Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning about global warming.  Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat cleverly used two numbers in two different sequences to illustrate how events have much greater global impact than they used to. “9/11” – Bombing of the World Trade Center and “11/9” - the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Both Al Gore and Thomas Friedman are reminding you and me of our growing interdependence and the fact that our lives are intertwined both with people next door and people on the other side of the world.  We are awaking to global matrimonial vows: “For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health we are grouped.”   The “me” generation has long been replaced with “I need you” and “you need me” – we are a group.

In the past the terms “group” and "team” carried connotations which were commonly understood. Several factors have changed the certainty of what is meant by “groups.” We need a new vocabulary to understand groups. Such a language will reduce people’s fear of this global interdependency. 

Michael’s newest training and upcoming book Managing Groups – The Fast Track explains the dynamics of groups whether the group‘s membership is from the same culture or different cultures. As a student you will learn to switch from being reactive and surprised by life to being proactive and able to direct groups.

To shock people into realizing the geometric growth of interdependence we have people take the following survey. This survey can be done mentally — yet the clarity of the results is greater if you use a piece of paper.

1. Leave some space at the top of the page.
2. Put your name on the top line and list the 10-15 people you spend most of your time with. Do it now before proceeding. Feel free to make half of the names from your working world and half from your private world.
3. Once you have your list, at the top of the page, make 5-7 columns to the right of the names. Have each column represent a major variable of your make up. Examples include: level of education, religion, regions you have lived for at least 5 years, socio-economic level, affiliations (for example, political, professional, community), ethnicity, etc.
4. Fill out your own line in terms of variables, and then fill out the lines of the 10-15 people. Reflect on the result.

Are your answers to the variables about the same as those of the 10-15 people or are they different?

• If your 10-15 people have about the same answers as you, you were probably ready for the last century, but you might not be ready for this century.  
• If you had a wide variety of people you engage with   at work and have friends in your personal life that have similar answers to you, then you probably understand the changing nature of the world.
• If you have a wide variety of people both in working world and in your private world, then you are most likely part of this changing world.

Admittedly, we are more likely to experience the shrinking globe at work, than at home. In the past, our memberships were in groups whose norms we recognized and identified with. And we stayed in those groups a long time. Now the groups we belong to look unfamiliar to us. It is just human nature to shy from and, at times, be frightened of the unknown, that is why understanding the dynamics of groups is so important today.

By Toy Odiakosa — www.ela-consulting.com

A child’s lessons in eye and hand co-ordination (“EHC”) may be a cute developmental activity, but are there applications in business?  I recently asked myself—where are my eyes during my favorite game of golf, tennis, skiing.  If, like many people, your eyes look where the player is looking then the below could be interesting.

This note effectively predicts what the impact of your message will be, based on how you use your eye and hand co-ordination to focus your listeners’ attention.  As an effective speaker you will almost certainly demonstrate the idea that your listeners look where you are looking.  According to research¹, we can predict that the listener (“L”) follows the speaker’s (“S”) eyes and the 3 diagrams below show how.  Diagram 1 shows how we non-verbally signal to a listener to “look at me”. Diagram 2 shows how we follow the sports person’s eyes.  Diagram 3 transposes the concept of following the lead person’s eyes, from the sports field and demonstrates its practical application during pitches and high stakes meetings, where your listener’s focus may be more usefully directed away from you and to relevant data.

1. LISTENER FOLLOWS SPEAKER’S EYES
Ifyou look at a person and speak, they will most likely look back at you to hear what you are saying and you are the object of the listener’s interest².

2. THE THIRD POINT
In a sporting event the observer, you, is one point of focus, the sportsman is the second, the third point of focus is the ball.  During play the ball holds the player’s attention maximally to becomethe most important object point of focus.

3. EASY, EFFECTIVE IMPACT
The classic mistake in using a visual aidis to put up a slide, turn your back on it and, face the audience to begin speaking.  In this scenario the listener is disallowed from reading the slide –because you are looking at them (diagram 1above) with the result that the listener’s focus is split. A practical guide for usefully shifting the listener’s focus away from you and towards another point of focus is to use of eye and hand co-ordinationeffectively.

Speakers who use slides effectively have been known to put the slide upand look at it silently for a few seconds, allowing listeners to read.  We also know that they often use those few seconds to refocus their breathing since no eyes are on them and their back is to the audience.  They can then return to the listeners with the advantage of having had a mini-pause for breath. The research shows significant increase in message stickiness and impact for the listener. An effective chairman turns to the page in document and makes their point as they look at the material for a few seconds.

If the advantages of EHC in pitches and meetings is obviousthen does the concept extend to the dinner table?
As an executive coach I am blessed with clients who are willing to test new behaviours in the real world.  They may initially wince under the pangs of jealousyand fear, but only for as long as it takes to extract whatever information the wounds might hold. Then they quickly move on. In this world my clients do not need to mask the feelings that are the expressions of themselves just because are still testing out how to satisfyingly express them.  Just one method of accessingbehaviours that are the authentic manifestation of they is through non- verbal interaction. When my client says they want their listener paying attention to the topic rather than to them, I get them practicing their eye and hand co-ordination. When a client says they want to reduce the number of eyes on them…ditto.
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^{1 The Elusive Obvious by Michael Grinder
2 The Elusive Obvious by Michael Grinder}

ELA Consulting is an executive coaching practice serving senior level people