CHAPTER 1

ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

“She was there for me.”

“He made the time.”

“Her door was always open.”

“He invested in me.”

When I’ve asked people to describe someone who inspired them, one of the first comments is that the person was noticeably present. People who inspire us are both physically and mentally available to us. They focus on us. They give us the gift of their time, and just as important, the gift of their attention.

That attention affects us in a multitude of ways.

How we focus our attention reveals what we care about—whether or not we mean it to. On a basic human level, we crave positive attention from those who matter to us. We’re social animals. Isolation hurts us. It’s hard to overestimate the very human need to have others bear witness to what’s happening in our lives.

Certainly the connections we feel form the fabric of our days and influence our attitudes. Gallup’s well-cited research on what makes productive workgroups shows that those who say they have a best friend at work are significantly more likely to strive for quality and to get recognition and encouragement.¹

Leaders should also keep in mind that their attention casts a large shadow and has an inflated impact. Psychologists have long studied how power shapes attention. Susan Fiske, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, has found that that we pay more attention to those above us in social hierarchies.² Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at Berkeley, has published numerous studies showing that being in power makes us not just pay less attention to others, but to actually feel less for them.³

This power differential is important. Think about it. When you’re a leader, people are watching you closely. They notice how you enter a room and where you sit as well as your tone of voice and demeanor. However, you’re more prone to overlook the people at the levels below you. You are less likely to be tuned in to them, perhaps lost in your own concerns, while you’re being studied intently. Many leaders don’t realize that this phenomenon is happening, or they ignore it, or they let it wear them down. This explains the considerable misunderstandings and frustrations often seen in hierarchical relationships.

For leaders, presence is a blinking red light that signifies importance. Being fully present at key times has a motivational impact. When a leader actually pays real attention to us, it feels great. We feel special. The capacity to inspire is heightened.

BEING PRESENT CHANGES THE CONVERSATION

At a theoretical level, the conversations we have may seem pretty similar. If we’re present enough for a dialogue, then we’re accomplishing what we need. But if we’re truly present, that’s when the shift happens.

In workshops, I lead an exercise to show the impact of focused attention. (I’ll share here so you can experience it vicariously.) The setup is easy. Working in pairs, participants discuss recent weekend plans—with a twist. In the first round, I have the speakers talk about their plans, and instruct the listeners to act as if they don’t actually care all that much about what the speakers are sharing. They can check their phones, look around the room, and practice spotty eye contact—whatever is in the realm of normal, disengaged behavior.

The energy in the room during Round 1 is low-key. Participants share conversations like this:

What did you do this weekend?

Saw a movie.

Oh yeah, what did you see?

The new Bourne movie. It was pretty good, but I thought the last one was better.

I’m not big on action movies, but I do like the Bourne series. I haven’t seen a movie in a while though. Just seems like we never get to it.

I know what you mean. The weekend goes so fast.

You know the drill; it’s your typical catch up. Short conversations that lose steam quickly, with people looking to me for the “all clear” to stop talking as the exchange devolves into uncomfortably lowered gazes.

Then we go to Round 2. This time, the listeners are encouraged to be completely present to their discussion partners. They are asked to orient their posture toward each other, make sustained eye contact, and tune out distractions. Listeners are told to be curious, to notice the reactions of the other person, and to ask questions about what the speaker seems to have energy around. Otherwise, they have the exact same conversation.

Except they don’t. This time the discussion is completely different. There’s a high level of energy in the room. People are laughing, gesturing, and listening intently. They are mirroring each other’s body language. I can barely get the participants to stop talking.

And time after time, when we debrief, I hear that the act of paying attention changes the conversation significantly. In Round 1, the speaker could barely discuss the most basic of experiences without a present listener. The conversation is superficial and brief. In Round 2, the experience is markedly changed, looking more like this:

What did you do this weekend?

Saw a movie.

I noticed you smiled when you said that. What brought that on?

