Influencing different personality styles
If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.
Henry Ford
Outline
This chapter will help you understand how to influence through relationships by understanding different personality styles, and the power of emotions in influence.
How to thrive by understanding others
Six blind men in a village are told by the other villagers that there is an elephant coming to town. They have no idea what an elephant is, but they say to each other: ‘Even though we are blind, we can still go to experience the elephant.’ So they go together to the place where the elephant is kept and one by one, each begins to touch the elephant on a different part of its body.
‘Hey, the elephant is a pillar,’ said the first man who touched his leg.
‘Oh, no! it is like a rope,’ said the second man who touched the tail.
‘Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,’ said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
‘It is like a big hand fan’ said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
‘It is like a huge wall,’ said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
‘It is like a solid pipe,’ Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
A wise man who is sighted tells the men that they are all right, and all wrong. They have each experienced only a single part of the elephant – but together they have experienced the whole elephant.
This story has been told to countless generations across different cultures to tell a simple truth; that we each see the world from our own perspective. We begin to build our worldview as children in our families, at school and in our social groups as we take on the core values, beliefs and attitudes of these communities of influence as effortlessly as breathing air; Ah, this is the way it really is. But the problem is that when we want to influence people who are ‘not like us’ (which will be often) our own blind spots can lead to us judge others and prevent us from developing the true skills of influence which are the ability to see the world from the other person’s perspective and then build mutual respect and rapport. So what are some tools we can use when we need to prepare a communication, presentation or meeting with someone we want to influence? What are some top tips for helping us influence through relationship?
1st rule of influence through relationships:
See the world from the other person’s perspective.
Same world – different views – understanding meta-programmes
We each have our own personal mental shortcuts to filter information, direct our attention and help us make decisions. These are called meta-programmes because they are unconscious cognitive habits that influence how we communicate and what motivates us.
Meta-programmes are keys to:
- How we like to be communicated with.
- Our strategies for decision-making.
- What motivates us to take action.
You can use meta-programmes to help shape your communication and influence others.
For example, we all have strategies for making decisions and choices; one person might spend weeks researching holiday resorts, prices and local attractions in order to choose their annual holiday while another person might pick a holiday on a whim, happy to turn up and see what happens. In terms of the meta-programmes, the first person would be making a decision based on a procedures meta-programme, while the second person would be making a decision based on an options meta-programme.
Once we understand other people’s different preferences we can shape our communication and adapt our own relationship style to match more closely with theirs. This can make a huge difference in making sure we get our message heard and in meeting the other person’s relationship values and preferences because we all naturally feel affinity and connection with people who ‘match’ us. Think about when somebody’s tried to sell something to you or you met somebody new and there was a clash; it may well have been because you are each using different meta-programmes to communicate. Once we understand more about meta-programmes, we have a great tool to help us prepare our communication and adapt our own style to more closely match that of the other person.
Exercise
As you go through the meta-programmes below ask yourself the following questions:
- What are your own preferences?
- Do your preferences change in different contexts?
- Have you experienced conflict with somebody because you have opposite styles?
- How do you respond to someone who has the opposite style from you? Do you judge them as being ‘wrong’?
- How do you feel when you’re with people who are the same as you?
Motivation: toward or away from
Some people are more motivated by what they want to move toward and some from what they want to move away from. ‘Toward’ people are often goal- and future-focused – always looking ahead at what they positively want to achieve. ‘Away from’ people are motivated by avoiding pain and reducing risk. They tend to focus on what they don’t want and what they want to avoid. They value security and safety. And while we are all motivated to avoid pain and move towards pleasure, we each have slightly different ‘set points’ for these. Entrepreneurs, adventurers and risk-takers tend to be toward people. People who value security and certainty tend to be away from people. Businesses sell their products and services to consumers, and politicians sell to voters using both toward and away from messages; Nike’s tagline ‘Just Do It’ is a toward message while political messages of ‘austerity’ and ‘job losses’ are away from messages. These two motivational forces operate at the level of action, cognition and emotion.
