In rowing, one of the calls that coxswains and coaches make is “let it run”. That means the rowers stop rowing and the boat continues to move through the water on its own momentum, until it stops. Pause drills are similar. Rowers stop rowing and start again at different points in the stroke in order to feel balance, synchrony and flow.

Speakers can use these techniques because the need to “run-on” and never, ever pause completely prevents them from connecting with or relating to their listeners.

This stems partly from fear of being interrupted and losing air-time. Interruption is rampant in the attention economy. Politicians interrupt, commentators interrupt and celebrities interrupt each other even if it means hijacking a major award show:
Roger Ross Williams / Elinor Burkett at the 2010 Oscars.
Taylor Swift / Kanye West at the 2009 VMA’s.

Those aren’t the only kinds of interruptions. Others include the streams on listeners’ devices as well as on the backchannels that are now being integrated with talks and presentations. Anonymity gives cover to troll-like, negative behavior that can spread through the audience, sometimes turning it against the speaker.

These changes present new kinds of challenges for facilitators and moderators. But what can a speaker do other than try to outrace, drown out or crowd out interruptions, multi-tasking and waves of unfavorable reaction?

Stop, feel and accept the individual, collective and spatial energy in the room.

Connect with one person at a time on the deepest possible level through the pauses, letting the message resonate. Its better to be in relational presence with a few listeners by holding the space rather than to desperately or forcefully fill it up.

Rowers practice letting the boat do the work for them by allowing it to glide under them as they take their rest. In the collaborative, connected world, the lines between speakers and listeners are blurred and the dynamic has shifted. To attempt to control and resist those changes is a missed opportunity to “let it run”.

My granddaughters recently gave me a painting embedded with sea glass that we’d collected together. They know I love to get things they created and this was really nice since they’d made it together.

Emily, who is younger was especially intent on pointing out that she was the one who found the light purple piece in the center and that it was “very rare, Nano”. I remember the day we were on the beach searching and collecting. She wasn’t finding as many as me and Sam, her older sister, and she was getting frustrated. Just before we left she found the purple glass and I made a big deal about it. I was so proud of her for remembering and being sure she got the credit a whole year later.

And Samantha was equally impressive. She didn’t try to upstage Emily. As anyone with kids knows, that’s not how it always plays out. She could have just as likely said “you got the purple but look at all the dark blue I got so I’m even better, ha ha weirdo!” But Sam gave, and Emily accepted the credit naturally and with grace.

Since then I think a lot about credit which I’ve concluded is a greatly underrated factor in the probability of personal or cultural change success or failure. Last week, for example, I concluded that the issue of credit was the singly largest block to any kind of political change progress. Thanks to the girls I now accept that credit is part of a complex system of beliefs with which I’d completely, but unconsciously identified..for most of my life! That lack of awareness, of course, drove many of my responses and reactions to challenging job, sport, school, family and team experiences.

I wanted to share what I’d learned. A new model and accompanying presentation that I was developing for solo professionals and content creators interested in WordPress and innovative business models provided the venue.

Art and Idea Credit: Samantha Wynne & Emily Wynne, Artists / Entrepreneurs

One of the challenges for the brain-storming session facilitator is finding the balance between giving everyone an opportunity to participate while directing the flow and the process.

People with problems, who feel passionate about their unmet needs, may not be ready to articulate an idea or solution but have a strong desire to be heard. So they tell their story in detail and understandably, resent being interrupted. However, most detail and back-story falls outside the session’s purpose and can result in resentment from the group if too much time gets used up in the telling.

Facilitators can handle this typical scenario by making a brief, simple and friendly upfront agreement with the group, requesting that people:

• present an idea or solution to a problem, or…
• present a problem and ask the group for solutions or ideas

Asking for a show of hands as agreement to the process works great. At the closing, thanking the group for their behavioral change provides acknowledgment and reinforcement.

Its unlikely that everyone will change. Some people may fall back into their habit of providing more data and detail than is needed or desired. In those cases, its probably better for the overall dynamic to let it go because anything more than a gentle and friendly reminder could have a negative impact on the individual and on the energy in the room.

Notice your own feelings. If there’s frustration in you, remind yourself that perfectionism and over-reliance on process are creativity and spontaneity killers. You can improvise and make adjustments to the content and the schedule on the fly. Those are small trade-offs for creating an atmosphere of inclusiveness, trust and respect.

Remember the old saying “its a woman’s prerogative to change her mind”? Its everyone’s now.

Responding to massive and constant change means more decision making. One of the problems that I’m seeing and experiencing is an increase in conflict and loss of trust because people are changing their minds a lot. From my perspective, these problems are less about the reasons why and more about the inauthentic communication.

Why are people who take ownership of the right (and choice) to change their mind, and who communicate that simply and authentically, so rare? Because the ego hates it. The ego’s job is to blame, spin, cover-up, defend, and project.

This means countless opportunities to differentiate yourself in your personal, social, professional and business decision-making interactions. So how do you rise to the challenge?

You can take radical responsibility for changing your mind about your decisions by owning your feelings. Because to deny them means you’re overtly, or more likely subtly, projecting them out onto the world and onto the people you’re affecting. At the least, they’ll resist you. At the worst, they’ll never trust you again.

If you’re on the receiving end of a poorly communicated decision change, don’t allow yourself to get hooked on the angry, defensive or frustrated feelings that arise. Instead of resisting, or running away, stay with it, and keep on staying with it. What you’re doing is building self-trust chops, the foundation of all trust.

To anticipate credit, recognition or increase in status from practicing radical self-trust is to totally miss the point. You’re changing the energy of the world. You know it. The world knows it. That is it.