You caught that! Yes, I was thinking about my son’s reaction. I took him to see the Bourne movie, which was the first grown-up movie he’s seen with me. It felt like a rite of passage . . . something I used to do with my dad. We loved to see action flicks together.

I can tell that spending time with your son is really important to you. What else do you like to do?

We’re both into hockey, and love going to games. We don’t go very often though; that’s harder to plan, especially with my travel schedule. Now that I think about it, it’s not about the content of what we do, but the time we spend together that makes it memorable. Even a quick trip to the movies was meaningful. I’m going to think of activities we can do on the spot, like . . .

If you were a fly on the wall in the room, you would think you were looking at a group of old friends catching up, or colleagues hashing out a serious topic. You’d find it hard to believe it’s the same people who could barely keep a conversation going! While weekend plans may have initiated both conversations, in Round 2, a present listener enabled the speaker to expand the topic, often in surprising ways. The speaker covered more ground, the conversation ventured into areas of meaning and importance, and both the speaker and the listener learned more about each other.

When I conduct this exercise with intact work groups, participants say they learned more about their colleagues in the five-minute exchange than in all the years they’ve known them. I’ve heard people say they discovered something new about themselves simply by having a curious listener. And just about everyone admits that the contrast between the conversations is remarkable.

By sitting in front of someone and investing fully, we create an inspirational space. Not so difficult, or so it seems. While it’s fairly straightforward to be a present communicator, it’s hard to find one. If we can make the commitment, especially in relationships where we want to inspire, we can make an impact by essentially doing nothing but choosing to pay earnest attention.

This same effect comes into play in a large group or public setting. Ever meet someone at a networking event who actually took the time to get to know you? That person stands out. And I’m pretty sure you’ve been to a networking event where someone looked over your shoulder to see who else was in the room, and can recall how diminishing that feels. (No wonder so many people consider networking to be a distasteful, or even a little soul-crushing, chore.)

Our presence is an invitation to inspiration. It’s the lead-in, the door opener, the hook. Yet, how easy it is to squander this opportunity to use our focused attention to make an impact. I was once brought in to work with a senior leader, Sam, who needed to unite a team behind a new and bold vision. She asked me to attend her all-hands meeting, where her entire team had gathered from around the globe. Sam, who had grown up at the company but had spent most of her time in a different product division, was an unknown quantity to her current team. This meeting was Sam’s chance to introduce her vision and rally the troops around it.

Expectations were high. Everyone milled about, buzzing with eagerness to hear what was in store. As the start time neared and passed, you could see people glancing at their watches. Excitement lapsed into concern, and then into annoyance. Finally, Sam walked into the room fifteen minutes late, finishing a call, and took the stage hurriedly. She began her comments by telling everyone that she’d been managing a crisis so would be talking off the cuff. She was there, but everyone in that room knew she wasn’t present. There was zero inspiration happening that day. In fact, Sam created an inspiration deficit.

Sam’s team needed to be optimistic and engaged to accomplish its mission. After that meeting, I overheard several people lamenting the fact that the company had picked the wrong person to lead the cause.

LET’S GET REAL: TIME IS MONEY

You may be thinking that you’d love to be fully present, but it sounds like it takes more time than you have to give. Many of us feel as though we can barely get through our inbox by the end of the day. Which leads to what gets in the way of being fully present: We’re distracted and busy. Yet, some people manage to be fully present to what matters to them. They have equally demanding jobs and the same twenty-four hours to play with each day. So, how much of our distracted attention is our own doing?

Social researchers would argue, a lot.

We’ve concocted the perfect storm of divided attention. In a very short time, we’ve become a society that communicates in short bursts, and largely via intermediaries. The Internet, mobile phones, and other portable electronics make it far easier to talk through something rather than with someone. And we can’t stop ourselves.

