CONCLUSION

YOU’RE ALREADY IN A VIRTUOUS CYCLE

One thing I know for sure: you’ve inspired more people than you realize.

I’m also certain you’ll continue to be a positive force for many others.

I know this partly because you care enough to have read a book like this. Anyone who is actively and meaningfully engaged with others has an impact. To go back to where we began, we often don’t know the effect we’ve had on others when we were simply trying to connect, encourage, and empathize. Only the other person knows the true effect and where it leads. It’s as if we’re all bouncing off one another in a giant pinball machine. Sometimes the bounce is small, sending us on our way barely touched. Other times, however, we get a big bounce that ricochets off the bumpers—ringing bells and resonating through our lives, changing us in ways we couldn’t have predicted.

My hope is for more of the meaningful bounces of inspiration in whatever domains we can get them—at work or in our personal lives, publicly or interpersonally. When we’re a force for others to find purpose, when we help them ignite their passion, when we give the gift of our full presence to connect personally, then we are part of a virtuous cycle. We create a ripple effect of positivity, confidence, excitement, agency, and possibility. Who knows where it ends? Maybe it never does.

Inspirational communication—a critical component of leadership—deserves the attention it gets. When you have interpersonal connections at work, you want to do more, be more, and give more. What a stark contrast to work that feels like a grind to be endured.

In these pages I’ve attempted to break down the behaviors that make inspirational communication more understandable and repeatable. Using research—both my own and that of leading scholars and practitioners—coupled with firsthand experience, I’ve put together a pathway of sorts. It’s certainly not the only way to go about it, but I hope it’s a straightforward one.

You may still feel that being inspiring seems too lofty an endeavor. It may seem like grandstanding. That’s okay; you can let go of the word. As we’ve discussed, setting out to inspire might not be the best approach. Instead, try working to create conditions through your own communications that encourage inspiration to happen. Another way to approach it is to concentrate your efforts on connecting in a real and committed way. Let that be your lead, and let the rest follow. Be flexible about the outcome.

IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT THE CONNECTION

In 1937, Harvard University embarked a research study of 268 men to determine what creates a good life.¹ Called the Harvard Study of Adult Development, it’s the longest running and most extensive longitudinal study of mental and physical well-being ever conducted. For more than seventy years, researchers have been collecting data on the participants—regular medical exams, psychological tests, in-person and written questionnaires—to discover how happiness is created and adjusts in our lifetimes. They’ve looked at circumstances of birth, education, personal and work situations, and how our myriad choices impact us. The study’s biggest finding? Happiness comes from the quality of our relationships. This predicts our well-being better than any other factor.

Our human connections make the moments that make our lives. I’ve never heard anyone describe their best moments at work as times they’ve sat alone at their desk. Our signature events occur with others. When we reminisce, we bring up stories of our relationships. Our highs are made from those bounces off the people around us.

With a year of solid research behind me, I believe even more strongly than when I began this book project that we can light a fire in others by deliberately choosing to show up and communicate in certain ways. We can decide to take an Inspire Path approach to any conversation by deciding:

Am I going to be present?

Will I make this connection personal?

In what ways can I bring passion?

How will I spotlight a larger purpose?

The ways we inspire aren’t hard; they aren’t even complex. We act in this manner all the time, in various aspects of our lives. When we put intention behind our communication, and bring as many of these elements together as we can, then we develop a personal strategy to be a more inspiring leader. We make inspirational communication our default rather than a pleasant accident.

INSPIRING COMMUNICATION ON TUESDAY AT 2:30

Inspirational communication can happen anywhere, of course. In fact, it should! But this is principally a leadership book, so let’s end by focusing on the day-to-day of the workplace. It’s where we spend most of our time, and frankly, where inspiration is so often lacking. It may feel contrived to think that you can be inspiring at a set time, but really, why not? You can easily be uninspiring on any given day—so certainly the reverse is true!

Think of all the moments in any given work day where inspiring communications would change the entire nature of the exchange. Times when following the Inspire Path could turn ordinary conversations motivating and uplifting. An everyday touch base becomes the best thing that happens in someone’s day, month, or year.

