See yourself as others see you

Dr David Fraser

I was lucky enough to interview Dr David Fraser recently, along with my associate Karen Mason. David has been described as “a rival to Dale Carnegie”, as the author of the best-selling book “Relationship Mastery – a Business Professional’s Guide” which is a refreshing book showing you how to do a better job of relating to other people.

In this article, I look at just one of the many tips that David shared with us – the value of becoming more self-aware, and to be able to see ourselves as others see us.

In any situation in which you are relating to another person, whether at work or at home, it is extremely useful to pay attention to the other person’s needs, and to be able to meet their needs. In this way, you are more likely to be able to also achieve your own intentions, creating a truly win-win result. To do this, however, you need to be as self-aware as possible. David advised mentally stepping outside of yourself, and asking yourself “How am I coming across? What do I like or not like about what’s going on here? What can I do more of, or stop doing, in order to get a better result for us both?”

Here’s a simple exercise that David described to help you to see yourself in the context of another person’s eyes:

• Choose a relationship that you’d like to explore – perhaps one in which you are currently experiencing some friction or difficulty.
• Arrange two chairs to represent yourself and the other person.
• Sit in the first chair, and visualise the other person sitting opposite you.
• Ask yourself “what do I see when I look at them? what can I hear? what am I saying to myself about this relationship? how does that make me feel?”
• Then ask, “what do I really want out of this relationship”.
• Get up, and go and sit in the other chair, taking on the role of the other person. Try sitting in their posture and really become them, looking back at ‘yourself’ in the first chair.
• Again, in the role of the second person, ask yourself “what do I see when I look at them? what can I hear? what am I saying to myself about this relationship? how does that make me feel?”
• Also ask yourself, “if I (as the other person) could give a gift or a piece of advice back to ‘myself’ in the first chair, what would that be?”
• Next, stand up and move to a position somewhat distanced, but where you can see both chairs. Become a fly-on-the-wall observer to the relationship between the two people.
• In this observer position, looking at both chairs, ask yourself “what can I see is really going on between the two people in this relationship? what do they have in common? where do they differ? what advice can I give to ‘myself’ in this relationship?”
• Finally, take this advice with you as you go back and sit in the first chair, and notice what is new for you in this relationship. Take away any insights, learnings or actions that will help you in the future.

David Fraser, PhD, is a leading authority on relationship skills in professional and personal life. He is a business owner, chartered engineer, certified mediator, NLP master practitioner, and family man. Find out more at www.drdavidfraser.com

Confidence In The Face of Redundancy or Career Crisis

For most people, being made redundant or facing a career crisis gives their confidence a battering. I know that the first time I heard that my job was at risk, I almost went into meltdown, asking myself “Will I ever be able to get another job? What skills have I got? Who will want me once they know I’ve been rejected?”  Of course, these self-doubts are the death-knell to confidence, and they can start a real downward spiral. We begin to believe what we say to ourselves.

Interestingly, the word confidence literally means “with faith” or “with trust”. This faith or trust comes in two directions – firstly you need to have faith or trust in yourself. So what can you tell yourself that will build this faith and trust? Can you remind yourself of all the successes you’ve achieved? The projects that you’ve delivered? The teams that you’ve built up?

Secondly, you need to earn the faith or trust of others. People around you are more likely to display confidence in you when you are showing confidence in yourself. So the period of initial self-doubt is a very bad time to be out searching for your next role or project. You will be projecting a very pale version of yourself, and subliminally sending out messages of doubt.  In return, prospective employers or partners will doubt whether they will want to work with you.

One of the most useful exercises that I undertook when I was really struggling to see my own self-worth, was to ask people around me what they valued in me.  I contacted a range of people including colleagues, friends and family, and explained that I was in the process of evaluating my next step in my career, and asked them if they could jot down a few points on what they most valued about me.

The results were overwhelming, and enlightening.  Firstly, every single person I contacted took the time to reply, which was in itself a big boost to my faith in myself. And the responses which came back were illuminating, surprising, funny, emotional and insightful. Many people commented on attributes which I had never even thought of as strengths, which helped me to look at myself differently and in a new, positive light. Other people picked up on attibutes which I didn’t even know I possessed, which stimulated me to think about areas of myself which are hidden to me, but visible to others (the old Johari Window exercise comes in useful here.) One or two people helpfully included their observations on my weaknesses as well as my strengths, which was wince-making, but honest and balanced. All of them expressed their 100% support for what I was doing, and were glad to have been of help.

Who can you reach out to in this way?

