White lies as social lubricant

Have you ever noticed how we lie to each other? The classic example is that scene at a clothes shop:

"Honey does this look good on me?"
"Hell yeah! You look amazing!"

Why do we tell white lies?
I think the reason why people tell white lies is because they're scared of offending the other person. They're worried that if they tell the truth, the other person will get upset. Why would they think that? Because they themselves are afraid of the truth. In my opinion, Australians are crap at giving and receiving feedback. We lash out at successful people, cutting them down with harsh words.

Crab in the bucket syndrome
The Filipinos have a different analogy to 'tall poppy syndrome' that I really like. They call it 'crab in the bucket syndrome'. Apparently if you stick a bunch of crabs in a bucket, a bucket that any one crab could easily climb out of, none of the crabs will get out because they pull each other off the wall as soon as they go to escape. In Australia (and this is a massive generalisation), we love to attack each other. We pounce on slight flaws and grudgingly admit victories. It starts from an early age in the school yard. Teasing turns into bullying and adults develop a pathological fear of receiving feedback.

Lying to avoid giving honest feedback
And so rather than give honest feedback that could help someone grow, we tell white lies. "It looks lovely". "You're doing great". It's like fast food. It tastes good at the time, but it leaves you feeling empty. Did they really mean that?

Lying because we don't care or can't care
Some of the time that's appropriate. If you give someone honest feedback, you owe them a duty of care to follow that up and make sure they take the feedback well. We know that most people struggle to accept feedback. Most people take it badly. Therefore, it is your responsibility to stay with them and coach them rather than just hurling criticism at them and walking away, hands in your pockets, whistling to yourself.

Picking your battles
This kind of coaching takes effort and time. Often you don't have the time or energy to really help someone improve. In that case, maybe a white lie is appropriate. It answers their question without committing you to helping them. I struggle with this mindset. If someone genuinely asks for help, I want to help them, not brush them off with an untruthful affirmation.

Do they really want honesty?
I think the reason most people react badly to feedback is they're not ready for it. Honest feedback can feel like having a bucket of cold water thrown over your head. If you're ready for it, the cold water is refreshing. If you're unprepared, it makes you angry and might even give you a heart attack!

I've had a few instances where I've given someone honest feedback and they have taken it really badly. Hell I've taken feedback badly myself. There were times during my honours year where I stuffed up experiments. All I wanted to do was go outside and walk off some of my frustration but my supervisor pulled me out of the lab and proceeded to tell me exactly what I'd done wrong and how to fix it. It was helpful and useful feedback, but I was in no state to listen. I'd walk out with tears in my eyes thinking "Why is she so mean!?"

Therefore, I reckon it's important to get permission before giving honest feedback. I now ask "do you want my honest opinion?". And I really ask it. I don't just throw out the question and jump into the feedback immediately. I let the question hang in the air. I gauge their reaction. If they look hesitant, I ask again.

White lies or compliments?
Of course, some of the time, critical feedback is not necessary. It's entirely appropriate to focus on how good the dress looks instead of the ugly stitching around that button that only you would notice. After being trained as a scientist with an emphasis on 'critical thinking', I often fall into the trap of only seeing what's wrong and not seeing what's right.

In any case, the same thing applies to compliments as applies to criticism. If the compliment isn't sincere and honest, then it comes across as fake. As a lie.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it
Have you heard of the Mehrabian principle [qqq]? David Mehrabian did some research back in the 70s. He looked at how interesting students found lecturers. His results showed that it wasn't the words the lecturers used, it was the tonality and body language that mattered. From those results, he inferred that meaning from communication is broken down like this:

Words: 7%
Body language: 55%
Tonality: 38%

Keep this in mind when giving compliments or feedback. If your voice tone doesn't match what your saying, then people will interpret your sincere compliments as lies. A weird trap that I've fallen into is laughing when giving a compliment. It completely confuses the message. What I intended to be a compliment was probably perceived as a white lie.

Specific makes memorable
When people give me compliments or feedback, I almost always discard them if they are general or abstract. Mentally, I class them as white lies not as true statements. For a compliment to be meaningful to me, the other person has to point out a concrete example, rather than making a blanket statement.

The overall message: white lies are all about perception
After writing this post, I've now crystallised my thoughts on white lies. They are statements that are purposefully vague. They are lies of omission. They could be true but only because no evidence is included to the contrary.

What do you think of white lies? Do you think they are appropriate in a networking situation?

Gracefully exiting a conversation

How to be extraordinarily rude
A few months ago, I committed a conversational faux pas. I was at a screening of Connected the film, hanging out afterwards with David Hood and some other peeps from the Collaboratory. It was getting late, and I realised I needed to skedaddle or else I wouldn't get home before 1AM. David was explaining the Open IDEO collaboratory concept to someone and I was tensing up. I'd spent the whole of yesterday afternoon working on the project with David and didn't feel like I needed to listen to the explanation.

"Just wait until there's a gap in the conversation" I told myself. "Just wait...calm...zen.......ARGH!!! This is taking too long". So halfway through one of David's sentences, I said "Gotta go!" and ran off.

It was effective. I got out of there right away. But man I must have looked like a PRICK! Sorry David!

How to exit a conversation gracefully
I was reflecting on how I could have done that better. I'm sure a lot of people have similar problems. You're locked in a conversation with someone who has a lot to say and you want to be somewhere else. The question is, how can you end the conversation without offending the other person?

What not to do
Let's start off with three things not to do:

1. Interrupt them mid-flow: only do this if you want to look like a PRICK. It's rude. If you're in a group, it causes them to lose their train of thought.

