. But the end result is that the presentation of ourselves leaves out many of the challenges we face along the way, in an effort to show our best selves—all the time. We make the mistake of thinking that being open to feedback and admitting mistakes (or, God forbid, that we don’t know something) is a damaging sign of weakness.
We equate being open with weakness when it’s actually a sign of strength.
You probably know where this is going because even if the picture I’ve painted isn’t you, you’ve met someone who fits the description. Like I mentioned before, perfectionism may get you admiration or even flat-out respect. But it will never get you the connection that renders it possible for someone to come into your office and tell you something you really need to know, despite the fact that it’s difficult to say.
The funny thing about perfectionism is that while we may endeavor to embrace it in ourselves, no one else buys it. They can see right through it. They know when your confidence is actually just boasting, or how that catch in your voice reveals insecurity, or how your ever-present right answers don’t always turn out so right in the end. Perfection creates the opposite of connection. One person’s perfectionism causes guardedness in others. It sabotages openness, which is precisely the quality that gives us tremendous comfort in our leaders and colleagues.
Is Perfectionism Undermining You?
Write down the answers to the following questions:
• What perceived weaknesses or challenges about yourself are you holding back—to try to appear more perfect—that might create a connection point with others?
• Are there struggles or failures that you hide or routinely downplay?
• What could you reveal about yourself that would help others understand who you authentically are?
You Can Be Open Without Opening Pandora’s Box
Exposing the right amount of your vulnerable self without appearing weak or ineffective can be challenging. As I mentioned in the book’s Introduction, I struggled considerably with this issue when I was running my company. In the early years, I overcompensated for my lack of experience by putting the perfection mask on pretty thick. I paid for it, too. In our first few years in business we had a soaring growth trajectory. Our main hurdle was building infrastructure and hiring staff fast enough. About two years in, we began having turnover problems. We brought in a coach to do a cultural assessment that included rating the company’s leadership. My scores were the lowest. One particularly tough message: I wasn’t considered a team player. How could that be? As the owner of the company, the team’s fate and mine were intertwined. I was working my butt off to build a team and keep it together!
With the help of a coach, I learned to see myself through the eyes of my team. I was singularly focused on growing and stabilizing the business and was often engrossed in work. My workload felt tremendous, and eliminating distractions was my strategy for sanity. Team development was a lesser priority. I kept many of my thought processes to myself; as a result, people didn’t feel as if they knew me well. Openness never came easy for me. “Reserved” is a term I’ve often heard to describe me.
Though the feedback was tough, I learned from it, because two of my signature strengths are learning and focus. Remember that pregame ritual that I outlined in Chapter 3? I was religious about using the time before our business development meetings to connect with my team and learn everything I could about them—and to be open to their questions in return. This was how I tried to overcome an aspect of myself that’s hardwired.
One other important lesson I learned from that experience: Our company did not have a culture of feedback, although I thought we did. We gave plenty of top-down feedback in performance reviews. Positive feedback flowed somewhat readily. But we didn’t make it a regular part of our daily work to give positive and negative feedback from the bottom up, colleague-to-colleague, or in the moment.
We needed to open up our communication channels so that we could gauge our performance. Certainly if I had grasped that idea back then, I would have been a better leader in those early years. (And I’m sure some of my staff would have loved to give the feedback!)
If you create a personal culture of feedback, often others will follow your lead.
This type of feedback represents a culture change, but it’s not hard to do. You don’t need to be running the company to incorporate this practice into your work life. Anyone can deliver quick feedback points (QFPs). QFPs are situation-specific, in-the-moment requests for feedback. Once you start, everyone will embrace this type of feedback. QFPs will spread virally throughout the organization.
You can ask for QFPs in any way that works. I like to ask: What went well? What could I do better for next time? It’s a simple way to debrief after key events and demonstrates that you are willing to be open and learn, and that everyone has ideas to contribute no matter what their level, title, or history with the organization.
Your Stories Tell Your Story
The story I just told sums up the point I’m trying to make in this chapter. From it, you learned that I struggle. In no way do I think that I have this thing licked. I work hard and try to improve. And the telling of my story requires me to let down my guard and admit that I wasn’t the perfect boss. It would be easier for me to talk about my achievements—believe me, much easier—but that wouldn’t help you see that we all wrestle with many of the same issues.
Stories have a profound effect on humans. We are drawn to storytelling as a way to understand one another. We retain stories longer and more completely than facts and figures. Our minds understand stories on a deeper level. You know how you can hear a song and it takes you back to a certain place? Same thing with a story: When we are reminded of one part of a story we’ve heard, we are likely to remember the entire story. We are collectors of stories that we’ve lived or heard. From these stories, we’ve learned valuable lessons and created the morals and values that guide our actions. We hear stories, retell them, share them, and compare them to our own experiences.
Stories also affect the way we listen. When I deliver workshops I intersperse stories to illustrate my points. And I can see the effect on other people. As I launch into a story, people who have been looking down suddenly look up. Faces soften and shoulders relax. People sit back in their chairs. Smiles pop up. I can present the most impressive statistics, but it won’t have that same effect. Only stories make people want to listen and absorb on that basic human level. The next time you have to present to a group, try to include a story and watch what happens. It’s no wonder that we retain so much more information from stories.
Stories affect the way we understand, remember, and even listen.