Tips for toward persuasion:
- Talk about the positive emotions your offering gives (happiness, success, achievement, affection).
- How will your offer increase, or give more of, what the person already has?
- How will your offer improve something?
- How will your offer increase something?
- What future new possibilities will your offer help them achieve?
Tips for away from persuasion:
- What negative emotions will this help avoid? (pain, loss, suffering, embarrassment, etc.)
- How will it reduce what the person doesn’t want? (danger, poor-quality results, poor performance)
- What will your offer help preserve? (tradition, security, certainty, sameness)
- How will it reduce risk? (less time, fewer resources, fewer mistakes)
- How will it give them certainty and security?
Communication: big picture or detail
Some people like to be communicated with by being presented with the ‘big picture’ and some need to see the ‘detail’ in order to make a decision. A CEO who is a big picture thinker needs a compelling vision of what it is you’re selling before getting to the detail, while the financial director may prefer the nuts and bolts before being convinced of your idea and will send you away unless you come fully prepared with the detail in hand. The CEO, on the other hand, may be much more comfortable to give you a green light to a great idea that they instinctively think might work and will be happy for you to gather the details and facts over time. Position your offering and present information to match the preferred style of your audience.
Tips for big picture selling:
- Present your idea in a nutshell at the start. Big picture people want the elevator pitch – they want to see a compelling image or vision of a future state.
- How will this get them to their end goal? Present information on a single page with the end goal in mind.
- Use diagrams or images and summaries of the key benefits.
- Talk about benefits and what this will help them achieve. Lead with the big picture and then follow up with detail if required.
Tips for detail persuasion:
- Lead with the facts, figures and logic. Use detailed reports, background information and research. The detail provides feelings of assurance and security that you are fully in control of the information.
- Remember that this meta-programme is often linked to an ‘away from’ programme where the person seeks to avoid risk and increase certainty.
- Lead with the detail and then summarise with the big picture at the end.
Broadly speaking, holistic processing engages the right hemisphere while serial processing engages the more fine detail-loving left hemisphere (see Fig. 2.1). Holistic processing allows us to quickly scan information in order to get the gist while serial processing involves systematically scanning the information to then build an overall picture.
FIGURE 2.1 Present information to match the preferred style of your audience.
Decision-making: external or internal
Some people are very independent in their decision-making and rarely ask for other people’s input or advice. They don’t seek feedback from others because they know when they’ve done a good job (or bad job) because they are more internally referenced. Others, however, seek feedback, input and advice and will often need to get the opinion of others before making a decision. If you’re a manager who is internally referenced but you have people in your team who are externally referenced, it’s important to give them feedback and to recognise how important it is for them to feel motivated and acknowledged.
Tips for externally referenced persuasion:
- Provide references, feedback and testimonials from others about your service or product.
- Assume the person will need to consult with others before making a decision.
- Provide detailed information for them to consult with others.
Tips for internally referenced persuasion:
- Avoid using testimonials from other people (have them in your back pocket if necessary).
- Present your ideas clearly and let the person know that you understand that it’s their decision.
- You might end the meeting by saying something like: ‘Only you can decide what’s best for you or your organisation.’
Decision-making: options or procedures
Some people like to be presented with options before making a decision while others want to see a step-by-step process that leads to a particular outcome. A good example of this meta-programme is when people go on holidays. Some people like to ‘play it by ear’, turn up in a new place and have no set agenda or plan, while others may have a detailed itinerary, will have booked accommodation months in advance and will want to stick to a set agenda. If you’re a high options person and you’ve been on holiday with a strong procedures person, you will have experienced the challenges of negotiating with somebody who is your opposite style.
Tips for options persuasion:
- Always present at least three options in your proposal or offer.
- Build your proposal in a modular format so the person can choose different combinations.