2. Lie badly: a temptation might be to come up with some excuse for why you need to leave. If you're clever, this can work. White lies are useful social lubricant. But if your lie is obviously bogus, the other person will see through it and think less of you.

3. Poorly executed distractions: You might fake a phone call, or point to the window "Look out there!" and then artfully duck away. If you're really good at this, you might pull it off, but most of the time, people will see through your illusion and grasp the underlying message "I don't want to spend any more time with you".  I think this is unfair on the other person. It's a veiled insult. They will be left confused. Was that really a work phone call, or did they just press the ringtone button on their phone?

What you can do
The issue I have with techniques two and three is you are not being authentic and you are abandoning your duty of care to the other person. You're leaving them all alone and forcing them to fend for themselves. For many people, talking to strangers is really difficult and plucking up the courage to talk to you was a big deal for them. Here are two techniques that allows you to leave gracefully without letting them down.

Be a host
I reckon the most graceful way to leave a conversation is to be a host. Think about a host at a dinner party. They are constantly floating around, matching people up and nudging people to start a conversation. After they've connected two people up, they flutter away. And do you resent them for that? No, you recognise that it is the host's role to do that and you even develop warm fuzzy feelings towards them for matching you up with someone.

Introduce them to someone
So in a networking context, what you can do is suddenly say "Oh you have to meet Jack!" and drag them over to meet Jack. You then introduce them to Jack and explain exactly why the two should talk. If you do it well, both Jack and the conversational bore you were stuck with will love you for it. Hopefully they are highly compatible and will have lots to talk about. They'll think nice thoughts about you for making the connection. Meanwhile, you're now free to leave the conversation and find someone else to talk to or bugger off if you want to leave altogether.

What if you don't know anyone else there?
This is where authenticity comes into play. If you feel like they're dominating your time at the event and you'd like to meet other people, it's perfectly fine to say "I've really enjoyed talking to you, but I'm conscious that there are a lot of other people here. I think it would be good for both of us to go meet some other people. Shall we go and join a group somewhere?". The key here is that you're not abandoning them. You're going with them, so they feel comfortable.

Yet they have still got that subtle message that they were monopolising your time a bit and hopefully they'll learn for next time.

What about in group conversations?
It's much easier to leave a group conversation than a 1-1 conversation. The other group members can keep on talking without you and will not be offended if you leave. Depending on whether you are sticking around to talk to other people, you can say one of two things:

1. You're sticking around:
The easiest thing to do here is create an excuse. "I'm going to dash off to the men's room." or "I'm going to go grab a drink". Make sure you wait for a break in the conversation unlike my rude behaviour:P  And make sure you actually go do what you said you would do.

2. You're skedaddling:
This is even easier. Just say your goodbye and dash off. "It was great to meet you all, but I've got to run to go pick up the kids"

What techniques do you use to gracefully exit a conversation? Any ideas on how to execute a distraction artfully:P?

Why Nimble.com kicks arse

Falling out of touch
A while ago, I realised I was finding it hard to keep track of all my friends and acquaintances. Some of them were on facebook, some were on LinkedIn, some were in my Google contacts, some were in my phone. It was a mess! And I also intuitively felt that I was losing contact with many of them because I wasn't regularly connecting with them. Furthermore, when I'd go to networking events, I'd end up with a whole bunch of business cards from people I wanted to stay in contact with, and I wouldn't know what to do with them.

I was looking for a solution. A customer relationship management (CRM) system sounded good, but most of them were expensive and none of them seemed to integrate facebook or LinkedIn that well. They seemed to be designed for companies rather than individuals.

What is a contact management system
In Keith Ferrazi's book, Never Eat Alone, he talks about setting up a contact management system (CMS) that gives him reminders to 'ping' people regularly. It sounded like a great idea. It also sounded like Keith had developed his system himself. I went looking to see if anyone else had come up with an off-the-shelf CMS.

I found a few:
- Network Hippo
- Nimble
- Rapportive

Review of the top 3 CMSs
I've played around with those three systems. What I was looking for was a system that was super easy to use, that integrated in all of my different contact databases (facebook, LinkedIn, gmail) and provided followup reminders.

After a few months, I've decided that Nimble.com is the winner in my eyes.

Why Nimble.com kicks arse
I prefer Nimble over the other CMSs because it is super-automated and super-easy to use. Rapportive and Network Hippo require you to manually refresh your contact list (Rapportive even makes you go to LinkedIn, click export and then import the file - that's way too much work for me).

The unified inbox
The killer functionality is Nimble's 'unified inbox'.

You get one inbox with all of your emails, facebook messages, twitter DMs and LinkedIn messages. This rocks because it means I save heaps of time. Instead of having to go into four different systems, I only have to go into one. What's more, I find it helps me focus on achieving Inbox Zero. If I log into Facebook to check my messages, there's a big temptation to look at the News Feed and before long I'm way off track! Nimble.com is about 1-1 communication and nothing else.

Task management
I've played around with a few task management apps. In my experience, a lot of my tasks come from emails. I wanted a quick and easy way to turn an email into a task. Previously, I'd been using Remember The Milk. It's quite good and there is the ability to forward emails to your RTM account. But it's still a bit clunky for me.

Nimble whacks in task management with your inbox. You can turn a facebook message, an email, a twitter DM into a task really easily.

It also makes it easy to associate a task with a person. I find that I'm far more motivated to get something done if I'm doing it for someone. For example, before Christmas, my job was to come up with the Kris Kringle list (I've built an app to do it). I'd been putting it off until I associated the task with Mum. Suddenly I was doing it for Mum and because I care about my Mum, I did the task right away.

