One of the more unkind things that I do during my coaching workshops is to ask people to find someone in the room that they don’t know very well and to sit facing them, as if for a conversation.
By this stage, we will have covered body language and attentive listening and so the willing and trusting participants find a relative stranger in the room, exchange perfunctory introductions and settle into dialogue position to await further instructions. My further instruction is that I would like them to maintain engagement with each other for a timed 60 second period without talking at all.
The comfortable anticipation in the room is instantly flooded out by alarm and awkwardness. You can imagine the sort of panicked accommodations that you might make. Suddenly, there is a need for rapid rapport and some quick peace-treaty making between each pair of participants. They need to find their ‘this will be OK’ space faster than an ice cream melts in the sun. We’ll weather it, it will be awkward but we can do it. Eyes roll, mouths grimace, cheeks flush and heart rates rise.
What is going on?
The point of this exercise is to draw attention to the intense intimacy of the engagement in a human conversation, one to one. For many of us, this may not seem like a special space at all, for others, all personal conversations are moments of challenge and anxiety. Either way, remove the conversation from that space and the vacuum is revealed in all of its exposing vacuity.
Never can a single minute feel longer. To remain engaged and in eye contact with a stranger for 60 seconds is comfortable only for actors and seers. By the 30 second mark, each pair has made its own rules…some stare at cheekbones, some smirk and wriggle, some make hand signals, some challenge the rules and move their chairs far apart. Some stare with the fixed and glazed expression of the dead.
As coaches and as leaders, we are wise to value the immense privilege of accessing another human, face to face. Here is a moment of connection where bonds can be made and trust built. Here is a space of trade and barter where stories are exchanged, secrets divulged, needs laid bare. There can be tears, great vulnerability; there can be compassion and great care. This is the time when the leader – or the coach – gives the greatest gift we can give to another person, the gift of attention. How many times have you heard one of the qualities of a good leader described as being a good listener? It’s right up there, isn’t it.
Let’s look a little deeper at what opportunities there are for both parties in a one-to-one conversation at work…
For the junior person, there is much to gain. This is a moment of audience, a moment in the spotlight where you have the ear of a senior colleague, maybe the boss. It’s a chance to grow and to learn. But this is also a moment where much can be lost. The internal gremlin may leap gleefully onto your shoulder and start telling you to be impressive, be interesting, sound keen, sound enthusiastic, stand out from the crowd…this is your moment, don’t blow it….what is she thinking of me?…why is she typing while I’m talking….?
For the senior person, I suggest, there is even more to gain and even more to lose. The gains are pretty easy to harvest. Be warm. Know who you’re talking to. Be interested. Be attentive and present. That’s all you need to do – a full peacock display of your wisdom and experience is not required. Be quiet and let the space be filled by the junior partner. What are the messages here? I’m interested in you. I took the trouble to prepare for your arrival. Your words and ideas have value to me. I want you to see me as someone who you can talk to.
The losses can be severe: you will all know someone in a position of authority who fills every corner of a conversation with their own words. Words pile on top of words, ideas tumble out like commuters running from a fire; beginnings seldom reach their endings and structure and purpose are buried beneath the deposited lexicon long before the meeting runs its course. What are the messages here? My words are more important than your words. Your words have no value to me. I expect you to align with my thinking and to be grateful for being allowed the time to listen to me speak. Whatever you wanted to talk about is not as important as what I have to say.
The leader who doesn’t listen is a leader who understands very little about their own organisation. It is in the one-to-one exchanges, both formal and informal, that all cultural capital is shared. Treasure can be exchanged in this space…or a leader can walk away knowing nothing more than they knew when the conversation began, leaving behind them a colleague who feels disrespected and inconsequential.
As my science teachers used to tell me often when I was in school: nature abhors a vacuum. Something always fills the vacuum between two people who turn to face each other, whose something that is, determines the cultural climate of an organisation.
