TaleCatcher

Personal wait time

A colleague told me a story, while we both stood waiting, about an MD who he once waited with. She asked: 'What's your personal wait time?'

I'd brought up the subject. I'd read once that you should never stick around for a job interview if you're made to wait more than 15 minutes, because you'll be too nervous and wound up to do well in the interview.

It's more than that though, isn't it? It's about respect for your own time, and the respect you expect to get.

At some point you have to go. If it's important, you can catch up again later. If your delayed colleage comes out and finds you still standing there half an hour later, what does that make you look like?

My wait time is the same as the MD's: 10 minutes. I'm relaxed about it. We can catch up later.

A colleague told me a story, while we both stood waiting, about an MD who he once waited with. She asked: 'What's your personal wait time?'

I'd brought up the subject. I'd read once that you should never stick around for a job interview if you're made to wait more than 15 minutes, because you'll be too nervous and wound up to do well in the interview.

It's more than that though, isn't it? It's about respect for your own time, and the respect you expect to get.

At some point you have to go. If it's important, you can catch up again later. If your delayed colleage comes out and finds you still standing there half an hour later, what does that make you look like?

My wait time is the same as the MD's: 10 minutes. I'm relaxed about it. We can catch up later.

What's not said

So does language set up our expectations, our view of the world? Does it narrow our view of our universe and possibilities into the grammar we use?

Somehow in conversation the other day I recalled how my niece Eliza had stood on a chair beside me while I peeled vegetables on a visit back to Tennessee, and clearly had something on her mind. She must've been about four. We stood there a while, me working, her watching, and finally she came out with it.

'Are you a little girl?' she asked.

I was over 30. I choked back a laugh. This was very serious, to her. 'No sweetheart. I'm not. What makes you ask that?'

'But you're not a mommy, so you must be a little girl.'

We went back and forth like it for a little while. In the US, or maybe just in East Tennessee, there are children, there are mommies, and there are daddies. My sisters may correct me (feel free). But the conversation has stuck with me. Clearly, at least at that point, for her there were no other options. Her language had not given her ladies, or women and men.

Language is a habitual thing. It is stretching to try something new with the language you use, even if it feels trite or silly. Try writing secret messages into the report that's giving you difficulty. Try sneaking a word or quote in that you wouldn't necessarily use. Or play a clandestine game of p.c. bingo, waiting to hear someone say all the words you're secretly looking for. Play with the language. Everything's in there, and an awful lot of it isn't getting a chance to get heard. 

Gaps in the language

Carolyn Dirksen told us in her basic linguistics university course, many years ago now, that every language is sufficient to explain the concepts that exist within that culture. Not necessarily in one word though.

And ever since, I've been looking for examples of where English is really clunky.

Don't get me wrong. I love English, particulary British English. The language alone is enough to keep me from emigrating - in fact, it's our bread and butter. I even read in my dreams.

But everyone and everything is more beloved for having its quirkiness. Carolyn's example at the time was that in English we don't have an inclusive/exclusive 'we' - so 'We're going to the cinema' may mean me and Ray, or it may mean all of us.

I find 'expect' awkward. As in, 'I don't expect them to bring a present,' meaning that they really don't need to. But at the same time I can fully expect them to bring a present, meaning that I am certain they will.

Another example, I guess, of how it's from in here (tap your chest) that we're trying to communicate. We need that bit, too, to understand each other.

As different as black and white

In Tuesday's workshop we were talking about word clouds and how the language we use regularly builds up into an atmosphere around us. I don't want to go into the whole thing, but I was amazed when one of the group pointed out how many of the words George Bush used would also be true of Nelson Mandela. Freedom, fight, challenge, enemy, oppression, liberty, right, people, determined, united, nation, legacy, years, ideals, rights... Maybe she was reading Long Walk to Freedom and had it on her mind. It threw me for a minute. But it turns out she was spot-on.

I guess the stuff that distinguishes them is the context of their story - what they are aiming for, and what threatens to steer them off course. The response to their situations is what appears the same, without the bigger cloud of their world around them. The situations make them very, very different.