- Talk in the language of options: ‘This solution may well be the best but let’s have a look at several options.’ Or: ‘There are different ways that we can look at resolving this.’ Or: ‘We will make sure that we review progress along the way so that we can adapt and include additional options as we go.’
- Provide flexibility in your offering.
- Ask for their input and what they would like to see changed or added.
Tips for procedures persuasion:
- Set out a logical step-by-step approach to your offer.
- Show how you have come to a particular conclusion.
- Present a timeline or plan that will give the person a structured approach.
- Be clear about what will happen next, how it will work and how to deal with any problems.
Persuasion: task or relationship
Some people focus much more on the task at hand while others focus on the relationship between people. CEOs and senior leaders are often extremely task-focused in meetings or presentations and tend to spend much less time building and fostering relationships. You will mismatch this style if you are too chatty and appear over-friendly and informal when you come to sell your idea. On the other hand, if you go into a meeting with a person who values relationship over task and you don’t take the time for small talk and social niceties you can appear abrupt and rude (in this case you are highly task- focused and they want to get to know you before deciding if they want to buy your idea). If you focus on relationship more and meet someone who is high task you might feel that they are uninterested and impolite.
Tips for task-focused persuasion:
- Be prepared to get straight to the point and stick closely to your agenda.
- Avoid small talk, be concise and be clear about any next steps and follow-up.
- Make sure you arrive on time and are fully prepared.
Tips for relationship-focused persuasion:
- Be prepared for the other person to lead the relationship more.
- Be comfortable if they introduce small talk or ask you questions about yourself and want to get to know you before getting into the detail of the meeting.
- Do some research on them so you can create more of a personal connection.
Case study
Kevin spent weeks meticulously preparing for an hour’s meeting with Paul, a senior director, to get approval to proceed with a big project. Kevin wrote a 30-page report which included research findings, examples of best practice, financial analysis with a full budget and a comprehensive 12-month project plan. Kevin developed four different options at the bottom of the report and wanted to get Paul’s input before proceeding to the next phase. He sent the report to Paul a week before to give him sufficient time to digest all the information.
When the day came for the meeting, Kevin received an email from Paul’s secretary saying that he now had to fly to the US earlier and the meeting would only be 30 minutes. As soon as Kevin entered Paul’s office, Paul said that while he’d not had time to read the report, he was looking forward to a short summary and hearing Kevin’s top recommendations.
Kevin was completely unprepared for this, became flustered and began to notice feelings of anger and frustration. He’d spent months doing the research and wasn’t sure himself which option Paul would support so he had no clear recommendation in his own mind. Kevin started to go through the detail which seemed to frustrate Paul. This reaction only raised the levels of stress and anxiety Kevin felt. Soon he began to waffle and felt overwhelmed and unsure of what exactly to say and how to get back on track. The rest of the meeting didn’t go well and Paul ended it by agreeing to reschedule the meeting in a month’s time when he would return from the States.
Paul was disappointed that Kevin was so unprepared and began to wonder if he was the right person to manage the project after all. Kevin felt deflated, embarrassed and angry and couldn’t work out how the meeting had gone so wrong when he’d been preparing for it for weeks.
I’ve seen this story played out many times in business; in fact I’ve been on both sides. It’s so easy to see the world from our own perspective and not be prepared for someone who will change tack, expect something else, not read the information we’ve sent and shorten the time they can offer us. Kevin’s personal style is ’detail and relationship’ and he assumed Paul would read the report and they would have an informal meeting to get to know one another more and discuss all the options. Paul is big picture and task driven and expected Kevin to recommend one solution which the finance director would review before final sign off.
So, before you step into the fray, stand in the other person’s shoes, expect things to change, find out what they want from you and be prepared to flex your own style.
Meta-programmes: in a nutshell
Remember that meta-programmes are neither good nor bad – they are (mostly) unconscious preferences about the way we like to receive information, make decisions and choose between different options. When we are aware of our own and other people’s preferences, we can collaborate better, play to our strengths and ensure we get the outcome we want.
