Let It Run
March 10, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
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”.
Just This Once
February 22, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
It used to be called “getting over” but you don’t hear that expression anymore. You expect it in the public so that’s not getting over. You join the private to get away from it and resent it when it shows up, which it does, more than ever. Some now call it hustle.
- The moderator continually requests that participants keep their comments within the topic, framework and agenda but the hand keeps going up and the interruption is “just this once”.
- The group’s charter includes never using the group for business solicitation or self-promotion and a new member tries to sneak one in that’s barely camouflaged and the interruption is “just this once”.
- The professional service provider provides free, search-able access to ideas, solutions and content but the uncommitted client interrupts to ask for and discuss what’s already easily available “just this once”.
This self-management technique is the best way to discern if you’re the perp or the victim of getting over. Ask yourself “what would this look like if everyone chose to do this just this once?” The key word is choose. Don’t choose or settle for the wrong hustle, unless you’re Superfly.
Do You Care About Me?
February 16, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I confess. I rarely comment. But since I want to participate more I thought Google Buzz might be a good sharing and discussion platform.
So this is what I’ve observed after a few days experimenting with Buzz: very few tech/business people, often referred to as celebrities, dominate the public discussions. The vast majority of those who follow them race to make comments, agree or disagree, troll, rail against, offend, self-promote, cross-promote, ask for something, spam, praise and sometimes add value. This of course, is nothing new in public discussion groups.
What’s different and dramatic now is the scale…something like 10 million Google Buzz posts the first few days. So I followed a few of the celebrities, and observed how they engaged an almost instantaneous swarm of tens of thousands of followers. My sense: a collective need arises that I can only describe as: “Do You Care About Me?”. And I thought…do they care? How? And what does care even mean?
I can’t think of a better starting point for any brand (including global microbrands) to grow and develop in the Web 2.0 and beyond world, than to ask those questions. This is my first pass at a framework to facilitate that process. I followed a model that I created years ago for knowledge awareness, and its been valuable.
Why do it? Because to care is the natural state and point of power. Its also a state tremendously negatively affected by contradicting and limiting complex belief systems that inhibit growth and development.
“I Care” – is there a better way to change the status quo?
Content IS Action
January 24, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I have strong feelings about that statement after attending awesome WordCamp Boston, #wcbos, yesterday. It inspired me to respond to the many variations of a statement I often hear and see:
“Enough with the content, its action that really matters”.
Content and action aren’t mutually exclusive. Content is directed movement (action) in form: written, audio and video.
I can’t think of any action that doesn’t correspond with content, including:
- communicating – stories
- meeting – recaps
- directing – strategy
- sharing – posts & comments
- teaching – course work
- designing – visuals
- preparing – notes
- helping – feedback
- marketing – web pages
- systematizing & processing – applications
- searching & researching – aggregated information
- presenting – shows
- entertaining – scripts
- playing – toys
I think this is very important for anyone just starting out, or struggling with content creation. Don’t buy into the myth that you’re sacrificing action for content. They’re hand in hand.
Photo credit:
Title: hand in hand
Artist: Lumatic on flickr
Continual Link Making
December 21, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I recently met some good friends, at a funky diner loved by rowers, for our annual holiday breakfast. One of us noticed a new menu item “Albanian Omelet”. We laughed about what it could be and I told them I was reminded of the great movie Wag the Dog about the government’s staging a fake war with Albania to distract the public from a presidential sex scandal.
Come to find out we all loved the movie and started to discuss the characters, actors and quotes. I talked about how my favorite was Dustin Hoffman as Hollywood producer Stanley Motss who, despite insane obstacles and setbacks, successfully creates just enough faked footage, music and hype to accomplish what he was hired to do: get the president re-elected. He considers it his finest work but when he discovers that he’ll never get the credit for it, he threatens to go public with the scheme and he’s assassinated.
Conrad ‘Connie’ Brean: Stanley, don’t do this. You’re playing with your life here.
Stanley Motss: F*** my life. I want the credit.
I told my friends that I think of that line all the time when I’m involved with emerging social business models, collaboration and sharing. How do you deal with “who gets the credit?” One of my friends, a biotech analyst, described how critical and challenging that exact question is in her company, industry and in the scientific community at large. It was great to get her insights. As soon as I got in my car I wrote a few notes about it on an index card under “blog idea”.
So why is this important? Because so many people think that they don’t have some mysterious “what it takes” to create unique and original ideas, solutions and content. I hear it all the time: “I’m missing the research, the talent, the skills, the time, the experience, the clients, the degree, the influencers…” Not true. All it takes is natural curiosity, conversations about anything and everything with everyone, love and excitement about how its all connected, playing around with metaphor, and a $2 pack of index cards.
Is it hard work? Sometimes, except when its fun and easy and you can stop pushing to make it happen and just let it happen.
Facilitating Brainstorming
November 24, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
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.
Gimme a Break
September 18, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Tolerance for mistakes is at an all-time low.
Its on my mind because I’ve screwed up quite a few times this week – driving, messing up a screening form, carelessly forwarding an email, losing a receipt, forgetting an appointment. If you want to see people shut down, try explaining your mistake to them. There’s a good chance they won’t listen. In the worst case scenario, they’ll benefit or profit. Financial services, airlines and government agencies often excel at it and the most vulnerable people are frequently their biggest targets.
People have a great opportunity to gain my trust, respect and loyalty just by slowing down, listening and saying something to the effect “Its ok, don’t feel bad, its a little thing and I can quickly fix it for you”. Anyone who responds like that builds long-term social capital with me. And it reduces stress, a huge benefit.
So here’s an terrific way to differentiate your professional service firm: cut everyone some slack.
Reading this, you may be thinking that you’re already good at providing solutions to problems. That’s great as long as you’re living up to your promise with the small stuff too. That living up to also means acknowledging that you too have been hyper-critical and intolerant to the mistakes of others, that you give can yourself a break for it, and that you resolve to be vigilant and to do better.
Decision Making
August 25, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
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.
Acceptance
August 12, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Recently, I overheard from another room, two 6 yr. old girls arguing. 
One of their mom’s was trying, with little success, to help them sort it out. From the kitchen I could not only hear, but actually feel the escalation as they got louder and increasingly upset and emotional trying to defend themselves, blame each other and end up as “me victorious”. It reminded me of waves bouncing off walls, intensifying the energy and disruption; and then I was asked to help.
Without thinking I told the first little girl “you are absolutely right because you believe you are right”. Then I told the second little girl “you are absolutely right because you believe you are right”. The result was a startled quiet followed by adorable “missing front teeth” grins. I waited for the expected “but she…”, “but I…” howls and wails to start up again but they’d already forgotten what they were upset about and were on to something new.
If only it were that easy with adults.
Unfortunately our egos have had a lot more time to figure out how to trick us into getting hooked on our thinking, expectations and judgments about people, things and experiences we don’t like and disagree with, all of which are escalating in this period of massive change. When we can’t let go we push back, but it just makes the negative thought and energy waves bigger and stronger.
I learned something profound from those little girls. Acceptance means nobody gets to be wrong, and when we refuse to harden our positions, the waves diffuse and we’re suddenly still and poised to accept that things are as they are and anything can happen. Even a visit from the tooth fairy.
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The RedShift Web Site Pages and the corresponding Blog: Creating Natural Influence, do not enable comments. I'm more comfortable getting feedback on social sites than here, where the work is so close to who I am, where I've been and where I'm going. If you have a comment or question, or would like to suggest a topic for an upcoming blog article, please contact me. Thank you.