Fascinating, isn't it?

Just coincidence

I can find meaning anywhere. I joke that I could find meaning in an apple core lying in the street.

So I'm not very good at thinking things are just a coincidence. Also, my top strength is connectedness, defined as 'Things happen for a reason. You know they do.'

I'm off to London again tomorrow to run a workshop. I was there last week for another presentation (to a great group of people, I had a super time) but arrived late because of a problem at Wymondham station. I ended up on a later train than I should have been, even though I was sitting there in the cold and rain at 6:40 am, waiting for mine. When I got on the next train at 7:50, I joined a funny, squinty, jerky, stammering little old lady, who simply said to me, 'Oh. Oh. Well. I'm going to sleep now. Good night.' And with that she turned to the window, and slept.

Eight hours later, I hustled across London, through the tube stations, and ran across Kings Cross to try to catch a train that would let me see the girls before bed. I just made it. I changed in Cambridge, again running through the rain to get on a train right before it left, and plopped down in a seat beside... the same little old lady. There are hundreds of people on a train, and trains every hour, and I'd had plenty of opportunities to miss more trains after that first one. But there we were.

I wondered if I was meant to talk to her. After all, I shouldn't have been on that morning train with her in the first place.

But no, she told me in her eccentric little way that again, she didn't want to talk. So I got my book out, and that was fine.

So I had to wonder, what was all that about?

Maybe there was a link-in-the-chain purpose to it all. More likely it was just a coincidence.

Whatever that is. I prefer to imagine that I just don't know everything going on. How boring would that be, if we knew all the details, and how these great big stories we're living in our universe end?!

See you when I get back!

Response

This is probably really old, everybody's probably already heard it, and I'm just way behind, but I've been flicking through a copy of the classic 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,' and was struck by Covey's comment on responsibility: it is respons-able. Able to respond to what life throws you.

Yeah there's a story thing there, but I'll venture to say his point is just important, story or not. The ability to choose your response and the presence and energy and composure to get on with it, that's what it's about. The story's just the re-telling of it.

Loving the sound of your own voice

Do you keep a journal?

Not a blog. A pen-to-paper, in-your-hand, tangible, weighty, present on your bedside table, journal.

Back when I taught at the college I gave extra credit to students who wrote every day. It didn't matter what they wrote, and I didn't read it. I saw the writing, initialed it, and rewarded them. The process of getting their voice out meant that they were becoming more confident, and improving, and deserved recognition for the effort.

Back in the present, I've hit one of those walls where I have a question that's really, really tough to break through, but I know that persistence will be worth it, and a new world will open up on the other side. It's about helping people to recognise stories and seeing their experiences as more meaningful. Ahem, remember this is in the hard business world as well, where some people are more aware of the fluctuations of the share price than they are of the mood in a room. 

But I think I was on to something way back then. A journal is key to getting used to hearing the sound of the stories you tell. It's a private place to develop a voice, to hear what you sound like, before other people do.

It's a great place to track the progress of your story, and to find recurrent themes - to discover what's really important to you.

And if nothing else: a £3 bit of bound A5 from WHSmith's is a lot cheaper than a therapist.

Go. Write. Every day. And watch your world open up.

Maybe

I have had to say 'maybe.'

Have you ever spotted 'Yes Man' on my list of books at the right? It's a light-hearted read, but a true story that really gets you thinking about what can happen when you open up to possibilities and discover your own potential.

It's positively serious. Or seriously positive. I count as a turning point in my personal growth, the time when I learned to say to colleagues 'I hear you saying no, and I understand these reasons, but let's for a moment move 'no' to the side, and think about how we might be able to move forward to 'yes.''

I went back to Adam about a year ago and asked him if I was over-egging the case, by saying on my CV that it was a turning point in our company intranet and communications. He said that the story I told was true. And it happened by setting 'no' aside and exploring routes to 'yes,' so that we, together, introduced stories, user testing, site trails, and feedback mechanisms, and that's just off the top of my head. (This is the era the 'cannabis muffins' story happened in, for those of you who've been to my workshops!)

