Employee Engagement - interview podcast now online

Alex Manchester of Melcrum Australia recently interviewed me after I chaired the Melcrum Employee Engagement conference a few weeks ago here in Sydney. The interview is now available - you can listen to the podcast here and read coverage of the conference highlights on the Melcrum internal communications Hub.
TM

Hong Kong - millions of people, 9 core belief types

(Photo credit: Base64, retouched by CarolSpears)

I've spent the latter half of last week in Hong Kong learning more about the nine personality styles, which I've previously referred to within the NeuroPower framework (as developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) as Core Belief Types or NeuroLimbic Types; "core belief" because these styles act as the filter through which each individual views the world and him- or herself, and "neurolimbic" because these reactions tend to be immediate, knee-jerk, and located in the limbic or emotionally reactive centres of the brain (which you'll recognize as the place where our fight-flight-freeze response originates, which I've also referred to as the "mental gearbox" of forward-reverse-neutral).

When you speak to people in the language they understand, you get results

I'm always impressed when I can go out and immediately make practical application of new learning, and that was what I was able to do this week with what I learned in the workshop.

The situation: I'd been trying to have a successful conversation with a friend for some weeks now and she had proven unresponsive to my overtures.

Applying this knowledge, I noticed that I was speaking to her from MY perspective rather than hers - so in a sense I was speaking my language rather than speaking in her language. Once I was able to write something that made sense to her in her own terms I received an immediate reply and satisfactory resolution of an ongoing concern of mine.

This seems quite a commonsense thing - if you try speaking Hindi to a bunch of Germans, chances are we won't get very far. Sometimes our solution, like that of some monolingual tourists travelling abroad, is to SPEAK EVEN MORE LOUDLY AND SLOWLY in the hopes that these "foreigners" will understand.

Well just as no one is a foreigner in their own country, likewise each person's personality style makes perfect sense from their point of view. So I suppose I've learned a little more about the nine languages that people use to make sense of themselves and the world around them, as well as a bit of proficiency speaking the other eight that aren't my "first language".

What was particularly impressive to me is that around 75% of the participants in the workshop were from Hong Kong and another 15% or so were from countries across southeast Asia, yet the core belief types held true across all cultures. Since these types stem from the limbic brain centre of all humans, this makes sense at a scientific level, but my sceptical side was gratified to see that this is a system with such broad-based applicability - not just among the millions living in Hong Kong and the billion-plus in China, but all over the world...

More to come!
TM

Have the respect to be direct in your communications

Hi, I’m back.

A friend predicted that I would become “time poor” during my first weeks in the new role at Mercer and he was (as he so often is) correct…hence my lack of posts.

Part of the issue is that I am a bit of an idea magpie, collecting, connecting and considering interesting insights and odd bits until I’ve come up with a tapestry that I think is ready to be unveiled to the world. People have told me they enjoy and value this approach and I’ll admit it’s my preferred way of synthesizing and opining about things.

Trouble is, it makes for fairly lengthy posts and it time to gather the threads and to weave my tapestries. And of late, on the subject of time, see above…

There is, however, a matter that I can be silent about no longer, hence this brief outburst that I deliver coupled with the promise of more considered work in the weeks to come.

Passivity and Politics

I have noticed a pattern in the language used by some people who facilitate workshops, in particular certain kinds of communication workshops. In a desire to offer no possible offence to anyone at all (fuelled, in my view, by a pronounced vein of political correctness) I’ve heard the most roundabout constructs being used in settings that are meant to foster authentic and direct communications about what people want and expect from one another.

Examples of this pernicious pattern of passive parlance include:

“I am wanting to move on with this session.”
“I am thinking that there’s another view to consider”
“I am needing some more clarity around this issue.”
“I am feeling uncomfortable with this situation.”

The passive voice can be useful in English usage, but I find here it is not. I think the motive for passive use in this way stems from the desire to be “nice” – that is, to be excessively indirect and offer no offence to anyone. This is, however, an action that a) contains the arrogant presupposition that you can predict how the person will react and b) the manipulative desire to control how he/she will react – neither of which are positive and authentic approaches to communication.

In my view it’s more authentic, honest, and frankly respectful to be direct and speak your mind plainly. Maybe the other person will be offended and get highly precious (gosh I love that word!) about your interaction. Guess what? That’s their prerogative, and now you’ve got something authentic to work with.

To close, I want to give credit to Rafe Spies of Sydney's Straight Media, who reminded me in a conversation last Friday evening of George Orwell’s 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, which is I think a terrific tract on defending plain usage from the twin threats of barbarism and jargonism (itself a bit of jargon I’ve invented, but nevermind). I refer in particular to Orwell's rule number four from that essay: Never use the passive where you can use the active.

I want to be clear about this: people create more than enough misunderstanding and confusion even when you use the active, direct voice…there’s no need to worsen matters by being indirect and passive in a misguided and manipulative desire to be “nice”.

TM