2nd rule of influence through relationships:
Understand different communication styles, relationship values and decision-making strategies.
You can use meta-programmes to:
- Expand your understanding of other people’s preferences.
- Influence decisions by matching communication style.
- Influence decisions by matching decision-making style.
- Influence decisions by adapting your relationship style to connect with and influence others.
Motivation style
Use this to think about what motivates the other person and then match your language and offering to that style.
- Toward
- Away from
Communication style
Use this to prepare your pitch, presentation or written documents. It’s best to provide both big picture and detail but use this to decide what you lead with to start.
- Big picture
- Detail
Decision-making style
Use this to help you plan and prepare and then match your language and approach to influence decision-making.
- Internal
- External
- Options
- Procedures
Persuasion style
Use this to build rapport with the other person and match their relationship values.
- Task
- Relationship
Influencing others using meta-programmes
So how do we know what someone’s meta-programme is?
- For the communication meta-programme the easiest way is to ask people directly what they want when preparing for meetings, pitches and presentations. People will appreciate you considering how they like to receive information.
- For the relationship meta-programme, you may already be aware of this if you work closely with somebody or you can ask others to guide you on their preferred style. When meeting senior leaders assume they are task-focused (often because they will be under considerable pressure) and will appreciate a clear, succinct and well-prepared pitch that gets straight to the point. Avoid starting out with your company’s credentials. You are at the meeting because you have already passed the test of suitability and time taken for you to talk about your credentials is time taken from understanding the other person’s needs and presenting your ideas. Leave credentials in the back pocket (the last slide in the deck or at the back of the report) and assume that they are not necessary unless specifically asked for. Use every moment you have to connect, understand and listen to the other person.
- Get advice from others about what the person’s preferred
style is. - People give us valuable information all the time about their preferences so make a habit of noticing.
Influence through your emotional state
The first place to start when we think about preparing to influence others is to get a deeper understanding of their personal preferences and motivators, and then understand how our own emotions affect and influence others.
3rd rule of influence through relationships:
Your emotional state is a powerful tool of influence.
If we mismatch at the level of personal connection and fail to create rapport, then it doesn’t matter how well we’ve prepared our argument or material we will fail to convince and persuade. Influence is about the power of personal emotional connection. People really do buy ‘people’ more than they buy a ’logical’ argument or proposition. And until recently we didn’t really understand how this personal chemistry works between people. What the recent research in neuroscience has discovered is that there’s a powerful neurological basis for empathy and emotional connection and, by understanding how this works, we can develop our own personal strategies for influencing – not through what we say, but through our own emotional state. But what is empathy anyway? And what does ice-cream have to do with the discovery of the neurological basis of empathy and rapport with others?
Case study
It was a hot summer day and a team of neuroscientists were working at a laboratory in Italy using neuro-imaging on the brain of a macaque monkey. During a lull in the experiment, one scientist took a break and went out to get an ice-cream. When he came back into the lab and moved his hand up to his mouth to lick the ice-cream, the motor cortex in the monkey’s brain lit up at exactly the same time. This was not part of the experiment and the scientists were curious. Was the monkey’s reaction a coincidence, or was something else happening? They repeated the action and got exactly the same result. They were intrigued. While none of the scientists in the room knew it at the time, they had just stumbled on one of the most important discoveries in brain science; the discovery of mirror neurons and the part they place in helping us learn through imitation. What we now know is that the mirror neurons that fired, deep in the monkey’s motor cortex, enabled the monkey to neurologically perform exactly the same action at exactly the same time.
One of the leading neuroscience researchers, V S Ramachandran, in his 2011 work The Tell-tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human, proposes that around 75 000 years ago humans took a major evolutionary step when our brains developed a more sophisticated mirror neuron system. For the first time, our ancestors could adopt the point of view of another person; they could watch an animal being skinned, somebody light a fire or build shelter and create an ’internal simulation’ of the action. This new brain circuitry accelerated our ability to learn and share critical skills of survival and safety such as fire and shelter making.
