Improving the quality of your relationships will improve your career.
Relationships improve through the quality of your conversations.
Conversations are also how companies create and embody culture (or not!).
I’m reading Conversation Intelligence at the moment and it’s awesome.
As a qualified personal trainer I know and value the impact of our physiology on our performance.
With the leaders I coach, I give them simple strategies to manage their physiology.
This helps them perform in times of stress, increase their energy and their clarity of decision making.
What I didn’t understand is that we can also influence the physiology of others.
Imagine you invite someone into your office to give them ‘feedback’.
Their reaction is fight, flight or freeze and to get defensive potentially.
This is a physiological reaction.
Fear.
Threat.
From using one word.
Imagine then the impact conversations over time can have.
It’s powerful.
When you remind yourself that you’re human
You have a body
Your body has needs
And you work with fellow humans that also have needs
Everything changes.
You soften to yourself, treating yourself like you matter.
You do the same to others.
They feel safe because you feel safe.
You open up to learning more from their perspective and you learn more and more.
Rather than getting defensive about what you think.
This dramatically changes your career.
It’s possible.
Here’s 3 things I think help to get started:
– Ground yourself ahead of a conversation. Some simple breathing using the same rhythm in and same rhythm out will help.
– Have a clear intent to the conversation and how you want to be. Calm? Open? Present? Choose rather than being reactive.
– Be patient. When you’re rushing, the amygdala (fight, flight or freeze) response is more likely to be triggered or not allowed to settle. Slow down. Conversations will feel slow initially but the trust built compounds over time.
It’s worth it.
What do you think?