I try to always say yes.

And yet in this case I am veering toward 'no.'

A week ago I presented in Stretford. My flight out of Manchester was delayed by two hours. I chose the wrong moment to call home and say goodnight to my girls. They had just been told off for misbehaving, and I caught them at that delicate moment of trying to recover themselves, when they are choking back sobs. And they managed to ask, 'Where are you? When are you coming home?'

I'd not told them I was going on a plane. Adele has worried about me flying. She's been waking up at 4:00am (and staying awake), asking if I'm on a plane. I sat in one of the long empty corridors of an evening airport, trying to choke back my own tears, trying to find a way to be honest with them, and yet not worry them.

And I said, 'Never again.' There are too few options for getting home from Manchester.

Yesterday I was asked again if I'll go far away to support a seminar in January. I may change my mind. But I heard my voice, saying 'Never again.' Maybe it was the emotion of the time. Maybe I'm cutting myself away from opportunities.

But I have already been on a journey over the last several months. It meant that I had to decide what was important to me, and in the biggest scheme of things, it's my family that are the only thing. I was backed into a corner, and I lost the job that was created specifically for me over it. Fortunately I am in a safe place, for the moment. But I have also learned from that journey.

And now I ask, why should I now compromise those values that were so hard-won?

Especially when compromising my values would compromise the integrity of the work I do?

I will never look back and wish I'd spent more time at work, and less time with my young children.

And so I am learning about 'yes,' and about 'no' as well. To do 'yes' properly, and fully, I need to say no to some opportunities. Otherwise I am a muddle and a mess, and no good to anybody.

Just walk away

In Robert McKee's fabulous book Story he points out that the story happens when something gets in the way of people getting what they want.

And as story happens when conflict appears, so does our personality. And the collection of stories, or a pattern of how we respond to conflict, becomes our brand.

Elena was telling her litle sister the Christmas story. At five, she's already pretty good at making her way around a narrative, and coming up to her sixth Christmas, it's all starting to fit together. I overheard her tell Adele 'Mary and Joseph didn't fight King Herod for wanting to kill their baby, they just went away.'

I laughed at this possible turn the story could have taken. It's not fresh for me anymore, and I'd never considered that as an option. But it's a good example of how sometimes a story has to go one direction or another. It's part of who the characters are, their personality.

In a company - and in an individual - that is your brand. How is it you have to behave in a moment of conflict, because of who you are and how you need your ultimate story to go?

Something to be known by

My old team used to tell the story of a disabled boy who worked in a supermarket and heard a motivational speaker talk about making your mark, doing something that you will be known by. This is about story - about giving people the 'supermarket story' they will know you and your organisation by.

I suspect the story came from Chicken Soup for the Soul, but it was just repeated to me. The story goes that the boy went home and thought a long time about it, then asked his dad to help him create a 'thought for the day' on the computer. It was the young man's job to help customers pack their groceries, so he put a slip of paper with the thought for the day in each customer's shopping bag.

One day a while later, the shop manager noticed that there was a long queue to pay for shopping. She rushed around trying to open more tills, but the customers refused to move across. They all wanted to see this young man, and to get his thought for the day for themselves.

The idea of individualisation spread across the store. The florists started taking any buds that broke off to elderly women and making a corsage for them. The butcher had 1000 Snoopy stickers printed and put one on every packet of meat he prepared - and people wanted to buy that meat over the ordinary, anonymous options.

What do we do to make ourselves memorable? What story do we create about ourselves, that resonates with the stories our colleagues, customers, friends are telling themselves?

Here's a real life example: Nigel from Homebase got 1600 votes to switch on his town's Christmas lights. Johnny Depp only got 500. People went away from Homebase talking about Nigel and telling about the conversations they'd had with him.

People are desperate to make a connection with other people. They want to be acknowledged, understood, known. To do this we have to be present and confident and real in the first place.

And: Well done to Homebase for allowing him to be himself. Just like the supermarket of the story, the whole business benefits from letting people grow and be individuals.