Free To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H. Pink Page B

person’s name. Then each time someone speaks, add an X next to that name. If someone directs her comments to a particular person rather than to the whole group, draw a line from the speaker to the recipient. When the meeting is done you’ll get a visual representation of who’s talking the most, who’s sitting out, and who’s the target of people’s criticisms or blandishments. You can even do this for those increasingly ubiquitous conference calls. (In fact, it’s easier because nobody can see you!) Below is an example, which shows that the person with the initials JW talked the most, that many of the comments were directed at AB, and that SL and KC barely participated.

    2. Mood Map
    To gain a clear sense of a particular context, try mapping how it changes over time. For instance, in a meeting that involves moving others, note the mood at the beginning of the session. On a scale of 1 (negative and resistant) to 10 (positive and open), what’s the temperature? Then, at what you think is the midpoint of the meeting, check the mood again. Has it improved? Deteriorated? Remained the same? Write down that number, too. Then do the same at the very end. Think of this as an emotional weather map to help you figure out whether conditions are brightening or growing stormier. With attunement, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
    Play “Mirror, mirror.”
    How attuned are you to slight alterations in appearances or situations? This team exercise, a favorite of change management consultants, can help you answer those questions and begin to improve. Gather your group and tell them to do the following:
     
Find a partner and stand face-to-face with that person for thirty seconds.
Then turn around so that you’re both back-to-back with your partner.
Once turned around, each person changes one aspect of his or her appearance—for example, remove earrings, add eyeglasses, untuck your shirt. (Important: Don’t tell people what you’re going to ask them to do until they’re back-to-back.) Wait sixty seconds.
Turn back around and see if you or your partner can tell what has changed.
Repeat this twice more with the same person, each time altering something new about your appearance.
    When you’re done, debrief with a short discussion. Which changes did people notice? Which eluded detection? How much of doing this well depended on being observant and attuned from the outset? How might this experience change your next encounter with a colleague, client, or student?
    Find uncommon commonalities.
    The research of Arizona State University social psychologist Robert Cialdini, some of which I’ll discuss in Chapter 6, shows that we’re more likely to be persuaded by those whom we like. And one reason we like people is that they remind us of . . . us.
    Finding similarities can help you attune yourself to others and help them attune themselves to you. Here’s an exercise that works well in teams and yields some insights individuals can later deploy on their own.
    Assemble a group of three or four people and pose this question: What do we have in common, either with another person or with everyone? Go beyond the surface. For example, does everybody have a younger brother? Have most people visited a Disney property in the last year? Are some people soccer fanatics or opera buffs or amateur cheese makers?
    Set a timer for five minutes and see how many commonalities you can come up with. You might be surprised. Searching for similarities—Hey, I’ve got a dachshund, too!—may seem trivial. We dismiss such things as “small talk.” But that’s a mistake. Similarity—the genuine, not the manufactured, variety—is a key form of human connection. People are more likely to move together when they share common ground.

5.
    Buoyancy
    O n Wednesday morning, the day after he’d sold about $150 worth of carpet sweepers and cleaning products to two San Francisco lawyers, Fuller Brush Man Norman Hall