What I don't like about Nimble
There is one key feature that Nimble doesn't do yet: Follow Up reminders. It's not a deal breaker for me, but it would make it a far better app.

I'll split this into two types: ping reminders and waiting on reminders.


Ping reminders
Keith Ferrazzi advocates the idea of 'pinging' people regularly. He sends out something like 200 emails/phone calls/SMSs per day to stay in contact with his massive database of friends, customers and business partners. His argument is that by sending a short message (pinging), people will keep you 'top of mind' and if there's an opportunity that they come across, they'll flick it through to you because they've been thinking about you.

The way Keith does this is he sets up reminders in his contact management system. He'll set a contact frequency for everyone in his database. Some people he might ping every 2 weeks (the ones doing exciting things that he wants to be part of). Others he might ping every 6 months to check in and see if they've started doing something more exciting:P


Nimble sort of allows you to do this. You can create tasks "Ping so and so in 6 weeks". It works but it's a bit clunky. There's a feature request for Nimble to add in a more streamlined ping reminder system. Hopefully they'll get that working soon.


Waiting on reminders
An app that has revolutionised my workflow is Boomerang for Gmail [qqq]. With BFG (hey there's even a Roald Dahl link there!), you can set up automated follow up reminders for emails you've sent. For example, I had a potential client who I wanted to build some software for. I sent them an email and ticked the box in BFG "follow up in 4 days if they don't reply". This is a lifesaver because previously I'd send emails and then forget to follow up to make sure the other person read it and actioned it.

In a sales context, this is really important. Research shows that a lot of the time, people don't respond to the first message. It can take 5-7 emails/phone calls/conversations until someone will buy something from you. Many people give up after the first non-response. They feel like 'silence = rejection'. It's more likely that the other person was just super busy and didn't have time to read or reply to your message.

With BFG, I can set up these response checks so that I can follow up if someone hasn't replied to an email. It would be great if Nimble had a similar feature. You can sort of do this by adding a task to follow up. But this is a bit clunky compared to the ease of Boomerang for Gmail. I've lodged a feature request and hopefully Nimble will add this to its arsenal.


Conclusion: use Nimble.com
I highly recommend Nimble for everyone who wants to get multiple inboxes under control and improve their network weaving ability.

Cure fear of rejection

Rejection hurts

One of the major reasons people don’t network is because they’re afraid of rejection. “What if I go and I don’t meet anyone?”, “What if I ask someone for help and they say no?”.

This is a very legitimate feeling. Rejection hurts. As humans, we are wired to avoid pain. It’s no surprise that sales jobs have one of the highest turnover rates. Rejection is an inevitable part of sales and most people can’t deal with it.

Let’s flip that over: most people can’t deal with rejection. That means that if you get good at overcoming rejection, you will get results that most people don’t achieve. There has been research done into the life success of people based on their ability to deal with rejection. What the research shows is The Power of No. There is a direct correlation between the number of times people say ‘No’ to you and your success in life. It makes intuitive sense for salespeople. Let’s say you’re selling an attachment for vacuum cleaners that allows people to shave their hair in the comfort of their own home (yes this is a real product!).

If you knock on 50 people’s doors and 10% of them buy the product that means you’re going to get 5 sales in exchange for 45 door slams. If you knock on 100 people’s doors, you’ll get 10 sales in exchange for 90 door slams. The key success predictor for sales people is how many times they’re willing to get the door slammed in their face.

You are a salesperson

This isn’t just the case for people whose job title is salesperson. The fact is, everyone is selling something. Want a promotion? You’re selling yourself. Want to change people’s attitudes towards climate change? You’re selling environmental consciousness. I would encourage you to start seeing yourself as a salesperson and take on rejection as a badge of honour. Rather than striving to succeed, strive to fail. Strive to get as many people say no to you as you can. Rejection is not failure, it’s part of the process.

Use rejection to boost your self confidence and motivation

Jason Comely has an interesting take on rejection: he’s come up with Rejection Therapy, a game for building self confidence and motivation by getting rejected. The basic idea is to get rejected at least once per day for a month. Players take on rejection challenges: asking something that makes the player feel very uncomfortable. This might be asking for a pay raise, asking strangers if they can take their photograph, selling a product on the street, asking to go on television.

Players of the game have reported that they have improved their self confidence because they are so used to getting rejected that it no longer hurts. What’s more, they find that a lot of the time, the other person will say Yes! Jason managed to double his pay rate by just asking.

The science

This technique has a sound basis in behaviour therapy. It falls under Thomas Stampfl’s Flooding method which behavioural therapists still use today. The underlying principle is that if a person is exposed to their fear for long enough, they will quite soon become desensitised to it.

Your challenge: start getting rejected

If you’re serious about becoming a superconnector, you’re going to have to overcome the fear of rejection. Where this relates to networking is contacting your aspirational contacts. A lot of people will avoid getting in touch with the people on their networking wish list because they’re afraid of getting a ‘No’. My advice is to challenge yourself to get some ‘Nos’. 

How many ‘Nos’ will you get this month?

Boosting reputation online

Who are you anyway?

Before the days of the internet, reputation wasn’t something you could measure easily. But now thanks to Google and LinkedIn, your reputation is very easy to see.

Vanity searches

Do this exercise now: jump onto google and do a search for your own name. What comes up first? Is there anything about you on the first page? Before I started the personal branding game, I was competing with a TV actor of the same name. There was nothing about me for the first two pages of Google. Most people are in this same category.