Research indicates that we spend about eight hours online every day, and send or receive an average of 400 text messages each month.⁴ Internet addiction is such a heated topic that it came close to being included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the standard guide used to classify mental disorders in the United States. (Internet gaming addiction did make it in, by the way.)

In the space of a decade and a half, we’ve gone from using technology as needed to never being away from our phones without feeling a sense of serious unease. A 2015 study found that 71 percent of us sleep beside our phones, and 3 percent sleep with them in our hands. We go to our phones first thing, with 35 percent of us grabbing them ahead of our coffee or toothbrushes. Nearly half of us say we wouldn’t make it a day without our smartphones.⁵

The way we talk to each other has fundamentally changed. We don’t have time to be present because we’re present to technology. It’s become a rarity in modern business (or life) to have a simple conversation without competition from other sources. It’s become socially accepted to glance at our emails during a conversation, or even to read our phones in a group setting or meeting. Imagine picking up a magazine and reading it in the middle of a meeting at work! That would be seen as an affront to others, and socially obtuse. We pretend that we need to be “on call” though it’s widely understood that this rationale is bent constantly.

Recently, I was asked to observe one of my clients in a board meeting. I sat toward the back of the boardroom where I could see the screens of the board members. While the CEO was talking, I watched the board members reading their email, scanning news articles, and even looking at Facebook. This from the people who have a personal, fiduciary responsibility to the company! The average weekly team status meeting is in deep trouble.

Conference calls, the typical way most companies communicate, fare even worse. I’ve been asked to conduct entire sessions on how to command attention in a virtual setting when participants are clearly multitasking. We’ve come to expect the clicking keyboard when participants forget to hit mute, or the pregnant pause when someone addresses a question to a participant who isn’t paying attention. This has become such a norm that even when videoconferencing is an option—which has been shown to significantly increase engagement—people elect to not be on camera so they can more easily multitask.

One positive sign is that people and businesses are beginning to realize that we’re missing important parts of the interpersonal dynamic. In 2015, a Pew Research study of mobile behaviors and attitudes found that 89 percent of cell phone owners said they used their phones during their last gathering, and 82 percent felt it hurt the conversation.⁶

So we check our phones, send text messages, glance at our email, or scan social media while real people are right in front of us. But at least we acknowledge that there’s a price.

THE PRICE OF DISTRACTION

Virginia Tech researchers sought to determine what actually happens to conversations when mobile phones are introduced. They found that even when a phone isn’t making a noise and is only in eyesight, conversations are diminished. The mere presence of the phone sitting on the table draws attention away from the conversation. Our attention is subtly drawn outward and away from the other person; we can miss facial expressions, tone, and other cues that have significant meaning.

The study concluded that conversations without a mobile phone in sight were seen as superior and included higher levels of empathy. This finding was consistent across age, gender, ethnicity, and mood.⁷

Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and founder of MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self, has been one of the most active and vocal researchers in this area. An early voice in the digital culture conversation, Turkle was heralded in the 1990s as an advocate who truly understood technology’s potential. In her two most recent books, Alone Together and Reclaiming Conversation, Turkle asserts that technology is harming our ability to have meaningful, face-to-face conversations. What’s at stake isn’t just how we talk, but how we understand one another as humans.

Turkle’s research explores how people spend more time connected to one another electronically, yet say they are lonelier, more emotionally disconnected, and anxious. Online, we present a sanitized, curated, edited version of ourselves through email, text messages, and social media. People can choose to be focused elsewhere any time they like, and opt-out of the most important events in their lives, especially difficult moments. Turkle discusses how it’s even common to see people on their phones at funerals.⁸

In her widely watched Ted.com talk, Turkle warns of the “Goldilocks effect,” where we have begun to prefer a safe distance from others: “not too close, not too far, just right.”⁹ Her research shows our dependence on technology is degrading our ability to empathize, supporting the Virginia Tech study’s hypothesis. We take ourselves out of difficult conversations—or any conversation—by diverting our attention. We fail to notice what needs to be seen.