Storytelling has developed into a business art form as scores of books, articles, and training programs have arisen about how to be a more effective storyteller. There are even storytelling festivals, global storytelling days, storytelling conferences—you name it. If you are interested in becoming a better storyteller, there are countless avenues to pursue.
If you’re pressed for time, you need not go to great lengths to learn basic storytelling skills. I bet you already know how to tell fascinating stories to your friends and family. Problem is, stories often get lost between our home and our workplace. As part of the all-business culture, we often believe that it’s inappropriate to bring so much of our personal lives into the office. Many people assume no one else would care about their stories. Yet stories are the most direct way for people to understand what we’re really about. They reveal the actions we’ve taken in the past, which is another powerful way of demonstrating our true presence. There’s certainly a line between what’s appropriate and inappropriate to discuss at work. Yet, having experienced some great storytellers, I know that there is greater latitude than most people think.
Stories serve multiple purposes in strengthening communications and presence. Consider adding stories to your communications when you:
— Want to motivate others and paint a picture of what’s possible
— Need to show others—whether a large audience or one person—that you have shared commonalities
— Are trying to deliver difficult news and want to show empathy
— Are facing adversity in the present that relates to a situation you’ve experienced before
— Are interviewing for a job and want to demonstrate your ability to adapt, learn, and overcome challenges
— Are in a new position and would like to show others your approach and values
— Want to show clients or colleagues that you’ve been in their shoes
— Want to encourage another person to tackle something difficult
There’s no right way to tell a story, but there are best practices. Here are some guidelines for incorporating more stories into your communication:
A good story …
— Has a clear moral or purpose
— Has a personal connection to the storyteller and/or the audience
— Includes common reference points the audience can understand
— Involves detailed characters and imagery
— Reveals conflict, vulnerability, or achievement others can relate to
— Has pacing (a beginning, ending, and segue back to the topic)
— Serves to strategically underscore your intention (it’s not randomly told)
Be careful not to …
— Share only stories of your successes or hold back the parts that seem unimpressive. This quickly sounds like bragging.
— Ramble on. A good story should take one or two minutes, tops.
— Stray too far from the point. Meandering side stories will cause you to lose your audience. When you see fading eye contact or fidgeting bodies, speed it up.
— Share stories that could make some people in your audience uncomfortable or feel out of the loop. Frame your comments for the folks least likely to get it, not the ones most likely.
Our stories help define us, and they teach us. They are easier to communicate than most other information; they naturally put us at ease when we tell them (no memorization required); and they’re easy for others to recall. Whether you are interviewing for your first job and want to show what you’re made of, or you’re a CEO trying to galvanize a company to climb the next big mountain, the right story will make it easier. The trick is to remember to use them. Once you make a habit of sharing stories, you’ll get all the reinforcement you need to keep going.
One Extreme Case as a Cautionary Tale
I’m going to end this chapter with a client situation I found myself in a few years back. It’s an extreme case, yet it offers a cautionary tale of what can happen when connection is startlingly absent.
For this engagement, I was brought into a government agency for a short training program to help the members of a senior team communicate more effectively with one another. When I went into meet, I experienced the perfect storm of every what-not-to-do in this chapter. From the moment I walked through the door, I could see that the team’s culture was extremely guarded. The team members were seated around the table; their body language was closed and the air was thick with cautiousness bordering on suspicion. When I asked the group to speak about team communications, each person was quick to list all their best attributes, yet no one wanted to expose a weakness.
Besides one new woman, who seemed distressed, everyone on the team had been there for a decade or more, with some topping 20 years. Yet when asked, they admitted how little they knew about one another. Few talked about their families or outside interests. They didn’t know where their coworkers commuted from or what brought them to their position. When I suggested an exercise where they discuss simple weekend plans, there was literally a collective sucking in of breath in the room. One man said pointedly, “We don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss our personal lives at work.” When I began to discuss connection and storytelling, only the new woman spoke up to affirm the need to bring that kind of communication into the workplace. Everyone else in the room sat in dead silence.
You may be wondering how you can solve a problem that no one acknowledges. Well, it was impossible. I was only there for 90 minutes, and they were 90 long minutes. Because there wasn’t a willingness to be open to feedback and to seek the humanity in others, there was no connection anywhere. The individuals had no connection to me, and no connection to one another. Underscoring all of it was a supreme lack of trust (which is the topic of Chapter 6).
And, by the way, I should add that the reason I was brought in was because of low employee morale in the department that reported to this senior team. I bet you could have guessed that.
Key Takeaways for Chapter 5
1. People like to work with people they like. When you forge true, authentic connections in the workplace, you’ll be in on the critical information flow and countless opportunities.
2. Leaders especially must be vigilant to remain approachable and connected to their team or they may find themselves in a “toxic tandem,” where they are out of the loop precisely when they need to be in it the most.
3. Connection enhances presence when you reveal your competency alongside your vulnerability. It shows that you are human, just like the rest of us.
4. Perfectionism alienates others and creates a barrier to openness. By showing that you are open to feedback and can learn from mistakes, you actually demonstrate self-assurance and strength.
5. We seek out stories in others that show their humanity. Notice how political campaigns position their candidates. Whether it’s overcoming a tough upbringing, surviving a war, or fighting cancer, a candidate’s ability to face adversity makes him more likable and real to voters.
6. Make an effort to incorporate storytelling in your communications at work. Stories create shared meaning, are memorable, and define our characters. They’re also enjoyable to tell.
Ideas I Want to Try from Chapter 5:
