In These Less Certain Times:
Bring Others Closer by Praising What You Want to
Flourish"
by Kare Anderson
When the priest was moved to a new
parish he approached he asked his superior to ask
for permission, "Would you mind if I smoked
while praying?" and was, not too surprisingly,
turned down.
Some wise people instinctively know they can gain
approval by how they ask. Set the stage for people
to hear your positive intent. For example, the
priest might have said, "Would you mind if I
pray while I am smoking?"
Setting the context with your initial comments is
akin to dressing in the fashion that the people you
are going to be around will approve or even admire,
while still being true to yourself.
Why? Because people like people who are like
them. Like all other animals, we are most
comfortable with those who look right -- like us.
In fact, the more you look familiar to me, the
earlier in the conversation I will literally hear
your words, absorb their meaning and be more able to
accept them, and you.
The more you look and act different than me, the
more my peripheral vision narrows initially.
Further my skin temperature will go down and my
heart beat up in anticipation of the possible need
for flight. That is because the primitive
triune part of our brains has not changed. We are
forever hardwired to respond to new, unfamiliar
situations with the "fight or flight"
syndrome.
Our vital signs literally shut down when we are
first around a person, setting or situation that is
radically different, unfamiliar thus initially
potentially dangerous, until we have decided how we
feel about our situation.
You can pull people closer, and bring out their
better side so they can see and appreciate yours. In
fact, this is probably the most meaningful gift you
can give someone else, other than the present of
your warm presence. Continuously praise others'
specific actions you admire, however small they may
seem to you. People eventually warm up to your
warmth.
Here's two ways to praise to inspire happier,
high-performing behavior in others and yourself..
1.
One way is to praise someone directly.
Whatever you praise you will encourage to flourish.
The more specific your words, the more memorable
your message.
Describe the actual act in as much rich detail so
you honor the person in acknowledging how vividly it
affected you.
2.
The second and perhaps even more powerful way to
praise is to compliment the person to one or more
people who are very important to them. My
client, the CFO of a Berlin-based maker of wireless
portal equipment named Punjabi, has had a rugged and
quite successful third year of operation where
everyone has worked long hours. Instead of
handing out the ten top team awards in the
traditional way, at a company event, the CEO took
the time to find a significant group related to each
of the winners.
For those winners the groups included a place of
worship, a rugby club, a college alumnae
organization and an antique car association.
With the permission of these organizations, the CEO
arranged to give the award and an eight-minute
speech, describing both the winner's accomplishments
at Punjabi and a specific incident where the winner
exemplified the heroic character of a true team
player.
Thus each (surprised) winner got to bask in the
spotlight in front of valued people in her or his
non-world world. The CEO's greater effort also
put his company in a genuinely positive light in
many new places. Although it did not appear
that any of the people who saw their friends receive
the award were immediate, potential customers of
Punjabi, they were sufficiently inspired to stir
some positive word-of-mouth buzz about the awards
ceremonies..
A month after these ceremonies a feature writer for
the equivalent of the "lifestyle" section
of the main Berlin paper heard the story through a
friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who was a rugby
player with her husband. Not one to be
interested in business stories, she was nevertheless
touched by the way the ceremonies had rippled out to
surround the winners' lives. She tracked down
the CEO and interviewed him, thus affording him
another chance to speak glowingly about some of the
specific examples of his winners' dedication
and ingenuity. As he praised each person, the
glow of the values he admired reflected back on him
and his company.
The reporter also interviewed the winners and
several of the people at the organizations where the
awards events occurred and then wrote a human
interest story that appeared, with photos, in a
Sunday edition. The article generated several
glowing letters to the editor by people who
witnessed the ceremonies, the winners and others who
were also moved by the story.
Mr. John Sunui, a vice president of sales for
Singapore-based construction management company
happened to read some of the letters in the paper
while eating his breakfast in a hotel while in
Berlin on business. Sunui emailed the reporter
to request a copy of the original article that the
reporter emailed back the next day and he received
when he returned to Singapore.
That December holiday in Singapore -- and 14 other
countries where Sunui's company has offices, both
the office director and one person in each office
who has done an outstanding job at their work, as
voted by their co-workers, will be happily surprised
when they walk in the door at some place that is
special to them to be greeted by a company
representative who will give them a present and tell
a story about another side of the winner that their
friends in that organization may not know about.
How can you give a lasting and perhaps the most
widely-known gift that ten people you admire can
receive? For each person think of the
specific incident where that person has exemplified
the quality that you most admire or cherish.
Re-play the situation in your mind so you can
describe it in all its story-building, touching
detail.
Practice saying the story, then notice how you now
feel about the person.
Begin with the specific details before you end with
the general statements that summarizes your feelings
and values. That way, you make the story, and
the person, more vividly memorable to all others who
read or hear your story.