The best kept secret of effective networking Part 2

In the previous article, I wrote about networking as being a method of beginning a relationship that would become mutually beneficial over time. The person who taught me this, by her own demonstration of this approach, was Rhona Hutchon, then working at the recruiters Hudson, now a director of Harvey Nash Scotland. I first met Rhona at an event in 2000. Rhona approached me and asked good, open introductory questions. She soon discovered that my company then had only 6 people and no budget to recruit, let alone use an agency. Where others would have glazed over and walked away, Rhona took an interest in me and found out a little bit more before elegantly leaving the conversation (incidentally, by introducing me to someone who she thought might be interested in my service), leaving me feeling good about the meeting. Some time later, Rhona sent me a small snippet she thought I might be interested in. A few months later she invited me to an event where she thought I might be able to meet some potential buyers. And so it went on, with Rhona actively building the relationship.

Our company began to grow rapidly, and guess who the only recruiter was that we trusted and respected enough to do business with us? Since then, Rhona has probably placed over 20 recruits with that company. In return, we recommend Rhona to everyone we speak to – a true illustration of a relationship that has been mutually beneficial over time.

When you are next planning to go to a networking event, try the following simple action plan:

• decide ahead what you want to achieve, in terms of how many new relationships you plan to initiate
• enter the event with a smile – it signals friendliness and approachability, and also gives you self-confidence
• ask open, general questions to learn as much about the other person as possible
• listen and look out for opportunities to offer something that will help the other person
• don’t try to push your CV, product or service. Remember that you are just starting the process of building up trust and respect
• always follow up on your promises. Send that article, or pass on that contact
• keep in touch. You never know when that new relationship will deliver benefits

The best-kept secret of effective networking Part 1

In business, much is made of networking. And yet many of us dread going to networking events because of the pressure of finding new people to talk to, or because we never quite know what to say in our “elevator pitch”. Other people make networking into a competition to see who can get the most business cards. In this article, we offer you a different way of looking at networking that can turn a challenge or a chore into a productive and above all enjoyable activity.

What intention do you have in mind when you go to a networking event? Most people focus on things like “How many business cards can I get?”, or “I want to meet as many new people as possible”, or even “Who can I meet that will offer me a job?”. You may have found that these approaches tend not to work. Or at least, you might collect lots of business cards, but you are really no better off than if you’d bought that many names from a list. I recently received an email from someone who said “It was a pleasure to meet you at the recent event”. I wasn’t even at that event – but I had lent my cards to a colleague who had run out. The person sending the email hadn’t even noticed that my name is female and my colleague is male. As you can imagine, that didn’t create too good an impression with me.

Let me offer you another way to look at networking – why not see every event as the opportunity to begin a relationship that will be mutually beneficial over time? There are lots of important parts to that challenge which I will explore in turn:

to begin

The networking event is just the first opportunity to meet someone. It is naive to hope to close a deal with someone on first meeting, so why should a networking event be any different. Like any other relationship in life, start with the basics of getting to know each other. Everything else will build on this basis.

a relationship

In business, the idea of a relationship is undervalued, and yet all transactions fundamentally boil down to interactions between individuals. This means that the underlying human relationship is an essential in all business dealings. Time invested in creating, developing and maintaining relationships will always pay dividends. The networking event is the opportunity to create new relationships. If I have started two new relationships out of one event then I am pretty happy – certainly happier than if I’ve collected 50 business cards, but can’t actually remember the people behind any of them. Chances are, those people won’t remember me either.

mutually beneficial

This is the absolute key. We’ve all met the seasoned networker with the polished elevator pitch, who works the room with military precision, and glazes over as soon as they think that you won’t be a potential buyer. On the face of it, these people have a great strategy, but think what they’re missing out on. If they walk away from me leaving me feel worthless (to them) I’m unlikely to hold any great feeling of loyalty or commitment to them in return. So as and when I DO have a need for their product or service, guess what? I won’t be calling them any time soon.

On the other hand, what has worked for me, and will work for you too, is to assume that there’s always a way in which I can offer the other person something of benefit to them. This might simply be an article I think they’ll be interested in, or it might be a contact name that they’re looking for. Once, it was a lift to a crucial football match. The thing is, it costs me nothing but a small effort to find out how I can help, and to make that thing happen. Then, when they have a need for my product or service the chances are that I will be favourably in their minds when they’re ready to buy.

over time

The final thing to remember is that networking is not about instant results. The person you meet at networking may turn into a valued client, and this only happens when you have built the relationship, and earned trust and respect. The more you invest in the relationship the more you will understand the other person’s priorities, values and needs, and the better placed you will be to meet those needs.