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, there is a ‘recommendation’ feature that allows other people to say nice things about you. The theory is that if people are prepared to go to the effort of writing a recommendation for you, then you must have done some pretty special work. Most people have no recommendations on their profile, meaning their reputation is neutral. Really it’s worse than that because if you have no-one backing up what you say about yourself, then it looks like you’re lying! You can imagine the dialog: “Yeah right! As if he really managed 42 people.. I don’t believe him one bit!”

How to boost your online reputation

For personal branding beginners, I think the best way to improve your reputation on Google and LinkedIn is to develop a solid LinkedIn profile. You can do more advanced things like start a blog, get an about.me page, look into keyword marketing, etc. but let’s start with the basics because they deliver 80% of the benefits.

Why use LinkedIn?

LinkedIn profiles come up in google search results. If someone wants to find you, they will usually look on LinkedIn. (It’s the first thing I do when I’m meeting someone for the first time). The advantage of LinkedIn is that you control the content. Unlike a newspaper where someone could write something nasty about you and you can’t do very much about it, LinkedIn is yours to write whatever you feel like.

Despite that freedom, there’s a perception that information on LinkedIn is authentic and credible. Because it’s public and because other people can back it up via recommendations (we’ll cover that in a moment), the information on LinkedIn is generally trustworthy.

How do you use LinkedIn?

First things first, create your profile and connect with people on there. There are lots of guides on LinkedIn for that, so I won’t take up space in this post reinventing the wheel. What I will emphasise is the importance of recommendations. Recommendations are your reputation. If you have no recommendations (like most people on LinkedIn), then your profile lacks substance and people will doubt the information on your profile.

How do you get recommendations?

Let’s revisit that fundamental principle of reciprocity: to get what you want, give it out first. Therefore, to get recommendations, you must give recommendations to other people first. Stop reading this book and write recommendations for five people. I recommend you make it a weekly routine to write a recommendation for at least one person.

How to write really bad recommendations

Recommendations are a form of compliment. Given that most people are bad at giving compliments, it’s not a surprise that most people do a poor job of writing recommendations. The main reason why most people get recommendations wrong is because they’re too general. There are sites on the internet that offer a “LinkedIn Recommendation Generator” service (I’m not giving you links because it’s a terrible idea!). Here is an example of output from a generator:

“Anyone who works with her can attest to her efficient and effective communication, creative thinking, professional business acumen and ethical conduct. Anna has provided great leadership and it has been a real pleasure to be professionally associated with a consummate professional like Anna! Anna is a super enthusiastic and eager to learn leader and manager. Anna is highly skilled at successfully handling Senior Management responsibilities. Anna is a proven person who does and says what she does.”

The scary thing is, a lot of humans will write recommendations like this! General recommendations are meaningless.

The computer doesn’t know a thing about Anna and it’s immediately obvious. There are no specifics. We don’t really believe that Anna is an efficient and effective communicator because the computer hasn’t provided any evidence to back it up. If I were Anna, I would feel offended to receive a recommendation like that because it’s pretty apparent that the computer doesn’t know her from a power cable!

How to write good recommendations

From this example, it’s pretty clear what you need to do to write good recommendations and give good compliments: you need to be specific. Give examples that demonstrate how and why someone is effective. These kind of recommendations are meaningful because you can only write them if you know the person well.

Ask for recommendations

Some of them will write you a recommendation back without prompting. Others need to be nudged. Send a pleasant note asking them if they could write you a recommendation. Make it easy for them and suggest some things they could include in the recommendation. It might sound a bit pushy, but in life, if you don’t ask, you don’t generally get.

What do you do to boost your reputation online?

Journaling after networking events

I am a big fan of journaling. I have made a habit of journaling after every significant event. If I go to a dinner party and meet five people, I will take 10 minutes afterwards to get my journal out and write down what I learnt about each of the people and whether I want to catch up with them again. This review and reflection process is very important to me.

Why review and reflect?

Research done on CEOs found that one of their common shared traits was making space for decompression time. Many of them took up spiritual fitness practices which allowed them to be alone with their thoughts, e.g. meditation or journaling or exercise alone. This time alone is so important for making sense of the world. A lot of the time, we live our lives fully in the present and future. We only think about what’s happening now and what’s happening next.

Journaling after networking events

This means we miss out on learning lessons from what has already happened to us. This is especially the case when networking. You might meet five people at an event. If you don’t take the time afterwards to reflect on what happened during the conversation and where you could go from there, then that time is wasted.

This is especially the case when you’re new to networking. If you haven’t developed the skills to be a great networker you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. This is perfectly ok. I believe that the only way to truly learn is to go out in the real world and make mistakes. You can read this book, but that won’t make you a master. You’ll be ‘book smart’, but ‘street dumb’.

On the other hand, making mistakes is a bad thing if you don’t learn from your mistakes. ‘Fail fast, fail often and fail small’. One of my favourite quotes is ‘Filter for lessons’. You can get some new ideas from reading a book, but ultimate learning happens when you can find lessons from your own experiences and translate them into your own words.

Common objections to review and reflection

I don't have enough time!

Sometimes I hear people say “I don’t have the time to review and reflect”. If that were me, I would be questioning that statement heavily because it sounds like a limiting belief. In effect, what those people are saying is they don’t value review and reflection time. It is a question of priorities. If you don’t believe that review and reflection has any value then you won’t make the time for it. The best evidence for the value of review and reflection is the biography of CEOs, many of whom allocate time for review and reflection. Is this a causative relationship? It would be almost impossible to tell. Maybe they’re wasting their time and they would achieve more if they just got on with their life.

Personally I believe that it is a causative relationship, however, I am willing to accept your viewpoint that it might just be a waste of time. In answer to that statement, I would therefore suggest that you give journaling the benefit of the doubt. Have a go at it. Do it for a week and see whether you get any value out of it. If you see no benefits after that time, then abandon it. As with all advice, I’d suggest that you question everything I write here. I am not an omniscient guru.