Turkle insists that we need to be present during the not-so-fun moments to show our humanity. These moments uncover who we really are and what matters to us. “Most important,” says Turkle, “we all really need to listen to each other, including the boring bits. Because it’s when we stumble or hesitate or lose our words that we reveal ourselves to each other.”

Inspire Path conversations are about, and happen within, these human moments. They require our full attention so we don’t miss any of the dynamics in front of us—especially the real, messy, or uncomfortable parts.

It’s said that people have three core needs: to be seen, heard, and understood. Just in the act of being fully present, we are knocking off the first two. You can go a long way to being inspiring to another person just by showing up and being in the moment. By having a focused, real conversation, you are already standing out from the typical distracted half-conversations that make up the majority of our daily communications. And by being willing to hear the words and tone—and to see the other person’s nonverbal behavior—you open the door to deep, human connection.

BEING PRESENT: A PRETTY AMAZING PRESENT

So we know that we need to be present to have conversations that count. Listening is instrumental to inspiring, and certainly we can’t listen if we’re distracted and don’t even catch what the other person is saying. But how can we be more present in the daily rush of living and working? I said before that it’s straightforward. We do it all the time when the stakes are high and we care the most. What’s hard is prioritizing being present when life has other plans. Here I am writing about this concept in a book; I’ve studied all the research behind the benefit of presence to our relationships, and I coach CEOs and large corporations on the concept. Still, I’m the first to acknowledge that I struggle with it. The first step in making progress may be admitting that we need more than a desire to be present. We need a plan.

For most people it’s unrealistic to resolve to be present for every interaction. Much of our day is about getting things done. There are, however, certain conversations where we do want to connect and inspire another person to expand perspective or take action. Conversations where we want to be all-in. Conversations that matter.

When you’re having those conversations, there are a number of ways to show how important the conversation (and therefore, the person) is to you:

Create a distraction-free zone

Willpower is wonderful, but most of us don’t have as much of it as we need. It’s far easier to put ourselves in a place where we can’t be distracted than to resist distractions by our computers, our phones, or by office interruptions.

If you want to have an Inspire Path conversation, create a zone where you can’t help but focus on the other person. If you’re in your office, power down your computer and put your phones on do not disturb. Physically move away from your desk, and sit at a table or go to a conference room without taking your electronics. Or get out of your office entirely; move the conversation to lunch or a coffee. (But don’t put your phone on the table, even if it’s turned off.) If on a conference call, let the other person know that you’re shutting down email and other distractions, and request the same consideration.

When you show how seriously you’re taking a conversation, it raises the importance for everyone else as well.

Use the power of pause

How frequently we rush from one meeting to another, without stopping to consider each as its own specific connection point, with a unique set of goals and expectations. At the end of the day, it’s a muddled mess of interactions and can be hard to detangle one from the other.

To be present, learn the power of pause. Take a few moments before the conversation and sit quietly. Take a few deep breaths to get oxygen to your brain, shake off stress, and center your energy. Reflect on what you want to get out of the dialogue. What action do you want to inspire? What feeling do you want to create?

In Chapter 2, I discuss the concept of a situational intention, a crucial pause before important conversations to determine “how do I want people to feel as a result of this exchange?” Situational intention requires the speaker to dig into the feelings that she is trying to evoke in the other party. After all, we process in emotional terms. If you want someone to feel excited then you need to project excitement.

By using this pause to consider what feeling you want to create, you reorient your brain away from the external noise or internal concerns, and toward the moment in front of you.

Get curious

Our conversations are designed in our heads, and then presented to others. In this way, many times we predetermine or shape the content before the conversation has actually begun. In any conversation, there are four players: the two people talking, and the two inner voices of the people talking. (Much more about this dynamic in Chapter 6.) We can pay more attention to our own inner voice, which is feeding us our message points, trying to redirect to our chosen topic, assessing how it’s going, and angling to make us look smart or funny. But if we’re listening to our own internal dialogue, then we’re not being present to the other person.