But, while some of our mirror neurons are specialised to mirror other people’s motor skills, there are a smaller percentage of mirror neurons (around 10–20 per cent) in our somatosensory cortex, the inferior parietal cortex and the anterior insula regions that fire when we see somebody else being touched. This may be related to our ability to make sense of someone else’s internal emotional landscape. Activation of these mirror neurons allows us to ’read’ and tune in to the emotional states of others and, from this, form the basis of our ability to empathise, understand another person’s point of view and build rapport with others. Our ability for rapport is not just a cognitive thinking process but is in fact a deeply hardwired brain activity.
Now I understand you, I can influence you
The discovery of mirror neurons that day in the monkey’s brain opened up new areas of research including a new field of neuroscience called interpersonal neurobiology which explores how two brains, in two bodies interact. It’s all about our brain-to-brain connections; how one person’s thinking, emotional state and the words they use can affect another person at the level of their neurology. It’s the insula in the brain which acts as our emotional barometer and helps us recognise the emotions that pass across somebody’s face.
Case study
A group of scientists set up an experiment to understand how emotional contagion operates. They put two people in a room together and asked them to maintain eye contact for two silent minutes. At the start and end of the experiment participants were asked to complete a mood checklist. What the scientists discovered was that the person who was the most emotionally expressive of the pair was able to transmit their emotions to the other person. In other words, the person with the most powerful emotional state was able to shift the other person’s emotional state in only two minutes.
Source: Goleman, D, Happy or sad, a mood can prove contagious, The New York Times, 15 October 1991 (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/15/science/happy-or-sad-a-mood-can-prove-contagious.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm).
Interpersonal neurobiology is one of the most exciting branches of neuroscience for anyone interested in how we communicate and influence others. We might think we are in private worlds where our thoughts and emotions are discreet and ’hidden’ from view, but in fact our emotional state is a powerful tool of influence. If you see a look of fear pass across somebody’s face your mirror neurons fire and your brain creates an internal ’map’ of that same emotion in your insula so that you can ’understand’ the intentions and emotion of the other person. This momentary emotional mirroring allows you to respond, react and reassure (or if you are not in tune with the other person to miss the emotional information entirely). As Dan Siegel says in Mindsight: ‘I’ve come to call this set of circuits – from mirror neurons to sub cortical regions, back up to the middle prefrontal areas – the “resonant circuits.” This is the pathway that connects us to one another.’ (2011, p. 61). So influence is not only about tuning in to other people and how they are feeling in order to respond and adapt how you sell, but also how you manage your emotional state and its effect on others.
Mirror neurons – our two-way mirrors
But what’s critical in the field of influence is that our mirror neuron system operates as a two-way feedback loop. When we are exposed to powerful negative emotions such as fear and anxiety, these can pull us into an emotional downward spiral (think about how quickly fear can spread through a group). We can also share in the positive emotional states of groups; think about being at a sporting event when your team is winning or at a concert when the crowd is singing in unison – emotions spread quickly and can shift others into an upward emotional spiral. And this two-way emotional feedback loop operates in every context: in groups, in one-to-ones and at work.
When we want to influence the outcome with other people our emotional state is really our secret weapon because it has a profound effect on how other people feel about us, how much information they can take in (because if they are anxious they will find it hard to concentrate) and whether we are able to build rapport with others. Let’s look at how the mirror neuron system can operate in different contexts as both a negative and positive influence.
4th rule of influence through relationships:
The mirror neuron system allows us to resonate emotionally with others and affects every interaction we have.
