All the Worlds a Stage: Part ll

What is in this blog:

• You do not have an accurate understanding of how you are perceived by others
• Your verbal and non-verbal behaviors that have positive and negative effects on others have not been accurately pinpointed
• No matter what interpersonal behaviors you want to start doing or stop doing, you cannot change those behaviors without going through 3 steps
• Very few people ever change their personal style because they do not have access to these 3 steps
  

Part 1 of this blog was confrontational by design. I attempted to strip away the illusions and rationalizations that most people harbor about the way they are perceived by others—and why. One of the biggest problems in business and industry surrounds interpersonal style—how managers and supervisors are perceived by their subordinates.

Verbal behavior—the words you use and their connotations—their emotional impact, is one major component of the effect you have on others. Secondly, the way you deliver those words—the emphasis, gestures, demeanor, tone, inflection, create an effect in the listener.

People in general, irrespective of the context in which they are behaving, would prefer to have a positive impact on others. Most supervisors would prefer to get things done in a positive way—using positive discussions that engender positive emotions in themselves and their subordinates. In social situations, most of us would prefer to have a positive influence on those with whom we are interacting; we would like to make new friends and maintain the friends we have.

From my perspective, most people are discouraged from changing themselves to become more effective friends and managers because the sheer volume of literature that proposes to help them develop a more effective interpersonal style is ponderous, complex, and filled with unnecessary jargon. Most of us give up on personal change because we don’t understand or trust the methods being presented to us.

Another deterrent to personal change is the fact that we cannot get precise feedback about our verbal behavior and mannerisms. The three critical factors related to changing one’s interpersonal style are—1. Assessment—precise information about the words and mannerisms you use that are turning people off and the behaviors that are currently effective; 2. New Behavior—what words should you be using? What are effective mannerisms that will have a positive effect on others; 3. Feedback and Coaching—how does one get new behaviors started, practice them, get feedback on improvement and encourage one’s self to keep going?

Whether you are a high level executive with a Fortune 500 company, or someone who just wants to be more successful in social situations, the same process will work for you. In addition, you will not be able to change your behavior without this process. You cannot change your interpersonal style without these three steps. Of course it is more palatable to read books about interpersonal style--they are usually interesting and you recognize yourself in them--whether you are shy or bold, quiet or passive, domineering or cooperative.

Irrespective of the interpersonal skills algorithm you select, you will not be able to adopt the desired behaviors without the three step process presented above. The solution—the path to the personal objectives discussed in Part I require this process. Those objectives were:

• To be loved and cared for
• To influence others to do things our way
• To be liked; to have friends. Most of us would like to be more popular
• To be believed
• We want to be trusted
• We want to inspire—to positively influence others
• We want others to cooperate with us
• We want recognition, promotion, bonuses, and raises
• We want others to say good things about us

Assessment

Most of us do not change because we never receive a precise, objective diagnosis of the things we are saying (the words and phrases) and the manner in which we are saying them that put people off—that turn them off. Our verbal behavior and mannerisms (non-verbal behavior) may not be outrageous—in fact, in most cases the words and expressions that prevent us from achieving the 9 outcomes listed above are fairly subtle. The words and mannerisms that repel and attract others can be difficult for us to self-observe; self-diagnosis is extremely difficult for that reason.

Most of us know one or more persons who behave outrageously; they are loud, strident in their tones, aggressive, abusive, and negative—always complaining about someone or something. These are not the people who are concerned with developing and improving their effectiveness with others.

Using friends or acquaintances to help us diagnose problematic verbal and non-verbal behavior is usually unreliable. Others do not want to negatively influence their relationship with us by being direct and honest. We all understand and accept that the messenger often gets shot. People who believe that “being honest” with their friends in order to help them is going to strengthen their relationship are being a bit naïve.

We often discount the feedback from those we know, work with, or work for because we suspect them to have an agenda—personal motives for wanting us to behave one way or another. To believe that one’s boss or one’s co-workers, or even one’s friends want one to be successful is a risky assumption. Most of us suspect this and for that reason do not accept feedback from others. We tend to listen and then develop reasons why their opinion is wrong or biased. People who work with us or know us socially are not objective about our behavior.

One interpersonal behavior that constantly gets me in trouble (puts people off) is my use of words that are uncommon to most people—big words—polysyllabic words. My vocabulary is pretty big (I’m not particularly smart, so I don’t know why I have all the words), and the words just come out naturally. I suspect that it is off-putting to others; that it makes them uncomfortable. Whether this is because they compare their vocabulary to mine and assume that I am more intelligent—I don’t know. Many of us do not want to be around people who are more intelligent than us because we assume they are hypercritical and analytical—a couple of characteristics that seem to come along with intelligence.

