By Shawn Quinn
I have a colleague who often gets nervous about teaching executives. She worries she won’t be able to relate her research in a way that will feel valuable and that she will have trouble connecting to the executives in general. This colleague of mine demands excellence from herself and those around her. She has felt frustrated and unsure after consistently receiving what she deemed as low scores from executives evaluations of her performance. I talked with her a few times along with others to try to help her but she had a pretty consistent experience for a number of years. Something changed during the last program and she ended up with excellent scores from the executive evaluations.
When this colleague entered the room to teach, there was a break and we started catching up on life. She recently has had to deal with a lot of important issues around an aging parent, how much time to make for personal relationships versus work, what is most important to her not only in work but other activities she wants to participate in and so on. She described with passion the clarity she had come to around what really matters to her. As she talked she seemed different to me. She was completely clear about her life purpose and priorities, she was completely aligned with her values, she was open to feedback and learning as she moved toward her purpose and she was trying to consider what would most positively benefit everyone impacted by the decisions she makes. She had changed her psychological state which is at the essence of the LIFT concept.
I was impacted by her and decided to introduce her in a different way. I talked about how impressive she is at living what she was about to teach everyone in the room. I talked about how when she leaves one meeting that was negative she goes and watches You Tube clips in her office to change her negative feelings into positive ones so she doesn’t take out her frustration on people she will meet with the rest of the day. I then played one of her favorite videos for the whole group to watch. Somehow the impact she had on me in our conversation led me to interact with the group and with her differently. I didn’t follow my normal patterns of introduction. This set the trajectory of her interactions with the group in a much more positive direction.
I watched with joy as my colleague taught those executives that day. She was saying many of the same words but they were experiencing her differently. The confidence she exuded drew them in and they showed more interest and were more open to what she was sharing. The executives learned more and were energized by her. She had greater impact. Every day I become more convinced about the importance of managing our psychological and emotional states so that we have greater impact and influence on those around us.