I don't like journaling

The other factor may be that you just don’t like journaling. Some people prefer to do review and reflection by talking to people. If that’s the case, you could have a conversation with a close friend or a spouse. If you go to a networking event with a wingman, it makes a lot of sense to review and reflect with them afterwards.

How do you review and reflect

Every night I free write answers to two questions:

1. “What was really great today?”

2. “What could I improve?”

By doing this, I can improve my performance for next time. Being more self aware is vital. Without this, you will keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Getting feedback from other people is useful, and I recommend that you both keep yourself open to feedback and even request it from other people, however, your own feedback can often be more insightful and more real than feedback from other people.

Here is a template for a journal page you could use:

Who did I meet?	What did we talk about?	How will I follow through?

 My performance:

What did I do well?	What could I improve?

Do you keep a journal? Do you make time after networking events to process who you met?

The greatest gift you can give someone is your presence

“One of the greatest gifts you can give someone is your presence”.

What is being present?

When I first came across the word ‘present’, I didn’t get it. Doesn’t that just mean showing up on time? That’s what the school system taught me. If I was in the classroom at 8:30AM, I was present. Otherwise, I was absent and needed a note from my parents.

Mental absenteeism

But presence is far more than physical presence. I think a major block to success in networking is ‘mental absenteeism’. Someone is standing next to you with the appearance of listening. But they’re not really listening. They’re thinking about all the things they have to do when they get back to work. I was guilty of this a lot of the time. I was constantly thinking about what work I needed to do and subconsciously sabotaging myself because I was questioning whether I should even be here talking to this person at this time.

Negative self talk

Another kind of absenteeism is negative self talk. If you’re thinking about yourself, about how you’re performing then you’re not really there for the other person. I used to have this all the time. I’d be thinking ‘Wow I can’t believe I’m actually talking to this person. This is incredible. I hope they like me’. I had my attention on myself and not on the other person.

How to sabotage yourself in a conversation

This is a recipe for a failed conversation. If you have your attention inwards rather than on the other person then you won’t be able to deeply listen to what they’re saying and you’ll miss the hidden messages that lie between their words. You’ll have superficial conversations.

Mindset around presence

Part of it is a mindset thing. If you’re approaching the conversation thinking that the objective of the conversation is to ‘get your point across’, to ‘be right’, then you’ll fail. You’ll be so busy thinking about what to say next that you won’t really take in what the other person is saying.

Conversational narcissism

I used to do this all the time. I’d have narcissistic conversations where when the other person stopped talking, I’d scramble for something that I wanted to say about myself to fill in the gap. I was focused inwards so that I didn’t give them my full attention.

How to obtain full presence

There are a few parts to obtaining full presence.

1.      Make the decision to be present: Before the conversation, block out your negative self talk by repeating the affirmation “I am here to connect with the other person, not to convince them. I want to understand them.”

2.      Get rid of what’s on your mind:
That mental to do list is the presence killer for a lot of people. I love what David Allen says on this topic. Have you read his book “Getting things done?”. It’s a book about productivity but it’s much more than that. He talks about how by writing your todo list down on paper or in the computer, you free up your short term memory. This allows you to concentrate on what someone else is saying rather than on what you need to do afterwards. You know you’ve got it written down.

3.      Relax: Similar to having a mental todo list on your mind, you may also have negative self talk running through your mind. I allowed myself to do this a lot. The solution for me was to take up relaxation practices. Things like running help but more than that, what I find really works for me is journaling. I enjoy writing and find that this helps me achieve clarity on my thoughts. I will write down how I’m feeling. If I’m feeling anxious, I will write down “I’m anxious and the reason is..”. Being aware of the reason why I’m feeling anxious allows me to release that feeling. I go in fresh and unencumbered. This is really important when you’ve got several meetings in a row. You need decompression time or else you will be carrying in the feelings from the previous meeting into the next one. I like to go for a walk outside, do some deep breathing and some journaling. I believe that it’s important to take some time out from living life to critically examining it.

What strategies do you use to be fully present? What kind of a difference has presence made in your life?

Social proofing in networking

The Cold Call

Imagine this. You’re at home, reading this book with a cup of tea. Suddenly the phone rings RRING RRINNG, breaking your concentration. You grimace and mentally weigh up the odds of it being someone legitimate. “Argh better take it” you think. You pick up the phone. On the other end of the phone is a man with an Indian accent. “Oh no! What does he want?”. You write him off instantly – he’s just another telemarketer. He says something about lower internet bills but you don’t even listen to what he has to say. As soon as he stops speaking, you make an excuse and hang up the phone exasperatedly.

Warming up a sale

Now let’s compare that to another scenario. You’re having coffee with your friend and start complaining about your internet provider. “The damn company is so unresponsive. My modem is broken but they won’t help. They actually charge money to answer my calls. What terrible customer service!”

Your friend smiles sympathetically. “Maybe you’d be interested in the provider I’ve been using for the last six months. They’re really great. I haven’t had any problems with my service at all and they’re much cheaper than the last company I was with.”

You lean in “ooh. That sounds good. What’s the name of the company? I’ll give them a call.”

When you ring up, you speak to a man with an Indian accent who very politely and professionally registers you as a new customer.

What was the difference here? 

In the first scenario, the cold call, you flat out rejected the poor guy. You had a preconception of who he was and what he wanted and you refused to find out more. That’s not an indictment against you by the way. I find cold callers pretty annoying most of the time.