The issues of diagnosis and assessment are clear in my example; no one is going to say, “That’s right smart ass. You use all those big words all the time. You trying to prove you’re smarter than us.” If I was actually trying to do that, they would be justified in their appraisal and in not wanting to spend time around someone who was trying to prove he is smarter than those around him.

Behavioral self-assessment and assessment from friends and business associates is not going to help us change what we say and how we say it to become more effective. That is where most of us throw up our hands and throw in the towel. We give up. We read self-help books like they are novels, recognizing the desirability of changing our behavior but exasperated by the absence of a system to achieve the necessary change.

Many leaders, managers and supervisors read contemporary books on management strategy in order to improve their efficacy; the collective wisdom in these books ultimately requires one to do something differently, to adopt a new method. Invariably, these new tactics are invoked through interactions with others in the company. So, once again, self-development and performance improvement is dependent on one's ability to say the right things in the right way to elicit the cooperation, enthusiasm, compliance, support, and involvement of the employees who will execute your vision or strategy.

Personal Coaches

If we were to find an effective personal coach—someone we paid to do a behavioral assessment—someone who could provide us with precisely pinpointed positive and negative verbal and non-verbal behaviors we could begin to make progress. Someone who would say, here is the word or phrase you used in this situation and here is the effect it has on others; or, this is the facial expression you used when you said “X” and it conveys this message (sarcasm, uncertainty, condescension, hostility, etc.).

Many of us cannot afford a personal coach, we are uncertain about where to find one and how to select the best one, and we are uncomfortable with the idea of meeting with someone to discuss these type of personal issues. It is clear, that a good “behavioral” coach could help us identify appropriate and inappropriate behavior, provide us with successful behaviors, and provide us with the ongoing feedback necessary to coach us through the change process.

In my next post, I will discuss some new techniques being used that allow supervisor, managers, executives and others to work on their interpersonal style using web based formats. Behavior change using webmeetings can be more effective, less threatening and much more affordable.

All the Worlds a Stage

All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
William Shakespeare

Executive summary of the contents of this blog:

• Nobody knows who you are “deep down;” people seek you out or avoid you based on what you say and how you say it.
• The effect you have on others is manageable; you are not doomed to be unloved and disliked by birthright.
• Actors manage their affect—gestures and expressions—and their words to create every possible personality type. They can be lovable and they can be villainous; so can you.
• This blog is not about spiritual transformation, or self-motivation, or self-help, or inspirational jargon; it is about the fact that your verbal and non-verbal behaviors create your persona—the way you are perceived by others.
• The bottom line is that most of the things we want in life we get from or through others. If we repel others we have one level of success; if we attract them and make them comfortable we have another level of success.
• The “how” to get what you want from life is known; whether you want to behave differently is your choice.

What do we want from others? Do you want to have a positive influence on others—to be liked and sought-after? These are not rhetorical questions. If you are not concerned about the effect you have on others, then this blog will hold no interest for you. If you are defensive about “who you are,” and have developed several self-affirming rationales about how you are misunderstood and that others are going to have to learn to appreciate you—then the realities I present here are of no use to you.

What do most humans want from other humans?

• To be loved and cared for
• We want others to do things our way
• To be liked; to have friends. Most of us would like to be more popular
• To be believed
• We want to be trusted
• We want to inspire—to influence others
• We want others to cooperate with us
• We want recognition, promotion, bonuses, and raises
• We want others to say good things about us

How do you get these things from others? By our appearance? From our genetics? Our education? Our affluence? These factors may play a minor role; in some cases they may set the stage—kind of prime the pump for influencing others to give us what we want, but they are not the cause for our varying effects on others.

The bottom line is that we get what we want from others through the things we say—our verbal behavior—and the gestures and expressions that accompany our verbal behavior. The main things we want in life are obtained by what we say and how we say it. It’s all about behavior. If we want to influence others to do what we want and feel the way we want them to toward us, we have to understand the effect of our verbal behavior—the words we choose and how we say them.

In the cases above, we want to have a positive influence on a person or group. There are many things we can make people do if we have the power, authority, or status, but we can not “make” them feel good about us, love us or like us. The fear of punishment can cause us to do lots of things we don’t want to do; intimidation can control our behavior. We can bully family members, students, and employees but they will not like us for it.

So, you can get the good things in life through positive influence—through verbal and non-verbal behavior that creates positive emotions in others, or you can get people to do a lot of things that you want by subtle intimidation, but they will not love you or like you for it.

I have heard people from all walks of life and every economic class say, “I don’t have to be liked I just want people to do what I say.” I think people who feel this way are in the minority; whether we admit it or not, most of us want to be liked, loved, respected, befriended, esteemed, believed, and admired. We want people to seek us out, invite us to parties or out to diner, and call us to talk.