Mirror neurons as a negative two-way mechanism in influencing others
We often focus on the ’content’ of our message, particularly when we need to have a difficult conversation or to deliver a difficult message. But these are the most important times to focus on managing the emotional response of our audience, specifically by thinking about how your emotional state impacts on the group. When people are anxious or in fear (of say losing their jobs or dealing with a major change) they can move quickly into fight or flight response which will shut down their capacity to hear your message, so it’s important to move people back into a more receptive state of mind. Now let’s take a look at how we can turn this around to positively influence others and achieve our outcome.
Mirror neurons as a positive two-way mechanism in influencing others
The dance of rapport
Our ability to accurately read and respond to other’s emotions as well as maintain a positive emotional state when we need to is a critical building block in our ability to influence them. Persuasive communicators tune in to their audience, they notice if they are energised, attentive and motivated and, if not, they adjust, adapt and respond to get things back on track. We match the listener’s emotional state and monitor and modulate our own emotions in a way that allows the listener to feel safe and contained. In this low-threat environment, thinking and creativity can thrive.
If you are an interviewer, leader or sales person who is tuned out to others you will soon be having an emotional one-way monologue. But when you are able to pick up the cues that others unconsciously send out, whether through their tone of voice or body language, you will quickly build rapport and you will have the ability to emotionally dance with the other person.
5th rule of influence through relationships:
Emotions are the critical but underestimated ingredient of influence and persuasion.
Tips for doing the dance:
- Influence is a two-way process.
- Notice where the other person is emotionally and respond.
- Adjust and adapt your own reactions and responses.
Tune up your emotional awareness
Tune up your own emotions and set your own emotional compass when you want to influence others. Your emotional state is communicated all the time and influences those around you. The first building block is to develop your own awareness of your emotional state. How quickly can your mood be shifted from positive to negative or vice versa? Are you the leader in the neural dance with others or are you a follower? Do you help to lift and shift the mood of others to a more productive and open state? Or are you more of a follower and quickly feel affected by other people’s moods? When you notice you are in a negative or bad mood how long do you stay there? Do you have strategies to help you recover and become more positive?
The STAR model
Use the STAR model to help you build your emotional awareness, emotional resilience and move back into positive emotions so you can positively influence others:
Switch
There are many things that switch our emotions from positive to negative: the train being cancelled when we’re already running late for an important meeting; an urgent email from our boss saying they want to see us without letting us know why; a friend cancelling on us at the last moment. Before we know it we can start to feel angry, irritated or anxious. These emotions in turn affect our physiology as our brain releases cortisol and adrenaline into our bloodstream. We experience tension in our body, butterflies in our stomach, our jaw clenches and we rapidly move to a stressed state.
Thoughts
As soon as we notice our emotions change we need to become aware of how our thoughts change in response to them. We all have what’s known as ’self-talk’ where we hold an internal one-way dialogue in our mind and say things like: ‘I knew it. This always happens to me, it’s just typical when something’s really important things always go wrong.’ Or, ‘It’s going to be a disaster. They’ll be so angry at me for being late.’ Or, ‘I’m in trouble. I wonder what I’ve missed or done wrong?’ Or, ‘My friend is so inconsiderate, why do people always let me down?’ And one thought leads to another and starts a chain reaction of negative thinking and mental catastrophising. Our thoughts create increasingly negative emotions and reactions, stress pushes us into fight–flight or freeze mode and further prevents us from thinking clearly and responding appropriately, and this becomes a vicious circle as we travel further and further down the emotional low road.
Assess, argue and analyse
Once we become aware of how we are beginning to think about the situation we can begin to assess what’s really going on, analyse our thinking and argue the other side of case. ‘Trains are often late, it’s not personal to me and I really didn’t build in enough time for anything to go wrong. I need to calm down so I can work out what’s best to do.’ Or, ‘I really don’t know what my boss wants to see me about, so there’s no point in imagining the worst case scenario. Perhaps she has an important project she wants to me to do?’ Or, ‘My friend really does care about me, she’s often been there for me when I’ve needed her and it’s important for me to be able to let her off the hook this time and not make her feel guilty.’
