You Are Viewing Interpersonal Skills

The Johari Window: Almost Jedi Mind-Control

Posted By damien on March 31st, 2010
Young Jedi Padawan

image courtesy of turoczy

Time for another big idea in a bite-size portion.  Some would say that an honest person, a person with integrity, will act the same no matter the situation. But I believe that someone can be the same person, can be their authentic self, and still act differently depending in their situation.

I agree that a person with integrity will be honest in all situations, but I don’t think someone has to act the same in every situation.  Do you act the same way around your in-laws as you do with your guy or girlfriends?

Probably not. In fact, I’m going to propose that in order to succeed in business and personal interactions, you need to adjust your behavior based on the audience.  A person who is the same to all people will fail.

Let me explain.

The Window to Your Soul (oooh…ahhh)

I’m going to assume you are pretty relaxed around your pals but clean up your language around the mother-in-law.  In fact, you probably don’t tell the same jokes in both settings.  What you may not know, is that by adjusting your behavior based on the situation, you are implementing a “sophisticated” psychological model called the Johari Window.

The Johari Window basically states that we each have a window of “openness” somewhere along the scale of complete introvert on up to uninhibited extrovert.

An Accountant and Car Salesman Walk Into a Bar…

If we want to take business stereotypes, an accountant would generally have a more closed Johari Window, meaning they were less open to unknown people or situations.  A sales rep on the other hand, would have a wide open window, sharing all sorts of personal information with new acquaintances.

I say that successful communication in business and personal settings depends on our ability to adjust our Johari Window to our audience.  If we open it wide up around some accountants, we will make them feel uncomfortable and probably stifle the conversation.

On the other hand, if we keep it closed at a meeting of sales reps, they will probably think us a bore and move on to more interesting conversation.

One thing to keep in mind is that our Johari Windows are not fixed throughout the day.  They are naturally more open around our best friends and at home.  They close a bit when we’re around new people or in unfamiliar territory.

Use the Force, Luke

Here are a few pointers when trying to assess another’s Johari Window:

  • How loudly do they talk?
  • How close are they standing to you?
  • How expressive are they? Do they keep their arms folded or talk with their hands?

By adjusting your actions to match your audience’s window, you will put them at ease and further the conversation.  Your business meetings will run smoother and you will make friends faster.

Now don’t say I never taught you the ways of the Jedi.

Posted in Business, Interpersonal Skills
View Comments

How to Ask Great Questions

Posted By damien on March 9th, 2010

Asking Questions

I’m taking a short break from financial posts and exploring other topics.  This post will help you ask better questions in teaching, business and personal settings.

Everyone asks questions, and for many different reasons.

An effective teacher uses questions to see if his student understands, accepts, and applies what is being taught.  A great salesperson asks questions to see if her customer is willing to buy and to determine their objections.  An effective “networker” asks questions to develop business relationships.

Through my experiences, I have come across three different types of questions that we use.  Each category is useful for different reasons.  These types of questions, from least to most effective, are as follows:

  1. Factual questions
  2. Reasoning questions
  3. Emotional questions

Let’s look at each category and see how effective they are.  We’ll apply these questions to teaching situations, but they can easily be modified to work for salespersons and networkers.

Factual Questions

Example: “In what year was the Declaration of Independence signed?”

These questions are used primarily to see if the student is paying attention and understands the lesson material. Factual questions do not evoke much thinking or feeling on the part of the student, but require a mere recitation of what the teacher has already stated. Factual questions are not open-ended, the answers are usually objective, and many times there is only one correct response.

Reasoning Questions

Example: “Why was it necessary for the States to declare independence from England?”

Reasoning questions are the next level up in quality. These questions require more critical thinking on the part of the student than do factual questions. These are used by the teacher to see how well the student understands what is being taught, and whether or not the student accepts it. Answers to these questions are more subjective, they include more of the student’s opinion than do answers to factual questions.

A student, in answering the example question, could follow a couple different paths of reasoning. Perhaps the student does not believe the US should have broken off from England. If so, then the student would answer that it not necessary.

On the other hand, if the student does believe in US independence then she would respond with various reasons as to why.

Reasoning questions are a great way to see if the listener understands and agrees with what you are teaching.

Emotional Questions

Example: “How is your life different because of the American Revolution?”

This is the best type of question. Emotional questions cause the student to tie the material being taught to his or her own life. When learning, students love to ask, “What does this have to do with real life?” When a teacher uses an emotional question, the students discover the real-life application for themselves! To answer an emotional question, the student must link the information being learned to personal experience.