Here is the $64,000 dollar question; if you knew exactly what to say and how to say it—if you knew the words, tones, inflection, facial expressions and gestures that would compel others to love you, be attracted to you, seek you out to be their friend, would you behave in those ways. If you knew that all you had to do was change some words and some expressions and it would change your life—would you do it?

For the majority of us, I think the answer to that question is yes. Most people believe that they do not have the influence they want to have on others because they are not attractive enough, or cool enough, or sophisticated enough, or educated enough, or affluent enough. Well that is a crock, even if you have deluded yourself into believing it. We all know someone who has none of those attributes, but we like them or love them because they say and do things that make us feel great—make us want to be around them.

Often the talent that some people have for saying things in a way that attracts us is described by words like “charming, engaging, warm, personable, and lovable.” We use the words so often we forget that they describe how a person behaves. No matter how many excuses you’ve made for the dissatisfaction you feel about not being well liked and popular—“I don’t need people; they don’t understand me; if they don’t like me it’s too bad; their stupid,” and so forth—you know that is all rationalization, denial, and cynicism. The real deal has two parts:

1. You have clues, but no hard, reliable, objective information about the things you say or mannerisms that turn people off, make them dislike you, or push them away. We question the authority and accuracy of negative feedback, which allows us to dismiss it and continue to behave in the same ways. You cannot change without hard, valid feedback.
2. You don’t know the things to say and how to say them that encourage people to be attracted to you, like you, love you, trust you, and admire you. You cannot say anything you want, anyway you want. Spontaneity is wonderful if it expresses the proper sentiments--otherwise, shooting off you mouth can be a problem. There are certain words to avoid--certain facial expressions that are off-putting to others. Knowing specifically what these words and expressions are can help you get what you want from others.

At this point, you may say (and actually believe) it’s a lot more complicated than that; it’s not me, it’s the other people. Liking and loving are spiritual states created by more than what we say and how we say it to others; it’s more than simple behaviors that we control and can choose to do or not do. Well, if you say that enough (and I’m sure many of you have), you may begin to believe it. I think it is true for many of us that we would rather deny the truth of a solution that requires the acceptance of personal responsibility; we would prefer to think that the true solution is too esoteric—beyond our power to resolve—beyond our control.

Denial, whining, self-pity, and romantic sorrows are self-indulgences that allow us to escape responsibility from the fact that we are the problem and we are the solution; you will not find a psychiatrist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, counselor or self-help book that does not ultimately lead you to that realization. There is a solution—you change your behavior—and then you become the person you have always wanted to be. You are in charge of your behavior. You can become as charming, lovable, engaging, and desirable as you want to be; you just have to say the right things in the right way.

In the second part of this blog, I will address the “how” to help yourself behave differently, then later the “what” or the kinds of behaviors that lead to personal success and personal influence. However, to further persuade you of the validity of the principles invoked in this blog, think about the interviews you have seen on TV with actors. One popular actor who has been interviewed often is Russell Crowe.

When interviewed for the television show, Inside the Actor's Studio, one noticed that Russell Crowe’s demeanor was relatively flat; his facial expressions usually look rather dull—almost depressed. Very little smiling behavior; his facial muscles are not used. Many of his statements sounded arrogant and sometimes hostile. His language was also flat—not very expressive. His voice was monotone; no inflection or emphasis on his words like newscasters do to enliven the informational copy they have to read. On the whole, if this were the way he behaved socially and at work, you would not expect him to have many friends. In fact, he has a reputation for being difficult to work with.

If you have seen him in movies like 3:10 to Yuma, and Gladiator, you remember how persuasively diverse his affect was—how convincing his personalities appeared. You might say, “Well of course he changes himself and comes across as any type of personality he chooses; he is getting paid to do so.” Your argument is that the consequences for him to behave—to act, are extremely positive and that is why he takes the trouble to do so.

The consequences for you and I are no less important. The impact you have on others leads to emotional and material capital. Your verbal and non-verbal behaviors lead to personal and career success. Success in life is a function of how others perceive you. If Russell Crowe can change himself—like a chameleon, to effect any type of character and personality, if he can manage his words and expressions to create either a lovable, attractive person or a repellent, unattractive villain—then so can you.

Behavioral Investigation: Engineering the Path to Performance

For 30 years I’ve been a Behavior Analyst Practitioner—a consultant who helps public and private organizations understand how an employee’s behavior is influenced by the environment he or she works in. The explanation that most people accept for human behavior—the “cause” for why someone does or says this or that—is that their behavior is personality-driven.

Personality is a complex subject, but I think the average person would characterize it as being the “hard-wired,” beliefs, attitudes, and predispositions that were acquired early in life, that pre-determine our personal style. Although there are major disagreements among academics about the changeability of people, it seems obvious to me that leaders, managers and supervisors can not do it in a work setting. It is expensive and futile to attempt to affect human performance by changing their internal structure.