Restore, resolve and reset
Once we can see how quickly our thinking becomes part of the problem, we can start to reset our emotional state by changing our thoughts. The truth is that no matter what happens, panic, stress, negative thinking and negative emotions only add fuel to the fire. So we need to use our executive brain function (our intelligence and logic) to understand how to move back to a more resourceful state and then we need to reset our emotional state.
Exercise
Make the STAR process work for you by making it a strong mental habit. Practise it to strengthen your emotional resilience.
Manage your emotional triggers
Here are some other daily practices to help you manage your emotional triggers.
Use your body to shift your emotions
Exercise is proven to benefit our brain as well as our mood and can help us shift our emotional setpoint and get us back into balance. Exercise has been shown to have positive effects on our brain through neurogenesis (developing new neurons) and to lift our mood by releasing endorphins which releases feel-good hormones (McGovern, 2005, The effects of exercise on the brain). Walking is a great exercise when you want to ’mull things over’ – there’s a kind of magic that happens after around 10–15 minutes when your mind becomes more open to making new and more creative connections. Walking increases the amount of oxygen and glucose that is sent to your brain, which helps you reduce stress, improve concentration and improve memory function, all of which help you find new insights and solutions to any challenges you’re facing.
Write a journal to shift your emotions
Another proven strategy is to keep a daily journal and note the emotions you experience in a day. Notice what triggers your emotions; is it what somebody said, their tone of voice or body language? Think about the conclusions you come to, it’s often not so much what happened but how we interpret it which can lead us to negative or self-defeating thoughts. Writing will help you challenge your thoughts, help you develop new ways of seeing things and build your emotional resilience.
Case study
Matthew Lieberman, a psychologist who works at the University of California in LA and researches the effect of writing on our brains, found that the act of writing helps to calm the amygdala (which is connected to our fight–flight response). Volunteers underwent brain scans and scientists found that those who wrote things down matched the brain scans of the volunteers who were consciously trying to control their emotions. Lieberman said: ‘Writing seems to help the brain regulate emotion unintentionally.’ If you make this a daily practice for a month you will have created a habit which is much easier to sustain.
Source: Sample, I, Keeping a diary makes you happier, The Guardian, 15 February 2009 (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/feb/15/psychology-usa).
Mindfulness
Another powerful strategy to help you manage your emotions and build emotional resilience, empathy and insight is to practise mindfulness. Mindfulness training increases our ability to choose where to focus our attention, and this ability is most important when the emotional brain is hijacking our attention. When we are stressed and under pressure, the emotional systems of the brain take over and our ability to think creatively and problem solve is reduced. Mindfulness training allows us to accept and absorb even strong negative emotions and then then redirect our attention to where we want it to be.
A key aspect of mindfulness training involves the repeated bringing of attention to the body and bodily sensations. This has a two-fold benefit. Firstly, it allows us to learn more about our own personal body signature of emotions – we become more sensitive to emotional changes and better able to deal with strong emotions. Secondly, paying attention to the body allows us to be in the ‘present moment’. This is the antidote to the tendency of the stressed and anxious mind.
There is now four decades of research on mindfulness training showing that it can improve emotional and cognitive functioning and that these changes arise as a result of changes in the structure and function of the brain. Further to these findings, mindfulness training is now being applied in a variety of sectors including business, education and health.
How emotions drive behaviour
Banking, more than many other industries, embodies the principles of logic, rationality and hard facts; mathematicians, economists, statisticians and even rocket scientists are employed by banks to boost their intellectual firepower. You could say that banks exemplify ’left brain’ thinking but, following the financial crash in 2008, it’s become clear that powerful emotions such as greed and fear played a significant part in decision-making by traders, risk officers, regulators, CEOs and ratings agencies. The dominant organisational emotions are conveyed by the top leaders and cascade down via the mirror neuron system throughout the organisation.
