In the previous article, Young Professional’s Guide to Self-Awareness, we talked about the importance of knowing yourself; your values, ego states, beliefs, and behaviours. Like self-awareness, observational-awareness is of critical importance as a foundation for effective communication. In this article, we will look at the why/what/how/who/when/where relating to observation. A future article will cover professional conversations in more detail.
Why Observe?
Many people go into conversations willy nilly, either due to a lack of confidence or a lack of interest, and others go into a conversation focussed squarely on what they want out of it. Not many people spend time at first to read the room, understanding what drives the people around them, and where they can offer value. This HBR article about reading the room is a good one.
Communication gives us all the opportunity to gain knowledge, insights, and understanding. When you listen actively to the people around you (not talking about eavesdropping), and you watch them attentively while they are going about their busy lives, you learn what makes them tick, what is important to them, and where you could possibly help. Remember, helping others builds your prestige.
What to Observe
The short answer is “as much as humanly possible”. The more you understand the people around you, the better tailored your communication style and the content will be. Use your eyes and ears to scan for valuable insights about everyone you are about to meet. When you have read the room, you will be able to focus more on what you know and less on your intuition about people. Don’t get me wrong, intuition is important down the line, but it can get you in trouble when it leads you to emotional decisions, so working with facts will keep you safe.
Here are a few tools to use when observing others:
Active listening
It has been said that we all have two ears and one mouth, so use them proportionally. You learn when you listen; not so much when you speak. It is also vitally important that you are genuinely interested in what the other person is saying. There is no point in just sitting there waiting for your turn to speak. Showing interest, true interest in what someone is talking about, makes you more interesting to the speaker.
We are all so desensitised to scripted conversations that we tend to zone out a bit when engaged in professional/business conversations, but when you veer off-script and ask something out of personal interest, and you then listen with interest, it lifts the fog and the speaker snaps out of auto-pilot. You become memorable and interesting. This is a cornerstone of building a solid personal/professional relationship with someone. Everyone has “war stories” to share, and you can learn a lot from them. It gives you a way to gain many great insights and to learn about the people you work with.
If you like the topic of active listening and want to read some more, have a look at another article written a while back here.
Open Mind
Judge not, lest ye be judged! It’s not just a Christian staple, but a very good rule in the effective communication world. Open-mindedness is foundational to critical and rational thinking. You can learn positive insights from even the most unlikable characters if you just keep an open mind. You have the power and control over what you learn. Remember, you are self-aware and know your core values and beliefs, and you choose your behaviours.
When engaged in a conversation, take every opportunity to listen to what the other person is saying, even if you don’t agree with the content. The insights shared will tell you a lot about the other person, and that is what you want. You want to know what makes him/her tick, what types of words and topics trigger him/her. This knowledge will help you create more meaningful conversations in the future, which adds to your prestige and power of positive influence. This Wiki page gives a good description of Open-Mindedness.
Now, back to WHAT to observe. Even before you engage in a conversation with someone, stand back and watch for the following things:
Mannerisms
This is an interesting one, as so much in communication resides in body language. Observing the way someone moves and interacts with things and people around them, tells you more about the person than just listening to them speak. You could gauge his/her emotional state, attentiveness, likes and dislikes, and so much more. Watching someone move can even tell you if he/she is an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert.
Incentives
When observing others, it behooves us to understand what is important to them when it comes to gain. Not all people feel incentivised to do things for the same reasons you do. You might like free time and any decision that will give you more free time will be prioritised by you, but the person next to you might like money and/or material things more and will prioritise decisions based on what things he/she can get from making a decision. Observing people in your personal and professional life, and seeing them light up or dim down while involved in discussions, will tell you more about where their incentive preferences lie.
If you read the book, Freakonomics, you can learn about three incentive types that motivate people.
Passion
Passion is what drives us! When observing someone’s passion in life, you can clearly see it in their body language and mannerisms. It also gives you the opportunity to find common interests with the other person, which can be used to tailor your conversation with him/her to be more memorable and meaningful for both of you.
It’s important to point out that you don’t have to have the exact same passion as the person you are in conversation with in order to relate. Many passions, like industries, have points of intersection. An easy example of this would be the playing of instruments. You might play the guitar and the other person might play the piano. The intersection of the two is music. I know, that is a very basic example, but I’m sure you get the point. Actually, here’s another example. You might be an orthopedic surgeon and the other person is a mechanical engineer. These are two completely different professions and fields, however, they intersect at the point of engineering. Finding the intersection between your passion and someone else’s will increase the depth of your conversations and the opportunities for gaining insights.
For more information on intersectional thinking, have a look at The Medici Effect; it’s an eye-opening rabbit hole!
Confidence
Observing someone’s level of confidence is great for gauging his/her openness to a fluid conversation. Often, when someone exhibits high confidence, they are energetic and receptive to conversations and they are likely to share insights.
On the other hand, if someone displays a lack of confidence, they are likely to be less inclined to enter into a conversation and to share insights. This does not mean that you should avoid people with low confidence. The observation alone tells you what style of interaction you should apply when engaging with a person. Applying a high energy style could be overwhelming to someone with low confidence levels, so a better approach is to ask questions that will help the person understand his/her value. An example would be, asking him/her about something that he/she does on a regular basis and is good at, which, while he/she is talking about it, will build up their confidence. This is a form of positive influence and will help you build prestige in the eyes of your colleagues and peers.
A future article will tackle positive influence, including building up confidence in others. Until then, though, here is an article that was written a while back about What Drives Your Confidence.
Emotional state
This one doesn’t need a lot of explanation but it does come with a warning. There is a fine line between EQ and Intuition. Gauging someone’s emotional state should be contextual and moderated internally before you jump to conclusions. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is based a lot on life experience and careful analysis. Observing someone and determining their emotional state on what you see at the moment, without understanding the environmental effects that led to that state, is not safe. Take into account how a person acted and what their emotional state was in the past. Now, this warning mostly applies to situations where the person is expressing negative emotions. To be helpful to him/her in a conversation, knowing more about the source of the pain goes a long way.
Someone exuding a positive emotional state shows that he/she will be a source of energy and pep in a conversation. This could be useful to you, as it will help you gain emotional energy when you need it, and bringing the person into a group conversation will have the same effect on the group. Positive emotions and energy spread through osmosis, for sure!
When and Where to Observe
When should you observe the people around you? Easy- ALWAYS! The more you observe, the more you learn, and the more you learn, the more informed and prepared you are. I guess it is worth saying that you shouldn’t take it to the Stalker-Level. This brings us to “Where should you observe?”. You should observe people around you wherever you are naturally. This could be at work around the office, at home around your family, and at social events (preferably where you were invited to).
In Summary
Your observational skills and your genuine interest in other people is fundamental to your life as a skilled professional. Care about others and their mannerisms, passions, and emotional states. Listen actively to what people are saying and always keep an open mind. This will help you gain valuable insights into a myriad of different industries and professions, and will build up your prestige and powers of positive influence. There is no better way to crowdsource knowledge than applying your powers of observation. The more you gain, the more you can share.