In the second example, one of your friends recommended the same company. Rather than rejecting the cold call, you proactively called the company up because of social proof. In these modern times of unlimited choices, decision making is a very long process. If you were to analyse every internet provider out there, researching customer reviews and value for money, it would take hours or even days. Some people are willing to do this. However, the majority of people will take a shortcut: seeking out the recommendations of their friends.

People buy based on social proof

Rather than relying on hard evidence, social proof is often sufficient to help you make a decision. It all comes down to credibility of sources. If someone you trust recommends a product or service, you’re far more likely to take their advice than if a stranger on the site recommends something. A single recommendation from a trusted friend is probably worth more in your eyes than 100 reviews on an internet review site. You don’t necessarily trust these people’s opinions because you don’t know them.

The danger of social proofing

Social proofing is a cognitive bias. Most of the time it helps you make better decisions. Other times you may make a worse decision. You see, just because you trust your friend, it doesn’t mean they’re an expert in the area. So when a friend recommends something, be aware that you’re likely to view their recommendation in a much more positive light than you would if they were a stranger. Be slightly critical about their recommendation. How much research did they do? Are there recommendations usually solid?

Social proof in networking

You can use social proof in your favour when networking. Essentially the objective of networking is to get inside the trust circle of highly respected people. If someone who is well respected in their community recommends your work, then you’ll suddenly have job offers and customers throwing themselves at you.

The question then is, how do you become respected? A big part of respectability is likeability. If someone likes you, then they’re more likely to trust you. The other part of respectability is trustworthiness. If you’re honest, if you do good things for the community, if you’re reliable, then people are more likely to trust your recommendation.

How to use this information

To me, it's pretty clear: you want as much social proof for your personal brand and your company as possible. That raises the question: how can you get social proof for yourself? 

I believe the answer is reciprocity. You get what you give out. So make a commitment to recommend other people, whenever you sense an opportunity. If you're at a networking event and someone has an obvious need and you know someone who could fill that need, connect them up.

An immediate action step is to give other people recommendations on LinkedIn.

How will you use this information? How will you take advantage of social proofing?

Behavioural synchrony and rapport

I found a fascinating paper published a few months ago: 'Strangers in synch: Achieving embodied rapport through behavioural synchrony'. The authors did a social experiment where they turned strangers into lifelong friends in 45 minutes through 'induced closeness' and then recorded their movements on video. The interesting thing is that when they watched the videos, the people who had gone through the 'induced closeness' procedure were moving differently to the people who just sat next to each other and did some copy-editing. They were moving in synch.

Postural mirroring
This paper reminded me of a book I listened to recently "How to make people like you in 90 seconds or less". It's based on the 'science' of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). One thing I was quite sceptical about in the book was the idea of 'mirroring' people's body language to make them like you. The claim is that if you 'mirror' someone's movements (e.g. they put their left hand in their pocket, you put your right hand in your pocket), they will unconsciously fall into rapport with you (start liking you).

It sounded a bit bogus to me at the time. Is body language really a reflection of someone's emotional state? What about if you're cold and you cross your arms to keep warm? However, after reading this paper I'm intrigued.

Correlation or causation

Nicholas Booth, the author talks about meeting his gruff neighbour who has arms crossed. Nicholas crosses his arms and suddenly the guy asks him to come over for dinner. Amazing! But where's the hard evidence?

The big question is 'is there a causatory link between behavioural synchrony and rapport?'. I reckon there might be. I have had a few experiences like Nick too.

Causatory mechanism: mirror neurons
The orginal NLP dudes came up with the idea of mirroring based on empirical evidence decades ago. They looked at slow-mo videos of families eating dinner together and noticed how they moved in synch (e.g. drinking water one after the other). They didn't have a solid idea of why behavioural synchrony would have anything to do with rapport.

Now scientists might have figured out an explanation: mirror neurons. The classic example of mirror neurons is that study where a lab assistant ate an icecream in front of a monkey with wires in its brain and the screen LIT UP even though the monkey was sitting still. The idea is that just watching someone do something activates the same circuits as when you do it yourself.

Interestingly, mirror neurons also seem to be responsible for empathy. If you watch someone get punched in the face, you 'feel their pain'. Their face becomes part of your body.

Researchers speculate that this aspect of mirror neurons is why they relate to rapport. If you see someone with the same body posture as you, your mirror neurons trick you into thinking that they are an extension of yourself. When it comes down to it, that's what 'liking' someone means - you see them as like you, a part of yourself.

How to use this knowledge
Ok so now you know that moving in synch with someone else will help create a connection between you. So what? Let's cover two scenarios:

Scenario 1: open body language

You go up to someone and introduce yourself. They're looking very relaxed. They're smiling and they have open body language.

Great! Copy them! Relax yourself. You don't need to do much else. Watch how they stand. If they've got one hand in their pocket, do the same. Be subtle about it. If you go over the top (e.g. they stick their finger in their ear, you do the same), they'll notice!

Scenario 2: closed body language

Ooh this is where behavioural synchrony really comes into play. If you meet someone with their arms crossed and a miserable expression on their face, you're going to have a very hard time connecting with them. Closed body language equals closed communcation channels.

Your goal is to get them to open up. To do so, you can gradually lead them out of the closed body language. Start by mirroring their stance. For example, if they've got their arms crossed, cross yours too. Hold that stance for a bit and then experiment with pulling them out of it. Stretch your arms out behind your head and give them a bit of a shake around. Stay in that relaxed stance for a while and watch what happens. If you're lucky, they'll uncross their arms too. If not, you will need to go back to crossing your arms and try other methods of rapport.