Case study
A study by Diana Robertson and Andrew Bate of the Wharton School showed that it was managers who demonstrated high levels of emotional intelligence who outstripped their peers when it came to all-round strategic thinking. The research measured the brain activity of managers on an executive MBA programme while reacting to fictional business dilemmas. The best performers were those who showed more neural activity in the brain areas associated with empathy and emotional intelligence – the insular, the anterior cingulate cortex and the superior temporal sulcus. These managers were able to balance IQ and EQ better and to take into account the impact a major strategic change would have on the employees that would have to implement the change.
Source: Gilkey, R et al. (2012) When emotional reasoning trumps IQ.
In the past we focused more on intelligence but, over the last 20 years, we’ve become increasingly aware of the important role emotion plays in leadership and in positively influencing others.
Tune in to others
The next step is to tune in to the emotions of others and you can do this by ’standing in their shoes’. Ask yourself the following questions to help you uncover what the world looks like to other people:
- What’s most important to this person?
- What are their values?
- What motivates them?
- What are they afraid of?
- How do they feel about this particular issue?
- How do they see you?
Tips for leaders:
- Leaders play a critical role in managing the emotions and motivation of others.
- People look to the leader of a group, team or organisation for reassurance and clarity when there is a threat to the group or a challenge to be faced.
- The emotions of leaders help shape the culture and level of performance in the organisation (people underperform when they experience fear, anxiety or insecurity).
- Leaders can use emotional energy to inspire, motivate and direct others.
- Businesses, groups and teams need positive emotional energy to flourish.
The skills of empathy
There are three skills of empathy that will help you be influential at managing others.
Cognitive empathy
This means understanding how the other person sees things and understanding their perspective. Even if you need to say no to a project or an idea, make time for the other person to fully present their idea; it’s much easier to accept a decision when it’s been fully explored and acknowledged. Take the time to encourage the person to acknowledge the good ideas and the work involved.
Emotional empathy
Notice, acknowledge and respond to the emotions of people in your team to build rapport. Notice when the team is under stress and create opportunities for people to move back into a calm state of mind. Create social opportunities for people to express and share their feelings as well as celebrate and publicly acknowledge achievements to create feelings of pride, achievement and recognition.
Empathetic concern
Notice when somebody needs your help or support, when they’re under pressure or missing deadlines. Provide advice and counsel. Listen with deep attention and ask incisive questions to help somebody think through a problem and come up with their own solutions. This is the role of the coach–manager who uses their own emotions intelligently to develop the next generation of leaders.
Giving feedback
When managing other people make sure you give positive praise and feedback and empathise with others. Researchers found that if we give negative feedback in an empathetic and positive way people are still able to maintain a positive emotional state and feel good about themselves, whereas, if we give the same feedback to the person in a critical and cold tone they come out feeling negative. The content of our message is exactly the same, but a positive tone and style is what people remember and will help them assimilate and act on the information. When people feel criticised their brain moves quickly into fight–flight and they are more likely to become defensive and tune out your message.
Brain Rules:
- The brain has an open loop system and emotional states are communicated through the mirror neuron system.
- The person with the strongest emotional state has the biggest influence.
- Leaders play an important role in the emotional regulation of others.
- When we meet people’s emotional needs they experience connection and empathy with us which allows us to influence.
- Fear blocks our ability to influence because it shifts people into fight–flight response.
- Smiling changes our brain chemistry by releasing neuropeptides, dopamine, endorphins and serotonin which help us fight stress, lower our heart rate and blood pressure and lift our mood.
- Smiling is contagious so is a simple but powerful way to connect, reassure and then influence.
Top Tips:
- Tune up your own emotions to positively influence others. Build your emotional awareness and emotional resilience.
- Prepare your emotional state with as much care as your message whenever you want to influence others.
- Emotion is persuasive not logic or facts – support your message with emotional motivators.
- People move away from pain and toward pleasure; use these core motivating forces to influence.
- Emotions change the world.