Emotional questions start with a premise (sometimes called “begging the question”) and cause the student to work from that premise to apply the material being learned. The premise in the example question is that the American Revolution had some impact on the life of the student.

If the example question were made instead into a reasoning question, it would go something like this: “Has the American Revolution had any impact on your life?” The difference between the result of a reasoning question versus an emotional question is evident in these two preceding examples.

Better Questions = Better Answers

Every teacher’s dream is to have students who understand, accept, and apply what is being taught.

By using factual questions, the teacher learns if the student is paying attention and understands the material. Answers to reasoning questions show a deeper understanding and acceptance of the information.

The best questions of all, emotional questions, help the student make personal applications of the concepts being taught. By using these three types of questions, teachers will become more effective in instructing and inspiring their students.

So…how do you use questions?

Posted in Business, Interpersonal Skills, Selp Improvement
View Comments

Hardball is So Last Century: Why Mean People Lose

Posted By damien on March 4th, 2010

Angry catThe era of mean business is over.

Internet killed the hardball-playing jerk.

It no longer pays to drive a hard bargain.

Why do I say so?  Two reasons:

  1. The abundance of information thanks to the internet
  2. and the abundance of choice in products and business partners

No More Secrets…

The internet and the flood of information that came with it has been a game-changer for the American business model.  Today’s business world is too full of information and opinions for anything to stay a secret for long.

This abundance of information has negative consequences for mean people.  Anyone who acts the jerk in business (or life in general) nowadays will have to face the music on facebook, twitter, blogs, etc.  Mean people just can’t keep their meanness a secret for long.

Eeny, Meeny Miny, Mo

In this new, flat world, your pal in India (or Bangladesh, or Canada) can supply your business with whatever it needs. There is just too much choice in business to be a jerk!  We have no need to put up with bad products or business partners.

My generation, Gen-Y, is especially aware of the abundance of choice and information.  As my friend Brant Choate explains, if you are mean, boring, or incompetent, we’ll drop you in a heartbeat.

It Pays to Be Nice

How can you make sure you aren’t the jerk?  How can you keep your customers (and colleagues) from trashing your name on the internet?  I have just two bits of advice:

  1. Be Sincere: Fakeness has a certain odor to it that is instantly detectable and repugnant.  If you are insincere, people will pick up on it and withhold information, business, and even friendship from you.
  2. Bring Something to the Table: No one likes a person who takes and never gives.  If all you do is take, pretty soon the well will dry up and you will constantly be on the hunt for new “marks”: new people to use.  Give abundantly and it has a way of coming back to you.

Bottom line: in today’s business world, mean people lose.

Posted in Business, Interpersonal Skills
View Comments

Tools of Influence: Social Proof

Posted By damien on July 8th, 2009

crowdAnother big idea from Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini:

Remember, the book is about ways that people successfully get others to do what they want. One of my favorite principles, because once explained it was so clear to me, was what the author calls “social proof”:

“It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct.  The principle applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior.  We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.”

Now, using social proof as a way to make decisions has served us humans well for thousands of years.  We will make fewer mistakes in life by doing what the majority of others have done.  Learn the easy way, from others mistakes; or the hard way, from our own.  Social proof is such an integral part of our decision-making process that the less scrupulous among us use it to their advantage.

A few examples:

  • Laugh tracks: From the book: “Experiments have found that the use of canned merriment causes an audience to laugh longer and more often when humorous material is presented and to rate the material as funnier.” Wow.
  • Tip jars: Bartenders, street performers, church ushers and pretty much anyone with a tip jar will “salt” the jar with a few dollars to simulate tips being left by previous patrons.
  • Ringers: Evangelical preachers like Billy Graham and Benny Hinn have people planted at their events who come forth at scheduled times to give donations or witness.
  • Product claims: Advertisers love to say their product is the “fastest-growing” or “largest-selling” to create the impression that everyone else is buying their stuff.

As we see, others will exploit the principle of social proof whenever they can.  Remember that social proof is an integral part of our decision-making process, so don’t totally disregard it.  Just keep a lookout for frauds!

Posted in Interpersonal Skills, Selp Improvement
View Comments

Tools of Influence: Reciprocity

Posted By damien on July 5th, 2009

talkingI’m taking a short break from personal finance books and have turned to studies on interpersonal skills. What I’ve come across is a book about coercion and manipulation.