Next step: for each person envision what group to
which they are affiliated (family, religious
organization, hobby or other interest or
professional group, etc.) would be most significant
for that person if you were to praise them among the
members.
You have several ways to pass along your praise
about the person you love or admire. You may
simply call, email or write to someone in their
valued affinity group and share your story of
praise. Or you may, like the people in the
story above, ask for permission to confer a gift on
the person at a gathering of their group.
In advertising this method is called a "third
party endorsement." For example, when
customers praise a product in an advertisement they
are providing a credible third party endorsement.
Because we are all instinctive voyeurs, naturally
interested in the stories of each other's lives we
are more drawn to third party endorsements than to
other kinds of advertisements.
Further, when we hear a positive story about
someone, told by another person we do find it more
credible and compelling than if the person was to
"boast" about it in telling it himself.
Here are other ways to offer heartfelt, long-lasting
third party endorsement gifts to those you hold dear
during this upcoming, less certain holiday season:
. Donate money or another gift to a charity or cause
in which that person is active, and ask that your
story about them be included in any acknowledgement
of the gift.
. Seek out places that person frequent and see
if you might buy a needed piece of equipment or
repair in that person's name. In our Sausalito
church you can buy a hymnal and dedicate it with a
related phrase, to someone. So every Sunday, someone
at my church opens up a hymnal with this
caligraphied message on the inside front, dedicated
to my mother who loves piano music, "To
Lestelle whose piano playing washes away the dust of
everyday life."
. On an object which that person might use
frequently (coffee mug, bath towel, key holder)
imprint or monogram a positive nickname or one
phrase characterization of the "hero's"
action. To my English rugby-playing friend,
Richard, we're giving a glass beer stein this
holiday with these words etched on the bottom,
"Great giver of bone-crushing hugs."
. Make a large, colorful postcard where you use your
computer to print a description of the positive
incident involving your hero, then ask your
colleagues who agree to join in signing it before
sending it to that person's home.
. Give a gift to the person's partner in work or
personal life, as an acknowledgement of your
admiration.
. Make a banner or poster, with a celebratory
sentence and an enlarged and flattering image of the
hero and hang it in a prominent place (wall or door
of the person's office, home or event).
. Find a place the person frequents (dry
cleaner, golf club) and offer the business manager
at that site your credit card number with a set
dollar limit. Ask the manager to pay the next bill
of your hero, fax you a copy of the bill, and hand
the manager a gift card with your inscription on it
to be given to the hero at their next visit.
. You may think of a variation of this story.
Two years ago I learned that Janice, a meeting
planner who had hired me to speak at her association
several times over the years, and who was
exceptionally gracious and generous with me, had
contracted leukemia and was not doing well. I
learned this from her assistant who called to
confirm some details of my next presentation at
their annual conference.
On a long plane flight back from another speaking
engagement, I looked out the window, thinking of
Janice, and conjured up this idea for a third party
endorsement of the Hawaiian-born meeting planner
which would reflect one of her most passionate
interests, gardening. I called the association's
executive director to share my idea and he
immediately agreed.
Two months later, just after I was introduced to
speak at that association's convention's opening
breakfast, I moved to the center of the raised
stage, signaling the 500 attendees to also rise from
their seats as the board president caught the elbow
of our surprised meeting planner, Jana, who at the
bottom of the stage steps, still focused on making
sure the room lighting would be alright for my
speech.
He guided her up the steps as I stepped back to the
side of the stage and the first person in the
audience, roving mike in his hand told the first
vignette of how Jana had guided him at the beginning
of his career. As Jana reached the center of
the stage, in front of the people she had served for
14 years, eight other people in various parts of the
room lifted their mike and told their brief story
about her.
Then a saxaphone player stepped out from the side of
the stage to serenade Janice with a fragment of her
favorite Kenny G song as the screen on the stage was
filled with these purple words on an emerald green
(her favorite colors) background, "Jana is a
special flower" followed by a swift changing
set of images of Janice in several situations.
As the song ended, on cue, all 500 people pulled
from out of their pockets and purses the fragrant
Hawaiian-grown white flowers, the gardenias, tuber
roses and pikaki and held them aloft towards Jana.
The board president handed Jana a bouquet of the
flowers and asked Jana to speak, which she did,
briefly, through her tears.
Even several of the hotel waiters standing still,
crying by then. My speech had, of course, been
moved to the luncheon so people could drop by Jana's
table to say hello through the ensuing breakfast.
Kare
Anderson is a trailblazer in media, business,
and politics and a former journalist for the Wall
Street Journal, Le Monde, UPI,
and other newspapers. Kare was Pacific Telesis'
first Wideband and Cable Division Director, a
co-founder of a national public affairs and
advertising firm, and now president of the Say it
Better Center. In government, she was a state
senator's chief of staff, co-founder of nine
political action committees and appointed
commissioner. Kare's a frequent strategic
communication coach to leaders in business and
government. Visit her website http://sayitbetter.com