On a more positive note, it is equally obvious that people’s behavior is extremely malleable; when you change the environment—what you say to them, what you give them attention for, what directions you provide them, the rules that govern their job, the conditions under which they can keep their job—then people change what they say and do. The thing is, we really don’t want to change people’s personalities at work—we don’t need to do that to have highly effective organizations.

I just had a lengthy conversation with a colleague in the UK. The conversation helped me make some discriminations about why people in the US have been so reluctant to embrace the value of behavioral principles. The market for performance improvement products and services in America is well established; money, awards, plaques, cups, bonuses, incentive pay and positive reinforcement all sell like hot cakes. Rewards, recognition, and positive reinforcement are chanted at every Human Resources conference; it is an American mantra—a panacea.

The latest research says that 90% of American companies—large and small—have reward and recognition strategies whose purpose is to increase loyalty, engagement and influence critical performance behaviors. We accept the use of rewards to influence behavior so unquestioningly, that the advisability and utility of rewards and recognition has the stature of common sense. Based on the strength of our current beliefs in the necessity of rewards to drive human performance, it is something of a mystery as to how we managed to build the world’s strongest economy prior to having any understanding of the benefits of reward-o-mania.

Amazingly, humanity’s technological strides and human accomplishment have been achieved by people who were driven either by interest, ethic or paycheck to do the job. Nobody held out a reward or a plaque or anything to the millions of hard working—creative geniuses that built our country. Success was the reward. Personal achievement was the reward. Self-respect was the reward. Fear of disappointment, disapproval, failure, humiliation, and starvation were in a partnership with success; while the upside of performance was a paycheck and self-respect, the downside was harsh. We knew the consequences and governed our behavior accordingly.

Positive Reinforcement is mostly associated with saying something positive to students, or children or adults when they do something—when they behave in a certain way—a way that the parent, or teacher or boss approves of. In my consulting practice it never came off well because it seemed contrived. And, because it was associated with behavior analysis and organizational behavior management, other behavior tools were dismissed along with positive reinforcement; the client threw the baby out with the bath water.

A behavior analyst in the US (a specialist in behavioral principles) either espouses the delivery of verbal positive reinforcement or he or she starves. This is “no country for old men” who think that supervisory verbal positive reinforcement is hog wash. So, my book Praise for Profit: How Rewards and Incentives are Demotivating America’s Workforce has received little attention—because I challenge venerable maxims—sacred assumptions.

There is no motivation program, incentive system, pay-for-performance plan, or award catalogue that is too puerile to be accepted and purchased in America. Yet, the same research that discovered the principle of positive reinforcement provides us with more useful tools to influence human behavior that are unused by American organizations. We can engineer work to incorporate principles of behavior that optimize human performance and minimize physical risk. But, these tools don’t have the sizzle, the promotional audacity that rewards and motivational programs have.

When someone is injured at work, the company performs an accident analysis; they want to know what specific conditions—precipitating factors in the physical environment—caused the employee to lose focus, pick the wrong tool, stand in the wrong place, or fail to put on their safety equipment. These analyses are meticulous and precise about the “thing”—the distracting sound, voice, or combination of factors that led the employee to behave unsafely. In behavior analysis, we call these antecedent conditions, and we seek to perform a similar rigorous analysis of the factors that prompt employees to exhibit value added behavior—an action that improves the product, quality or service—or a behavior that detracts from performance excellence.

Using precise behavioral work-environment engineering, barriers to performance excellence are identified and removed and factors that prompt value-added behavior are properly arranged in the environment. More importantly, every employee performance behavior has an outcome—a consequence for the employee. Sometimes a behavior linked to quality has a negative consequence for the employee—it takes extra effort, is time consuming, or requires the employee to talk to the supervisor or a coworker he or she doesn’t like. In most cases the antecedents that prompt a specific behavior and the consequences of that behavior for the employee are not obvious.

This type of analysis is referred to as an “ABC Analysis” (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence) and its rigor is as beneficial as the payoff for similar analyses in Lean Principles or Six Sigma or any other improvement system associated with systematic problem solving. My colleague in the UK reminded me that using the tools of behavior analysis (specifically identifying value-added behavior, identifying behavioral causation through an ABC Analysis, and providing meaning behavioral feedback to performers) without pushing the agenda of supervisory verbal reinforcement works well in the UK.

So, I am an anachronism, out of sync with the popular trend in America. Though I am no historian, I am familiar with the fate of those who are too early with an idea or whose ideas buck the trend. It is a losing battle. For many of history’s great names, their ideas were accepted after they were dead. I was not instrumental in discovering or researching the behavioral principles I’m discussing. I am just a foot soldier in a conflict of ideas. Any way you look at it the average foot soldier did not fair well regardless of whose side he was on.