Careful, your status is showing

Leaders in organisations, wherever they go, sit, leave, speak, eat ... come with status attached. It can't be hidden.

At a client workshop recently, about two hours in to the session, a senior leader tip-toed into the room, closing the door gently. They were trying not to disturb the session. But really? They couldn’t be missed.

😩

Their status comes in the door first!

At other workshops and meetings, many leaders have said, ‘ I’m not participating today, I’m just observing’.

Now even more of your status is showing.

As a modern leader in today’s work environment it’s wise to stop making yourself even more separate, different and higher.

There’s a decision to make : either be IN it with the team in the room, or get OUT of it and leave them to do the work of the workshop or meeting.

Also, quick question :
Why and what are you 'observing'?
Why not get involved?

There’s rarely a need for leaders to be 'on the fringes’ of a workshop or meeting, doing the watching, checking, observing, judging.

Participate, do the work, connect and listen to people, get your hands dirty, hear their stories, be there, getting it. Or vanish.

A special title isn’t special when it comes to working with a team in a practical session.

I’d prefer leaders either remove themselves and their status, or reduce their status and stay.


👀 Seen some status recently? How else do leaders show or throw their status around, perhaps unknowingly?

The most important person to influence

Much is written about influence: how to use it, who is impacted by it and how to get more of it. 

Of all the people you focus on influencing, do you put effort into influencing yourself? 

Do you know what to do to change your state, how you’re feeling, or what you’re doing? 

Rather than just accepting things for how they are or ‘going with the flow’, a more deliberate practice is to be able to influence yourself. 

To shift and change how you think and respond to things. 

For example, if you have times when you’re anxious or overwhelmed, what do you do? Do you have a go-to list of remedies and reliefs? 

Sniff an orange. 

No, that’s not a typo. It’s one of the suggestions in this neat list of 28 ‘little’ things to do in times of anxiety. 

There are some we might have heard of before like writing things down, exercising or being grateful, but there are some wonderful new tips too 

Bookmark it if it’s something you - or someone you love, live or work with might benefit from. 

It could help you be more influential. 

How to work a little more creatively

Storyboards are powerful thinking and communication tools in films and advertising ... and we can use them too. 

Just as film creatives map out the proposed scenes of a movie, we can be story boarders too!  

A creative tool I use often with teams to think and work more creatively is storyboarding. 

Six cells or scenes are a starting point or a summary of a bigger and deeper story. 

🔲 Capture one point or theme per cell. 
🔲 Use a storyboard to take notes. 
🔲 Deliver your presentation or pitch with a storyboard. 

Boring notes? Nope. 
Boring meeting? Nope. 
Boring presentation? Also nope. 

We love stories! They hook us in and keep us engaged, curious to what’s coming next. 

Our colleagues and clients need us to be a little more creative - not just to hold their engagement and attention but to get to the most creative and effective outcomes we can. 

For something more memorable, practical and sensible... storyboard it.

More conversations - less presentations

As more of our meetings are online, there’s also an increase in the number of times we’re disappearing down a deep hole of ‘share screen’ and PowerPoint. 

Our meetings shouldn’t be all about the presentation, the monologue - just one or two voices. 

We can have better collaboration and co-creation online and remotely by having more conversation... the dialogue, many and all voices. 

This means we have discussion, debate and exploration of a topic and people’s perspectives of that topic. 

As we witness and experience disconnection and disengagement of people online, we’d do well to try for more conversation than presentation. 

But the pressure !!!
- what questions should we ask
- how do you get the conversation started
- how do you open things up
- and then what
- how do we summarize, synthesise or bring that information together
- what will keep it going
- and how do we wrap it up?


Each of these is a nuanced skill of facilitation - always balancing and rebalancing, conversation and making progress towards outcomes - ebbing and flowing. 

Instead of defaulting to sharing your screen, giving a presentation, try something new and default to conversation. 

Move beyond the clichés

- Let’s take it offline 
- I hear what you’re saying
- Let’s car park it 
- I’ll take it on board

These meeting clichés can be said to dismiss, defer or redirect attention. 

We might be economical, to “keep things moving”, so we use clichés for convenience. 

But they’re overused, unoriginal and predictable. 

Clichés might be convenient for you but they’re not so good for genuine, human conversations and interactions. 

People zone out. It doesn’t connect. 


Why not say what a human would say to another human, in a normal conversation style. 

Speak originally and genuinely, leaving ‘cliché city’ behind! 

The distances between us call for greater humanity and originality.

In a world where connection with each other has been impacted, it’s worth us trying to communicate in more human ways ... not less.