It’s called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini. He’s an experimental psychologist, so he knows his stuff (as much as anyone can in the social sciences).

Why would I want to learn about such an unpalatable subject as emotional manipulation? Well, I want to learn about the tactics used by salesmen and the like to get me to do things I don’t want to. I want to learn how to protect myself from their jedi mind tricks.

And the book is delivering. The section I just finished discusses one of the tactics of influence, which the author gives the title of reciprocity. A law of our culture (and every culture in the world, the author asserts) is that if someone gives you something, you are indebted to him and should give back in kind–you should reciprocate:

…there is a general distaste for those who take and make no effort to give in return, we will often go to great lengths to avoid being considered one of their number. It is to those lengths that we will often be taken and, in the process, be “taken” by individuals who stand to gain from our indebtedness.

The author uses an interesting example to show how the tactic of reciprocity is used to part people from their money. The Hare Krishnas are a religious group that solicit people in public places, often airports, for money. They give out “gifts” such as flowers or pamphlets which they refuse to let the receiver return, then ask the victim for a donation. The victim, after receiving the gift, no matter how unwanted, feels indebted to the solicitor and often gives a small donation.

Concessions as Reciprocation

The general rule [of reciprocity] says that a person who acts in a certain way towards us is entitled to a similar returned action…[Another variation of the rule] is an obligation to make a concession to someone who has made a concession to us.

The author uses an example from his own life to illustrate the rule of concession as reciprocation. He was out for a walk one day and was approached by a Boy Scout. The Boy Scout asked him to buy a $5 ticket to a Boy Scout circus. Not wanting to spend a Saturday evening with the Scouts, he declined. The youth then asked him, “Well, if you don’t want to buy any tickets, how about buying some of our big chocolate bars? They’re only a dollar each.” The author bought two of them.

The author then explains that since the Boy Scout made a concession to him (in accepting his rejection of the first offer), he was then obliged to make a concession to the Scout (in accepting his second offer). They exchanged concession for concession, as deemed necessary by how we humans interact. This tactic is used all the time by sales representatives.

They make a request that they know is a bit too extraordinary, one they know you will reject. Then they go in for the kill and make the request that they wanted in the first place. The salesperson knows that, according to societal norms, you are more likely to accept the second offer.

Now you know the trick, don’t be a victim.

Posted in Interpersonal Skills, Selp Improvement
View Comments

It Pays to be Vulnerable

Posted By damien on April 28th, 2009

Here’s another Big Idea from Keith Ferrazzi’s book Never Eat Alone:

It pays to be vulnerable when meeting new people. Lots of us wonder how to make small talk more meaningful. The conventional wisdom on small talk is that you should stay away from anything controversial, unpleasant, or personal. Unfortunately, this leaves us with conversation that is light, meaningless and forgettable. We care little for those conversations and never remember them. Problem is, when “networking” we want to remember and be remembered.

Keith’s solution is to leave the wimpy topics behind and get real. “But what if I bring up a topic that they disagree with me about”, you ask, “won’t that be, like, totally awkward?” Here’s Keith’s reply, which I agree with wholeheartedly:

Personally, I’d rather be interested in what someone was saying, even if I disagreed, than be catatonic any day.

So, how do we leave behind the banal pleasantries and get real? This is where being vulnerable comes into play:

Too many people confuse secrecy with importance…Power, today, comes from sharing information, not withholding it. Of course, this isn’t a call to be confrontational or disrespectful. It’s a call to be honest, open, and vulnerable enough to genuinely allow other people into your life so they can be vulnerable in return.

Keith goes on to give an example from his life of using vulnerability while meeting people. He attended a business dinner a few hours after his girlfriend broke up with him, so he was feeling pretty down, not really in the mood for meeting new people. He made “small talk” with the woman sitting next to him, but could tell his heart and her interest were not in it. So he apologized for not being very fun and explained that he had recently gone through a difficult break-up.

She immediately opened up, telling him that she very much understood how he was feeling, and proceeded to inform him about her divorce. Other guests at the table overheard their conversation and joined in with their experiences and relationship advice. The dinner turned out to be a great success and Keith made new friends and business associates as a result.

Moral of the story: Safety—whether in conversation, business, or life—generally produces safe (boring) results. The Big Idea is to be vulnerable when meeting new people and it will lead to better conversations and better beginnings to your relationships.

Posted in Business, Interpersonal Skills
View Comments
Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes