Shooting over our Shoulder

Sometimes I imagine myself as a gangster hero, running from the law and living the romantic life that any hero lives. One thing that gangsters are skilled at (the movies tell us) is shooting over the shoulder. Running down the street, and pausing just for a moment to crack off a shot with just a stylish twist of the body.

In real life, this is pretty much impossible. You would have more chance of hitting your opponent if you took off your shoe and threw it. The over the shoulder shot does not give you the base of stability you need for shooting, and the fact that you are likely to be puffing means the pistol barrel will be wobbling around like a new born lamb.

Yet so many people communicate with over the shoulder shots. Rushing from meeting to meeting, room to room, café to café, firing off remarks with no idea who’ll catch them, understand them, or take action on them.

If you want your words to strike home, breathe evenly and deeply. Take a firm stance, facing your audience. Ready, aim, fire.

Inappropriate Office Attire

There is a school of thought that suggests that we should prefer comfort over professionalism. I don’t think this is always true. Appropriate clothing is a costume that people can hang their first impressions on. Even before you speak, you have been categorised, and the right clothing makes sure that first impression is right.

The right clothing is different for everyone. Less and less is there a call for suit and tie, but we still can’t get away with pajamas in the day time. Sadly. Make your clothing authentic, true to you, but like any message you send, craft the authenticity so that it matches what your audience expects.

It’s hard to break that first impression. Be authentic, but respect your audience. And please, no white socks and black shoes.

Winter Carrots

Winter carrots don’t grow much. They aren’t exactly hibernating. The leafy tops still caress the winter air, a splash of vibrant green in the twilight. They simply have no desire to move in any direction, no desire to stretch out of the snug cradle of soil they have formed for themselves.

It is hard to be a carrot in the winter. Storms lash the green tops. Frost hardens around the roots. Sunshine is in short supply and the nights last forever. If only they could find the energy to grow, they would have strong roots to stretch down into the warm soil. If they could find the strength to grow, their tops would sail in the wind, spreading wide to gather in the rays of sun.

I am a winter carrot. Spring is coming, my strength is building. It is time to grow.

Spring is here. Don’t mind the thunder.

Spring is here, almost. Yesterday I saw a Monarch butterfly. And daffodils. Even though a thunder storm raged last night, there is still a little warmth, a breath of the possible in the air.

It makes me want to skip down the street. Socially inappropriate though.

The Guiding Light of a Difficult Conversation

After an fascinating conversation on Twitter with @coachbythesea (Randi Buckley), I found this phrase very compelling. We were talking about the value of empathy in difficult conversations, one of Randi’s specialities.

Randi believes that empathy decreases the fear in a difficult conversation. If you approach a conversation with compassionate intention, then you will always be able to move forward. Such intention becomes your “guiding light.” I asked Randi if some people, without a natural empathy, were always fearful of difficult conversations, but she believes that such people would actually approach the conversation armoured with facts, and so be without fear. But the conversations would not progress to a resolution smoothly, if at all. The good news is that most people can learn empathy.

The sea and shore image comes from a trip I took to Raglan on the west coast of the North Island. I embellished the view with an imaginary light house.

Secrets of Communication from an Opera Recital

Last month, my wife and I went along to operatic recital from husband-and-wife singers John Murray and Anna Corrs. These two world-class performers live locally, but it was my first chance to actually see and hear them live. The recital, part of the season program from Tauranga Musica, was composed of favourites of the performers, a variety of operatic pieces by composers from different periods and languages.

A Deeply Engaging Performance

Watching these two experienced artists perform works which were familiar yet foreign was deeply engaging. I was astonished that complex emotions — tenderness, frustration, lust, and anger — could be so convincingly conveyed without a word of English. Murray and Corrs made use of gesture, vocal variety and voice projection to build drama, display emotion and free themselves of giving a boring, static performance.

Murray and Corrs both used gesture to maximise the impact of their emotive delivery and convey more context around the story each song told. Because they are professional singers and dramatists, I expected the big movements of stage performance. But those movements play a valuable role that I find easy to forget as a communicator; not everyone in the audience will sit close enough to see what I am doing with my hands. Big gestures mean that all the audience get the message. An interesting technique, I noticed the performers use was to actually move a little slower than normal, and to use the entire arm in the gesture, with open hands clearly visible all around the room. This slow, bold gesturing style gave the singers are very graceful appearance, almost like ballet dancers, without the leaping (or the tights).