An easy fix: Get curious. Look to see what the other person is interested in and ask questions about it. Don’t assume you know the answers. Let your mind go with the conversation.

Hold the space

Sherry Turkle talks about how we need to preserve “sacred spaces” of undivided attention around times that matter to us. We can also do this around conversations that matter to us. When we hold the space for other people, free of distraction, with full attention, then we provide the opportunity for them to process their own thoughts through dialogue. Make no mistake: this is an important and inspiring gesture of connection that people rarely get. In fact, we pay psychologists and coaches handsomely to offer this service.

By holding the space, you don’t rush the conversation either explicitly or implicitly. You designate a time for it, and you honor it. You don’t interrupt or direct the conversation. Rather, you let it unfold. Many of our best insights happen when another person creates the space for us to truly think.

Say that it’s important

We all fall prey to the transparency illusion, which is a psychological phenomenon stating that we overestimate how well others can guess what we’re thinking.¹⁰ We’re actually pretty awful at knowing the motivation of others. We fill in the blanks and create reasons for others’ behavior in the absence of solid information. We’re not even very good at understanding the motives of people we live with, so you can imagine how bad we are with colleagues at work!

It can benefit the conversation to state our motivations at the outset so there’s no guessing required. If we’re trying to make ourselves be present because the conversation is important, then let the other person know that. It’s fine to come out and say something such as:

“This is important to me so I want to fully focus on your issue for the next hour.”

“My goal with this discussion is to help you see what’s possible for yourself.”

“Nothing else is as much of a priority right now as this conversation.”

There are countless ways to say that the conversation matters. Put it in your words, and put it out there.

Show receptive body language

Our body language sends subtle and not-so-subtle signals about what we’re willing to receive from the other party. Body language has meaning (which is an important reason to use videoconferencing for meetings if it’s an option). As the workshop exercise about weekend schedules showed, when people don’t see you as receptive, they limit their communications. We’ll discuss body language and its meaning in depth in Chapter 9. For now, just consider a few critical components of your nonverbal communication.

Orientation: As much as possible, orient yourself so you’re facing the other person. Try to get your shoulders square with that person, as if you are speaking from your chest. If it’s a group discussion, alternate having your torso face different people in the room. Keep your arms and legs uncrossed; you don’t want to appear to be closed off. Step around physical separators such as desks and lecterns.

Eyes: When we want to know someone’s intent, we look into his eyes. If he averts his eyes, we assume negative intent such as untrustworthiness or disinterest. Make sustained eye contact, and keep it on people, not things. It’s okay to look away while you’re thinking, but then come back to the other person. Keep your eyes soft, which shows receptiveness. Soft eyes are relaxed at the corners, not focused intently like we’re reading small print in a book. To practice soft eyes, look straight ahead and focus lightly, while still preserving your peripheral vision.

Smile: While there are other ways to show warmth and approachability, smiling is the most universal. All too often our inner thoughts show up on our face without our even knowing. Perhaps you’ve had the experience of someone asking you what’s wrong when you didn’t think anything was! Many people have faces that, when relaxed, turn downward in a frown. (I’m one of them.) All this is to say: Smile early and smile often.

CHOOSE THE CONVERSATION IN FRONT OF YOU

An Inspire Path conversation requires you to be completely in the conversation. We have more distractions and diversions for our attention than at any time in human history. We face enormous choices to entertain us and connect us with the world. Yet, we’re lonelier and less connected than ever. We have pressures on our attention and work expectations that have bled over into a 24/7 workday. And yet, we limit our own bandwidth by the choices we make. But the truth is, we have a choice in how we spend our time.

Whether you’re reading this to inspire one person, or to build followership for an entire company, choose to give the gift of being present to the conversations you’re in. There’s no better place to start.