The first ingredient of rapport is full attention
December 31, 2010
I was listening to an interview today with Daniel Goleman, who, having previously introduced the concept of Emotional Intelligence, is now talking about Social Intelligence. His current work is looking at how the brain is wired to create connection. The sentence that drew me into the interview today was, “The first ingredient of rapport is full attention.”
“Where we put our attention, that’s where energy goes.” This is a statement that comes out of the Eastern contemplative traditions. In any speaking situation there are always multiple demands on our attention. Often it’s our own fear that commands the most attention. But, if we focus on our fear, we actually amplify it because that’s where all our energy goes.
Instead, what we need to attend to is what we want to say, to the technology we are using to deliver our talk, to the questions that are being asked, to the outcomes we want. Most importantly, though, where we really need to focus our attention is on making a connection with our audience.
When I ask participants in my groups to describe the qualities of people who they’ve experienced as having a great deal of speaking presence, one of the most frequent responses is that they felt as though they were the only person in the room and the speaker was speaking directly to them. This is what happens when the speaker gives their full and primary attention on the individuals in the audience. And, this is what then conveys the experience of rapport.
But how can we create that sense of attunement when there are so many competing demands for our attention?
We allow ourselves to relax into the connection by speaking directly to one person at a time using a soft available, receptive, inviting gaze. The gaze doesn’t have to be long, but it does have to be deliberate. We have to give each person our full attention, however briefly. We have to really see the individuals we are speaking to, not the “crowd”. I often tell participants to think of having a cup of coffee with each person in the audience as they address their comments directly to one person at a time.
When we speak with this quality of full attention, we actually slow down our internal rhythms which then help us to relax. At the same time, our audience is drawn in and feels a sense of rapport, of connection, of being fully attuned with the speaker. These conditions, then, increase the probability that people will listen more fully, attend more fully, to what we are saying. And, paradoxically, this then makes it easy for us to concurrently pay attention to all the other things we must focus on as speakers.
Recently I was driving to an appointment and running late. My mind was racing, my breath was shallow, my heartbeat was off the charts, and whenever I thought about it I realized that my muscles were clenched, I was leaning right up next to the steering wheel, and every cell in my body was urging the car to go faster.
At the same time, my logical brain was well aware that no matter how tense I was, how “uptight” I felt, I didn’t want to get a speeding ticket (which would have slowed me down even more). I also wanted to enter the meeting with a sense of relaxed confidence that simply wouldn’t have been possible if I stayed in that frantic, urgent state.
Stress and anxiety are characterized by speed and tension. Our thoughts, heartbeat, muscles and breathing all react to our sense of urgency, can run amok and derail any activity unless we take control.
But how do we do that?
Essentially every stress management strategy begins with our ability to slow down enough to become aware of the present moment. Once we are “here, now” we then have more access to our executive functioning and we’re able to make choices about how to calm ourselves down. Maybe it’s consciously relaxing and letting our muscles soften so that we stop feeling “uptight”. Maybe it’s taking a long, deep breath to entrain our internal rhythms to a slower pace. Maybe it’s taking a moment to really see what’s happening around us instead of being frantic with our urgent need to accomplish the next task.
Whichever strategy we use to slow ourselves down, we are helping to reduce our stress and heighten our sense of presence. Each of these strategies serve to immediately divert our attention from our anxious thoughts and bring us into the present moment.
But presence isn’t an end result, it’s a journey. Unfortunately, our mental chatter can be quite seductive and will, most likely, in very short order, return to its urgent spinning around our fear or anxiety.
So, we practice an intention to be more aware, to be able to step back from our thoughts and to return to the relative calm of the present moment. Over and over and over again… In time, we might begin to find that it’s easier to stay in the moment, easier to stay calm, and that we are much less driven by that sense of urgency.
As I was driving to my meeting, I let go of the need to be absolutely on time (although as it turned out, I was only a couple of minutes late). Whenever I noticed my interior world speed up (which happened with alarming frequency at first), I slowed my breathing, relaxed my muscles, sat back in my seat and let my mind become quiet. By the end of the half-hour drive, my heartbeat was no longer racing, my breath had deepened, my mind was clear and I was able to walk into the meeting with a relaxed sense of confidence.
This is the type of every day event that we all can relate to. In these anxious, uncertain, technology driven times, we are relentlessly besieged with a sense of urgency that can drive us to high levels of anxiety. But it’s actually in these ordinary life events that we have continuous opportunities to practice presence so that when we encounter situations where the stakes are high, we can skillfully regain our balance, equanimity and sense of well-being.
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As a Public Speaking Presence Coach, I offer one and two day small group coaching programs, private coaching and in-house trainings on how to speak and lead with confidence, authenticity and presence. Check out my website, www.riverways.com, for my calendar of events and information on my programs.
Lessons from a lint filter, water bottle and electric toothbrush
February 17, 2010
Somehow, as much as I’m trying to slow down and simplify my life, I always seem to be in a hurry.
Every time I do my laundry I’m reminded that hurrying through my tasks isn’t the most efficient way to get things done. I always seem to want to quickly empty the lint filter in my dryer before starting a new load of wet clothes. But this filter needs a gentle touch and doesn’t move easily when I try to pull it out in a hurry. Almost every time, after my first aborted attempt, I have to take a breath, get loose, slow down and softly lift the filter out of its frame. I can’t force it out or do it fast.
I have a stainless steel water bottle that I take to yoga class with me. I love the color and shape, but the top is a problem. I can unscrew it easily, but it requires a lot of focused attention when I try to screw the top back on. It goes off track very easily and this is a problem for me when I’m trying not to take too much time out of my yoga practice. I’ve found that I have to consider the act of taking a drink of water another posture, if you will, and to have the same quality of soft attention as I do every other posture in the class.
I’ve learned something similar from my electric toothbrush, which from old patterns with manual tooth brushes, I automatically apply pressure and move the brush up and down in rapid motions as soon as I turn it on. The speed and pressure of this gesture is really counter-productive when the toothbrush is already doing it for me. Invariably, I have to remind myself to relax my grip and slow my brushing motion down so that the electric brush can do the work.
The ability to slow down and be gentle with ourselves is key when we feel especially anxious prior to or during a presentation. This anxiety is especially apparent when the speaker is working too hard, pushing out his/her content, and talking very fast.
Instead of reacting to the urgent anxiety that causes people to speed up, my clients learn to slow down, take a breath, soften their internal environment and relax into their connection with the audience and their content. This most often requires that they take a figurative step back and loosen their grip on themselves and their material.
I often suggest to clients that they use the mantras “Soften into the talk” or “Rest in the relationship” as a way to release the anxiety and find the conversational tone that can be so effective. As I write this, I’m reminded of a Haiku poem that I wrote years ago to help people discover this softened state:
Gaze resting gently
Listening to the river
Essence to essence
If we allow our gaze to rest gently on our audience, our content and ourselves, we establish a way of being that is much less about pushing and much more about relaxing and receiving.
The idea of “listening to the river” conveys that quiet center we all have within us where we can attend both to our internal and external world and receive rather than drive our content.
“Essence to essence” speaks to the ability to speak humbly from the simplicity of who we are as human beings to the essential human beings in our audience.
This Haiku can provide a steady reminder to help us slow down, to stop pushing, to stop trying so hard to make something happen, and to simply allow. And, from that place, we can be so much more effective as speakers.