Overcoming conversational narcissism

A lot of people I meet are conversational narcissists. They loove talking about themselves and will do anything and everything to make a conversation about them. This is expressed in a couple of ways:

Competition
Narcissists see conversations as an opportunity to flex their ego. If someone mentions an achievement
"I'm really proud of myself, I just got a promotion",
the narcissist will attempt to one-up them
"Oh yeah? That's great. I just got a promotion too! Doubled my pay rise!".

This becomes comical when it's not an achievement but a failure, e.g.
A: "I just crashed my car"
B: "Oh yeah? Well I just totalled mine last week! I was lucky to walk out alive!"

Deflection
Narcissists get bored of talking about anything they're not involved in. Rather than seeking to learn more about a topic, they'll deflect it away "Speaking of roaming broadband, I just got back from a trip to Rome last night". It doesn't even have to be a verbal deflection. Simply withholding phatic communication will starve a conversation to death.

How to overcome conversational narcissism
One of my core beliefs is that "you can't change other people, you can only change yourself". I've been guilty of conversational narcissism on a few occasions, so I now do my best to short circuit that with the 30 second rule.

The 30 second rule
The idea behind the 30 second rule is that you should avoid talking for more than 30 seconds without involving the other person in some way. It might just be asking them a closed question "has that ever happened to you?" or you might open it up completely "what are your thoughts on that".

Capitalising on conversational narcissism
Now that you know how not to be a conversational narcissist, you're probably wondering what to do when someone else is being one. Rather than getting annoyed when someone only wants to talk about themselves, I take advantage of it. It's a great opportunity to learn a LOT about someone else in a very short space of time.

Most of the time that's very useful. It's free information. I would go so far as to say it's one of my main goals in conversations. It's an opportunity for me to learn how I can help them and how they might be able to help me.

Forget the 80:20 rule in conversations

One thing you’ll see a lot in of networking books are rules of thumb like the ’80:20’ rule. The idea of the ’80:20’ rule is that you speak 20% of the time and they speak 80% of the time.

I do like this rule to an extent because it helps people overcome the spectre of conversational narcissism. By encouraging people to spend more time listening and less time talking, better conversations result.

However, I think the 80:20 rule is overly simplistic. It implies that you will take a passive role in the conversation and be the ‘listener’. The problem this creates is the other person will forget who you are. They might remember you as being a ‘really good listener’, but so what? You don’t want them to remember them for that. You want them to remember you as the owner of an exciting business they want to deal with, or an amazing consultant they want to hire. You need to leave an impression. This means you need to talk. Not all the time. But at certain points in the conversation, you most certainly do.

I suggest an alternative: the triumph model of networking conversations.

The triumph model of networking conversationsThe triumph model shows you how to spread the 80:20 rule across a conversation. At some times you need to be the one doing most of the talking. At other times, you need to do the listening. The process looks like this.

Make 'em comfy

If someone is scared of you or scared of the situation, there is no way they will share anything meaningful with you. They’ll clam up. They’ll talk about superficial things like TV and football and won’t go any further. Given that only deep conversations will allow you to achieve your objectives, you need to do something to make them feel comfortable.

A few things work well here:

• Mutual self disclosure
• Humour
• Behavioural synchrony

Listen to em

What are your goals for this conversation? If you're smart, one of them will be to find out as much about the other person as possible so that you can see how you could help them and they could help you.

To do this, you need to shut up. Resist the urge to interrupt and share a story "Oh wow! My friend just went to Ayres rock too!". Maintain friendly facial contact. Use appropriate phatic communication so they keep on talking. 

Make em an offer

After you've found out lots about them, you know enough to offer them something. It might be catching up for a coffee to discuss a business deal. It might be connecting them up with a friend who might be able to help them. Keep it short and sharp. You want to close this conversation up so you can go and meet other people.

Goal Achievement Micronetworks

How would you like to be 6 times more creative, 6 times more knowledgeable, 6 times more confident, and 6 times more successful? Would you like to have 6 times more contacts, 6 times more ideas and 6 times more support?

If you answered 'yes' to any of those questions, then you need to be part of a Goal Achievement Micronetwork (GAM for short).

What is a GAM?
A GAM is a group of 6 people dedicated to helping each other achieve their Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). Working on your own, it's easy to lose motivation or to feel like a BHAG is just too big. But with 5 other success oriented people sharing a united purpose, anything feels possible and anything truly is possible.


How does it work?
We commit to meeting weekly for an _intense_ GAM session. For 90 minutes we abandon our concerns and focus on taking massive steps towards our BHAGs. The facilitator for the session leads the group through a process that unlocks solutions that we could never come up with alone. Each person is given equal time to present a goal, challenge or opportunity. Then they grab a notepad and pen and write madly as the other GAMers throw ideas, encouragement, strategies and contacts at them. When it's over, we walk out exhausted yet exhilarated, with renewed enthusiasm and a clear direction to follow.

The next day, we spring into action, researching the new ideas, implementing the new strategies, and calling the new contacts. At the session the next week, we proudly announce that we are now much closer to achieving our BHAGs. Pretty soon, the challenge becomes thinking of a new BHAG!


