Welcome to the Redefining High Performance Podcast. My name is Ty Bennett, and I’m excited to be with you for just a few minutes today as I share the third part in this series on building connection. If you haven’t listened to them, go back and listen to… Episode 1, just 2 weeks ago, on focusing on being interested, not interesting, episode 2 last week on investing in people, and today I want to talk to you about another strategy in building connection, what I call conversational leadership. You see, I think, especially as leaders, I think that most of the time what we end up doing is we end up talking at people and not with people. We want to create dialogue, conversation, open interaction, because without it, there can never be any connection.
And so, let’s talk about how we do that, because I think if leaders take the right approach, and they build the right balances. That communication can flow freely, and therefore connection can take place.
So, from an approach standpoint, I want to encourage you to adopt what I call the three A’s. When you come into a situation, the first question I have for you as a leader, and when I say leader, I want you to understand that I think everyone has a leadership role to play. I’m not worried about what your title is, I’m worried about the impact that you have. I’m worried about the way that you interact with other people, the connection that you build.
And so, as a leader, my first question. Of the three A’s is this. Are you accessible? Right? If we don’t put ourselves in position to interact with people, especially the important people that are on our team, that are part of what we do, that we want to build connection with, if we’re not accessible to those people, those interactions cannot take place. If you can say, yeah, I make myself accessible, the second question is, are you approachable? Because it’s one thing to be with the people, it’s another thing for them to feel comfortable with you.
This might take a little bit of a 360 assessment, right? This might take a little bit of… of you really looking at. How do I make other people feel? Do I shoot down their ideas? Do I… allow for feedback? Do I give space? Do I ask questions? Do I care about other people? Do I show genuine concern? All of those things start to come into play, right? Are you approachable?
And then the third A is, are you authentic? I think that if we try and put on a show. I think all of us have really strong BS meters inside of us, like, we can read when somebody just doesn’t feel right. When they’re trying too hard. It just… it’s a… it’s a turn-off. It pushes people away, and so those 3 A’s, I think, create a great approach, being accessible, being approachable.
And being authentic. I think that communication… It’s a balance for each of us, there’s a balance that has to happen, a couple of them, actually, and I want to talk about a few of them.
The first balance I want you to think about is balancing care and candor. Care and candor, because… Care has to be there. I think care establishes the relationship. We probably all heard the saying that people don’t care how much no until they know how much you care. I think that’s pretty true, right? It’s creating psychological safety, it’s creating a space for where they know that they’re important, and that they matter, and that you care more about them than results, right? Those things matter. But on the other hand. Candor, if done right. Can actually expand a relationship.
I think that if we’re gonna be real with people and build real connection, it can’t be just based off of niceties, it can’t just be based off of pretending to be happy with everything that they do. I don’t think that.
Real connections happens when you are a yes man or surround yourself with a yes-men. I think real connection happens when there’s real genuine connection. We can actually talk to each other, and sometimes candor needs to be there, real feedback. Say, hey, I don’t know if you know how this came across, but…I think… yeah, I don’t think you probably meant to. Right? Like, giving some real feedback, and so…that’s a tough one, right? And for a lot of people, it’s tough to have those.
Those real candid conversations where it might be able. And so I want to… introduce you to a ratio. If we think about this balance as weighted scales, there was a study that was done that showed that the impact of negative interactions is actually weighs 5 times more than positive interactions. Our brains are wired towards negativity. Not that we’re negative people, but they’re wired towards keeping us safe. Psychological safety. And physical safety, really. And so, when things feel like a threat, our brain responds in kind. It actually produces what’s called cortisol in your mind. It’s a stress hormone, and it tells you to go, hey, this danger, pay attention, watch out.
When we have a positive experience, our brain produces oxytocin, which is a positive hormone. But the interesting thing is our brain produces 5 times more cortisol. When we have a negative experience, then it does oxytocin. When we have a positive one. The takeaway from that is that. That negative experiences, tough conversations, they actually weigh five times more than positive. And so the way we balance the scales is we want to make sure we create at least 5 positive experiences for everyone negative experience. Does that make sense? Right, if we’re gonna balance those scales -think about it in parenting. I have 5 kids. Sometimes you have tough conversations with those kids. Sometimes you have to point out things, and it’s our job to help teach them and equip them, and give them some guidance. But what do we follow that up with? Do we seek for opportunities to have those positive. Experiences around that? Do we carve out space for just to sit with them and ask them really good questions, to listen, to encourage them, to compliment them, to hold their hand to, uh, give them a ride, to support them in something, to spend some time on their homework, whatever it is, right?
Balancing out those scales becomes important. The second balance that I want you to think about is, are you conversational? Or are you condescending? No, I think most people would say I’m conversational, but sometimes we’re condescending. Sometimes we don’t even mean to be. Sometimes we say things like, we as the leadership team and you… well, that doesn’t feel very good, right? Like, it just creates that separation. We talk down to people, and maybe we don’t mean to.
One of the things that I think sometimes we do is we give commands instead of invitations. And if you think about it from a grammatical standpoint, the only difference between those two things is typically a question mark at the end. But it sounds so much better. I mean, just even the idea of it, I don’t want to be commanded to do something, but I love to be invited. Right? So I could give you a command and say, hey, this is really important, I need it done by Monday. Or I could change it to an invitation and say. This is really important. I think you do a great job leading out on this. Can you have it done by Monday? Alright, just simple. That’s just… all I did is add a question mark. It’s just a little tweak in the language, right? Not a huge thing, but makes a big difference. I think one of the phrases that we can get really good at.
If we want to build connection, if we want to build partnership. Is to say, if I will you. We take the first step. Say, if I do this, will you do this? Meet me halfway. Right? I’m not just saying go and do, I’m saying let’s come together. That’s where connection takes place. Another balance I want you to think about, especially when things go wrong, which inevitably they’re going to in every aspect of life, business. Personal, family, etc. How do you respond? Are you curious, or are you critical? Really, how do you respond? Because it’s very natural to be critical.
Sometimes you make dumb mistakes, like. I’m like, what were you thinking, right? Just, it’s such a natural reaction, but let’s look at what the difference is. Curiosity causes us to ask questions where criticism causes us to reprimand. Curiosity seeks understanding, where criticism places blame. Curiosity builds trust and rapport, and criticism builds resentment and defensiveness. Curiosity focuses on the person. Where criticism focuses on the problem. Curiosity creative partnerships, connection? Criticism creates division. Divide, right? Curiosity seeks solutions, or leads to solutions, at least, by asking those questions, and criticism leads to making other people feel… small and less confident.
I think curiosity is a learned leadership skill. I think it’s an incredible skill to learn if we want to build a real connection. So as you think about how we build connection, hopefully. This conversation around conversational leadership, how we talk with people instead of at people, some of the balances. Some of the approaches we take, right? Remember those three A’s? But you want to be accessible, you want to be approachable, you want to be authentic. And we want to balance care and candor, have 5 positive experiences for every 1 negative experience. We want to be more conversational than condescending. Right? Just changing some of the language that we use there. And as we respond hopefully with curiosity instead of criticism. I hope this is helpful for you. This has been fun to dive into some ways in which we build connection because ultimately, as high performers, I think that we should recognize we can’t do it alone.
And so connection’s important. It’s it’s valuable in personal relationships is valuable in our families, it’s valuable in work, in leadership, in teams, in everything that we’re doing.
And so let’s work on building connection.
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