This isn’t a farfetched notion. It’s how inspiration happens. You walk into a situation thinking one way and walk out with a different mindset. Someone, somewhere, is being inspired that way right now. Thousands are, maybe millions.

If you’re in a leadership position you have significant capacity to create an engaged, invigorated, inspired environment. You don’t even have to be as “on” as you might think. Rather, you can decide to take an Inspire Path approach to routine moments in any workday. Nothing grand required—the moments can be typical, and your contribution modest. Simply adjusting your communication can create a major change. Consider that you’re planting inspirational seeds—or lighting small sparks. Imagine the impact you could make if you did it in the following settings.

ONE-TO-ONE MEETINGS

Routine: Most managers attempt to meet with their direct reports regularly in one-to-one meetings. While the effort is commendable, these are rarely engaging. Too often, the manager cancels or cuts the meeting short, showing up distracted and harried. Agenda items are covered in a perfunctory fashion, with many important issues left unsaid. One-to-ones become a checklist item for all parties, one more thing to pack in during a busy day.

Inspiring: Instead, you, the manager, pause before the meeting, show up present, and hold the space for the conversation to show that you value it. Move out from behind your desk, away from your computer or phone. State an intention for the meeting upfront, and match your energy to support your aim. Hold back any suppositions about the employee to fully understand the situations discussed. Make time to personally connect, listen as much as talk, and keep a focus on the employee’s potential. While discussing agenda items, speak authentically and bring in relevant personal examples. Finally, prioritize a set amount of time to check in on the employee’s purpose, and on how the current work situation is contributing to his or her larger goals.

GROUP MEETINGS

Routine: Team meetings, status meetings, leadership meetings, brainstorming meetings—it’s hard to come up with one that anyone enjoys. No one goes into work to a day filled with back-to-back meetings and thinks “How fun!” Too often, meetings are events to endure, structured with little to no agenda, and prone to rote sharing of information that could just as well be done over email. Participants are regularly checked out and multitasking—which only worsens when meetings are virtual.

Inspiring: There’s perhaps no rifer spot for inspiration than internal meetings. The bar is so low that it’s pretty easy to soar over it. The first thing you can do is to set a situational intention for the meeting. Know the emotion you want to put into the room before you begin. What kind of energy are you striving for? Share an agenda ahead of time so participants can process their thoughts.

Make sure you’re centered and present when you walk in, and encourage everyone to be present by asking participants to voice their objectives before you begin. Ask: “What does everyone want to get out of this meeting?” (If you’re comfortable doing so, having everyone start with a couple of deep breaths greatly enhances attentiveness. Sounds like a parody on The Office but it works.) Encourage open exchanges and listening, calling out behavior that cuts others off or limits participation. Bring the energy you want to see. Remember, your energy is contagious. If sharing ideas or asking for buy-in, bring a mixture of logic, emotion, and credibility to your messages. Manage your own body language to show openness. Finally, remind the team of the purpose behind any actions that the group determines. Capture the accountabilities, and keep the larger calling front and center.

PRESENTATIONS

Routine: Because we associate public communications with inspirational moments, we tend to think about how to engage and be uplifting when we’re in front of people. We prepare more for public speaking than for any other communication event. Some people are more inspiring than others, and do hit that mark. However, you’ve probably spent enough time listening to dull presentations to know that most have room to ratchet up the inspirational quality. You’ve got the stage and the audience attention. It’s up to you to use it or lose it.

Inspiring: We could throw most of the advice in the book at presentations, but consider three aspects that make a demonstrable impact. First understand with extreme clarity the intention you have for this group of people in front of you. What emotion do you want to bring into the room? If you want it there, you have to bring it. The larger the room, the more you have to show.

Second, mix power with vulnerability. Use stories, personal anecdotes, and plain language to be real. Regardless of the subject, talk to the audience conversationally, as individuals not as a monolith. Never put your content over your connection. Don’t overly script yourself, and don’t read. Please. (It takes tons of practice to read a teleprompter naturally, and even those who do it well create a barrier with the audience.) Stay open and flexible, and allow any presentation to have some extemporaneous flow to adjust to the audience’s needs.

