Influence and Inclusion – the Little Things that Make a Difference

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I sometimes tell this story* during workshops to illustrate how unconscious patterns can be played out – and how we can all display behaviour that is inadvertently biased.

“Imagine, you are conducting an interview with two people, we’ll call them Sally and John. John reminds you of yourself when you were younger, or of someone you know and like. You have that sense of familiarity or ‘chemistry.’ You instantly like him, and though you are not aware of why, your mind generates justifications. (He seems like a straightforward kind of guy. I like the way he ‘holds’ himself.) You ask him the first interview question and he falters a little. After all, it’s an interview. He’s nervous. Because you feel an affinity toward him, you pick up on his nervousness. You want to put him at ease. You say, ‘John, I know it’s an interview, but there’s nothing to be nervous about. Take a breath and let me ask the question again.’ John nails it this time and he’s off and running to a great interview. The whole interaction took four seconds, yet it made a world of difference.

Then you sit down with Sally. There is nothing negative about her, just no real connection. It is a very ‘business-like’ interaction. You ask her the first question and she’s a little nervous too, but this time you don’t pick up on it. This interview moves forward, but not quite as well as John’s. The next day a co-worker asks you how the interviews went, and you respond: ‘John was great…open, easy to talk to. I think he’ll be great with staff and clients.’ And your reply about Sally? ‘She’s okay, I guess – didn’t set the room on fire.’

Your perceptions about the interviews constitute your reality. You probably don’t even remember the four-second interaction that changed John’s entire interview. In fact, if somebody asks you, you would swear you conducted the interviews exactly the same way with the same questions. Your own role in influencing the outcomes was completely invisible to you, driven by your background of comfort with John.”

Micro-affirmations

That four-second intervention was a micro-affirmation. Mary P. Rowe, PhD, is an MIT Ombudsperson and Adjunct Professor of Negotiation & Conflict Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of  ‘Micro-affirmations and Micro-inequities’.  She defines micro-affirmations as “apparently small acts, which are often ephemeral and hard to see, events that are public and private, often unconscious but very effective, which occur wherever people wish to help others to succeed. They are “tiny acts of opening doors to opportunity, gestures of inclusion and caring, and graceful acts of listening”. They have their roots in empathy and generosity and Rowe argues in her paper that they can be used as a behavioural tool to raise morale and productivity and to reinforce greater inclusivity in the workplace.

The premise is this…

We may find it difficult to catch ourselves behaving inequitably towards others (the story above illustrates this), but if we set out to affirm others in an appropriate and consistent way, we have a reasonable chance of over-riding the behaviour we want to avoid.

This appeals to me on a couple of levels. Firstly, I am someone who tends to see the opportunity for improvement before I see the achievement (it’s why, unchecked, I can readily beat myself up for my shortcomings, even when there’s lots of good stuff to appreciate! And why I sometimes do that with others too.) Secondly, I find it easier to replace an undesirable behaviour with a desirable one, rather than try to eliminate an undesirable one thus leaving a void (a diet’s a great example – don’t tell me what I shouldn’t be eating – I need to be clear on what to do instead when that bar of chocolate is beckoning!).

Your call to action

If this connects with you, the best way to explore it is to give it a go. Here are a couple of ideas for how;

• Take a day (or an hour or two) when you commit to always listen to another person’s point of view before launching into your own. And then be sure to affirm what the other person says. Notice what kind of approach it requires you to take. Perhaps you need to listen more carefully to what they say. Maybe you are improving your ability to notice what they did well (rather than what they did wrong).
• Think about someone you respect, someone who already commands from you the kind of behaviour you want to display (it might be a grandparent, for example, or a leader at work). Then imagine in each interaction you are dealing with that person. What effect does that have?

What would happen if everyone in the workplace took this approach. Would it promote greater tolerance, do you think?

* I am grateful for this story to Diversity Best Practices who included it in their 2008 paper.

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Posted Sunday, January 15th, 2012 in Brain Friendly Learning, Changing, Coaching, Communication Skills, Continuous Improvement, Facilitation, Kaizen, Leadership, Leading, Neuroscience/Psychology, Personal Development, Personal Resilience, Sales, Influencing, Negotiating, Topical Debate, Women Leaders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.