Benefits of a GAM:
- More ideas: quite often, there's a better way to do it. By having 5 other people look at your situation from the outside, quite often you'll find a better way. Other times, you'll have no idea how to go about even starting work on your BHAG. Chances are someone in the GAM has done it before or knows someone who's done it before.
- Expanded network: Let's say the average person knows 200 people. By joining a GAM, you suddenly have access to another 1000 people without having to put in thousands of hours of mingling. Next time you need someone to build a website, just ask your GAM and the perfect person will come up.
- Support: It's not easy thinking big. People don't deliver on their promises, problems come up and things generally don't go to plan. When this happens, the GAM is there for you. We've all been there before and we will support you and help you to see the challenges as an opportunity to do things better.
- Accountability: BHAGs don't become real until you tell others about them. By sharing a BHAG with the group, you start to feel a lot more accountable. The thought of rocking up to the next GAM meeting and having to admit that you haven't really done anything about your BHAG is VERY motivating. As human beings, we care a lot about what others think of us. A GAM allows you to use this force for good.
- Inspiration: Most people don't think big. When you surround yourself with people who think small, you think small. But if you can spend time with people, who are going places, you will get inspired and you will _go places_!

Who should join a GAM?
GAMs are not for everyone. To benefit from a GAM, you need to be:
- BHAG driven
- Willing to put other people's needs above your own
- Willing to commit to being part of the GAM

For some people, a pre-requisite to joining a GAM is to have a coach/mentor, who can help you overcome some limitations that are holding you back.

Which GAM should you join/create?
GAMs work best when they have a common purpose. Everyone has distinct BHAGs, but they're all heading in roughly the same direction. Diversity is fantastic when it provides new perspectives, but if people are working on completely opposite projects, they won't be able to help each other much. Choose a GAM with a mission statement that matches your own, and you will catapult yourself to success!

Principles:
Each GAM has a charter of commitments that all GAMers agree to in the first session. They include how often the group will meet and how long the GAM will remain together, as well as these fundamental GAM principles:
- Presence: 'Be there' physically and mentally for every GAM session
- Commitment: Commit to the GAM and you will be committing to your own success
- Reciprocity: Give first and you will soon get
- Play all out: Put all your passion and energy into the GAM
- Think big: Leave your doubts and self-imposed limitations behind
- Positive: Reframe everything - problems are opportunities in disguise
- Take action: Thoughts and words are great, but what counts is the implementation
- Leadership: everyone takes responsibility for the success of the GAM
- Have fun: BHAGs are serious but to achieve them, the process has to be fun! Enjoy the GAM sessions and look forward to the next one
- Record everything: Instead of relying on our memory, we write all the suggestions down

Structure of a GAM Session:
To maximise the benefits for all participants, GAM sessions have a defined structure. Each week, one GAMer acts as the facilitator and takes the group through the following process:
1. Presencing: an activity to focus everyone on the session ahead (3 minutes)
2. Wins: we share our successes and learnings since the last session. (7 minutes)
3. Goal advancement: Each person has 11 minutes to briefly present their goal and receive a barrage of suggestions from the group (70 minutes)
4. Action commitments: Each person commits to one action that they will perform before the next GAM (5 minutes)
5. What's hot: We share any great opportunities or resources that might benefit the group (5 minutes)

Hats:
There are key roles in every GAM meeting and to reinforce that, we wear special hats:
- Feathered cap: Each week, someone acts as the session leader and wears a Robin Hood-esque green, feathered cap. They are responsible for leading the group through the GAM structure and keeping the session to time. Everyone has a chance to play this role, so that by the end of the GAM's lifespan, they can go out and seed new GAMs.
- Black dunce cap: When it is your turn to present your goal to the GAM, you put on the black dunce cap. By wearing this cap, you acknowledge the superior wisdom of the group and keep your mouth shut unless asked a direct question. Your job is to write all of the suggestions down and not to evaluate them until after the GAM session.

Venue:
The GAM should have a regular venue. The ideal location will be a quiet room with a table to write on and enough room to jump around a little bit.

Activity details:
Presencing:
Script
"Close your eyes and take five deep 'Ha' breaths. Take a moment now to picture yourself out in the ocean. You are swimming towards an island and on that island are the five other people in this room. They are waving at you and shouting for you to come and join them. Feel yourself pushing against the water, swimming out to meet them. But then notice that there is some resistance. Something is holding you back. Around your ankles, you can feel a rope. Connected to that rope is a heavy box that you are dragging along with you. In that box are all your worries and concerns from the outside world. Look back to the island and notice that you are not making any progress. The box is holding you back. Reach into your pocket and pull out the knife of presence that you carry around with you always. Stop swimming for a moment: tread water and carefully cut the rope. Feel how light you are. Now you are free and can swim effortlessly to the island.....Feel yourself moving powerfully through the water....Now picture yourself reaching the sand. You walk out of the water and run to meet your friends. Notice your heart beat faster as you think about your united mission. You are all here for the same reason. You are all here to achieve your Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Open your eyes now and greet your friends as if you have not seen them for six years."
*everyone gets up and engages in collosal and semi-painful high fiving and bear hugging*

Wins:
Go around the circle and let everyone very briefly report back on the action they committed to in the last session. Keep celebrating successes and learnings for the remaining time. This is all about positivity, inspiration and thinking big.

Goal advancement:
Pass the black dunce cap to the GAMer who will present their goal. They should state the goal they want assistance or support with, making sure they use positive language. Then they remain silent unless asked a clarifying question and write down everything the group suggests, writing down their own thoughts when they pop up. The group bounces ideas off each
other, making sure to follow the principles of no-limit, positive thinking.

Use a timer to make sure everyone gets an equal amount of time. If they finish early, they can ask the other GAMers if anyone wants the extra time.

Action commitments:
Go around the circle and ask everyone to commit to one action they will take before the next session. Write them all down and keep it, so that everyone can report back next week.

What's hot:
Everyone shares any exciting new opportunities they have come across. This can tend to balloon out, so acts as the end of the formal proceedings. Anyone who needs to go can go and the others can stick around (or go out to dinner/drinks) to chat further.