Often in a recital, the performers remain predominantly in one location on the stage, captured by the podium and microphone or transfixed by the audience gaze. Murray and Corrs showed how effective it was to move around the

stage, singing without notes or amplification, and appearing totally comfortable dramatising the little stories in front of the audience. As they moved about the stage, interacting with each other, the singers really demonstrated the intention of each piece. As with their hand gestures, they kept the movement slow, bold and graceful. In one piece, they started with an angry stance back to back, and finished with a tender (audience appropriate) embrace. The stance and the positioning on the stage really drove the momentum and pacing of the story.

What Can We Learn?

As communicators presenting less ambitious themes and stories than those on the operatic stage, what can we learn from watching professional singers on stage? We can take away three lessons.

Use Generous Open Gestures

First, use generous open gestures and be willing to move around the stage. Use a powerful voice so that you are not tied down by the microphone. Your gestures and movements are then free to use up your entire stage giving the presentation enjoyable presence.

Move And Speak Slowly

Second, move and speak slowly. During a presentation it is harder to get your message across. You need to move at the pace the audience can understand you. That pace will be slower than you think, so move slowly.

Be Emotional

Thirdly, don’t be afraid to be emotional. You audience will never be more emotional than you. Every presentation that you give should pack a powerful emotional message. This helps you to get your point across and makes your story much more memorable.

I’ve learned three valuable lessons from singers John Murray and Anna Corrs – Use big gestures, move slowly, and be emotional. Now, I just need to learn to sing in Italian.

John Chen in Concert

John Chen in a remarkable young New Zealand pianist, who gave a concert under the Tauranga Musica program last night. It was a brilliant evening, demonstrating Chen’s technical ability and his grasp of the emotion in each piece. Notably, he played the entire program without any sheet music.

It was also the first time I have heard the new Steinway concert grand piano. At NZD292,000 it had very shiny wheels.

Taking out the Trash

The Thinking Hat

I’ve been reading Edward de Bono recently, and his thinking hats idea is currently undergoing a revival in the office. I don’t expect anyone to walk in to the next meeting with one of these hats on though.

Glancing and Gazing – Ways to See the World

In my last post, How to Tame a Rubber Duck, I mentioned that the ritual of taming requires you to glance at the object that you are taming. This is perhaps a foreign idea, if you are a full on extrovert. But for introvert like me, glancing is my primary way of interacting with the world.

Glancing is a way of seeing the world in slices. When you glance, your eyes flicker quickly over someone or something interesting, picking up just the barest, essential details. This style of looking creates a simple précis of character — highlights of colour or shape stick out while the rest of the object blends into simple caricature.

Gazing is quite a different approach. The gaze from an extrovert will be warm and inviting, sweeping over the whole person or thing without simplifying or objectifying. The primary purpose of the gaze is neither to gather information nor make a judgement. Rather, the purpose is simply to make a connection. A gazing extrovert has  a smile ready to be given or received.

The difference between glancing and gazing is clear – glancing is gathering information, gazing is creating a connection. But people can misinterpret both ways of looking. Glancing seems suspicious, sneaky, something that creates a sense of mistrust. Gazing however, can be mistaken for a stare – either an aggressive territorial glower, or a seductive, sexual advance.

To be able to use a glance or a gaze safely in public, you need to be comfortable in your own body first. Glancing and gazing suits different types of people. Introverts often feel more comfortable with a glance, because it reduces the amount of stimulation and information into manageable bites, yet still affords rich character studies to be gleaned. Gazing is often favoured by extroverts, hungry for the flood of sensation the world has to offer, and keen to draw energy of the strangers they gaze at.

But whichever style of seeing you are comfortable with, practice the other regularly as well. If you try gazing when you are normally glancing, you will have a chance to share a heartwarming smile with a stranger. If you try glancing when you are normally gaze, you will sharpen your ability to pick out what is important. Using either method helps you see the world with clarity.

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