Finally, show passion. Most presentations that fail to connect are delivered by people who lack energy, emotion, and conviction. Match your energy to the situation, which usually means emoting more than in your normal speech. Speak at an energetic pace, using vocal variety. Make an emotional appeal beyond the logic of facts and figures, peppering your speech with emotion words and storytelling. Manage your default posture, and strive to maintain your body language open, up, and toward.

NETWORKING

Routine: Lots of people deplore networking—and even more consider it a necessary evil to endure. The conversations are usually superficial and stilted, with everyone wanting something from each other, but trying to appear as if that’s not the case. People look over each other’s shoulders to ensure they’re hitting all the right people. The whole exercise can seem like uncomfortable self-promotion, where few come away feeling better about themselves or others.

Inspiring: Don’t go in looking for anything. Instead—whether your networking events involve strangers, acquaintances, or intimate business lunches—go in trying to give. Be present in each conversation you’re having. Put your phone away, focus on one person at a time, and truly connect. In each conversation, spend a majority of your time asking incisive questions and use deep listening. Talk to others about the potential they see for themselves, their careers, and the market. Ask questions that drive toward purpose: “What do you enjoy doing?” “What’s most valuable in your work?” “What’s next in your career?”

When you share about yourself, instead of a pat, scripted elevator pitch, provide personal anecdotes about your work and what drives you.

People remember not what you said, but how you made them feel. If you can engage people in real, meaningful conversations that inspire them to think and do more, you’ll be making strong connections that endure.

DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

Routine: Difficult conversations are hard for a reason: they cover topics that make us uncomfortable with people who may also make us uncomfortable. The most common difficult conversation is no conversation, at least not externally. We simply avoid the other person while talking up a storm to ourselves. When we do have tough talks, they come later than they should, and cause plenty of stress. Both parties can leave frustrated and feeling as if neither’s voice was heard.

Inspiring: The biggest miss in difficult conversations is that we come loaded with preconceived notions, and proceed only at the text level—never getting to the all-important subtext. Instead, shift your listening to include both the text and the subtext. Don’t let the clues go by unnoticed. Call out the nonverbals of the other person. For example, “I sense that you’re still uneasy about this, am I getting that right?” Put your own subtext on the table if it frames up the talk.

More important, table your assumptions. Turn the volume down on your internal voice; get and stay curious to what evolves in the room. Don’t assume you know the other person’s motivations. Ask. Stay open to the outcome rather than trying to control it. Approach the discussion as a learning situation, with shared observations on both sides. Wait until the end—or even schedule another meeting—to get to action items. Difficult conversations become less stressful if instead of pushing for our idea of resolution we attempt to expand the perspectives of all involved—starting with ourselves.

A SEND-OFF AND A WISH

Being an inspiring communicator is a contribution to the greater good. It’s not the well-worn path, and thus takes some bravery, leaps of faith, acceptance of discomfort, and a belief that you’re part of a virtuous cycle. It’s about showing up in a way that’s generous and gracious, but not necessarily the easiest. To borrow from the poet Robert Frost, it’s taking the road less traveled that makes all the difference.

It’s unrealistic to expect to be in an inspirational mode all the time. Many conversations are brief exchanges, offhand remarks, or concise directives, because that’s what the situation requires. However, I hope that this book has expanded your view of where and how you can be inspirational, and the range of impacts you can have. It truly doesn’t take as much effort as we might imagine.

There’s not, unfortunately, a pat prescription for inspiration. Rather, you must find what works for you. I provided a research-based framework, but it’s you who determines what fits for you, and where to apply the concepts. One approach is to pick a concept that you’re already good at doing (a core strength), and one that you makes you uncomfortable (a development area). See if you can incorporate more of both into your conversations and notice what happens.

Finally, I’d like to say thank you for reading this book. What gives me the most joy in my work is learning from others, and sharing what I’ve learned in return. I’ve expanded my own view of inspirational communication while writing this, and it’s changed me for the better. I’ve passed that on to my clients and friends, and onward it goes.

My wish is that you do the same. Take whatever appeals to you in these pages and put it into practice, even if in a small way. Capture conversations that would otherwise slip by, and use them to give a positive bounce. Make them zing. Inspire because you can. Inspiration can happen any time, and anywhere, started by you.

Be the spark.