part0011

In the course of a month, a week or even one day you probably engage with an astonishing number of environments – from making presentations to leading team meetings, giving feedback to a direct report, hosting global conference calls and much more.

Being alert to your environments, to the different spaces you occupy, to the people in the room, is vital to working and living effectively. Understanding the impact that environments have on you and the impact you can have on your environments is critical for getting the results you want.

Let’s start with the obvious: your immediate work environment. Take a good look around, as if for the first time, at this place in which you spend so much of your time – your base camp. Is it a private office? A shared office? A cubicle in an open-plan? Do you work from an office at home? What do you like about it? What don’t you like about it? How does it support you? What are the challenges in this space?

Patsy, a team leader for regional sales in her business unit, told me that she loves her ergonomic chair and curvaceous desk but that she feels anxious every time she has a customer call, knowing she can be heard by her colleagues in their shared office.

Margot, who works in publishing, loves the buzz of her open-plan office and the feeling of being part of a vital mission, connected to others. However, Margot admits to being easily distracted and pulled into the peripheral conversations around her, which can drain her energy.

Environments have a big impact on how we think, feel and behave. In the field of education, there’s a mass of evidence on the relationship between environments and learning. In the field of neuroscience, much research has been published on human adaptation to environments and the influence of environments on shaping behaviours.

A few years ago, I held a workshop at a European pharmaceuticals HQ. Everything was state of the art. The problem was the air. The central air-conditioning system had shut down and the windows in the room couldn’t be opened. This had a huge impact on everyone’s energy, as you can imagine!

By the early afternoon our group was dragging. There were complaints of headaches. One woman felt sick. One woman fainted. It was clear that our environment wasn’t going to serve our learning.

We decamped into the corridors, the cafeteria, the lounge areas and an outdoor terrace. Shifting environments, we went from being zombies to being rebels to being creative, agile learners. It was clear we couldn’t adapt to the status quo; rather, we had to create the conditions we needed to meet our objectives – to have a transformative learning experience.

I’m certainly not advocating abandoning your office as a first step in your environmental awareness! What I am advocating is observing and reflecting on what your environment is like. Paint a picture of it for yourself and take a moment to capture how you are in it .

What small, safe intervention(s) could you perform in your environment that would make a difference to how you felt, behaved, performed? Do you need to find a way to signal ‘genius at work – do not disturb’ time to your distracting colleagues? Do you need to stand up and look out the window while making those customer calls? In other words, how can you take some ownership of your environment to serve yourself better?

I’ll never forget a keynote by a leader in the oil industry. She came into the auditorium amid applause and immediately walked over to the table covered in water bottles left from the previous panellists. Then she calmly cleared away every bottle, creating a good-humoured assembly line with the bemused stagehands. When she’d decluttered the space to her satisfaction, she walked to the microphone and said, ‘I’m here to talk about oil, not water.’ There was thunderous applause and laughter from the audience. It was a memorable moment of witnessing someone taking ownership of her environment and creating the conditions that would enable her, and therefore her audience, to focus on the subject.

Adele often had meetings in a rather sterile room with fluorescent lighting on the thirtieth floor of an office tower. During a coaching session to help Adele prepare for a big sales pitch, she seemed stuck. The environment wasn’t supporting her or unlocking any creativity. I asked her to stand at the window and ad-lib her pitch using anything she saw as a metaphor or connection to her subject.

‘I haven’t looked out of the window for a very long time!’ Adele admitted. As she did so, she saw a huge crane and a panoramic picture of building activity. Suddenly, a stream of ideas and fresh language about building and growth flowed out of Adele with astonishing fluency and enlivened her pitch content dramatically. By taking a moment to look out of the window and see her environment with fresh eyes, Adele pressed her refresh button and got herself unblocked.

In Chapter 1 , you connected to your body as your first environment. You took a moment to Stop! and breathe , and to find a moment of stillness before rushing into action. Hopefully you’ve started doing this regularly, but if you haven’t you can start now!

Next, you stepped back to take a good look at your most familiar work environment and determine what it’s like and how it affects you, positively and negatively. Perhaps you discovered that there’s one small action you can take immediately to shift it so that it supports you rather than draining or challenging you.

Now, let’s consider all the environments in which you operate at work and make a map of them. An environment map is a visual story. Work big for this exercise. I know I’m repeating myself. I want to keep reminding you that when you work big, you involve the whole of your mind and body. Doing so, you use more brain power and unlock your capacity to see clearly and engage fully.

When you’re done creating your environment map, step back and admire your handiwork! Surprised? It’s amazing to discover just how many environments you ‘perform’ in, isn’t it? You sure pack a lot in! Now return to your map and tag each environment with two bullet points:

Once you’ve created your tags on your environment map, step back again and ask yourself this question: How do I prepare for each of these environments? You might say:

Of course you do and have all these things. You’re a professional! So let me pose the question differently: How do you prepare yourself for these environments and scenarios? How do you need to show up?

Are the environments of team meetings, one-to-one feedback conversations, and PowerPoint presentations the same? No!

Do you play each of these roles – team-meeting leader, feedback initiator and presenter – the same way? No!

Do you want to be seen and heard the same way in each environment and in each role you play? No!

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Content preparation aside, let’s focus on how you prepare yourself to be at your authentic best and have the impact and influence you want in the different environments you operate in. You’ve clarified the purpose of your environments and what you want to happen as a result of your engagement in the scenarios.

Now it’s time to do an impact and influence audit. Looking at your environments and scenarios and their objectives, reflect on how you show up in each one.

If you’re noticing that you think a lot about content preparation but very little about self-preparation, you’re not alone.

If you think that performing differently in different environments means you’re not being authentic, you’re not alone.

These are the two most common stories lived out in the business world. They are nothing more than default stories, the ‘managing OK’ and ‘comfort zone’ way of doing things. As you’ve seen in Chapter 2 , from the litmus test ‘Your Environment Map Reveals Surprising Data’, different environments ask different things of you to create maximum engagement and buy-in. Your impact and influence is not one-size-fits-all.

Going forward, to prepare yourself, Stop! and breathe and ask: ‘What is needed here?’ How do I need to show up? Clarify your intention and purpose. Calibrate your energy and investment accordingly. Notice the results!

Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook fame and fortune, said in an interview that he wears the same thing every day – a grey T-shirt and jeans – because it cuts down on his decision-making time. His fashion default became his brand as well as his modus operandi. 22

However well this ‘uniform habit’ serves Zuckerberg in his time management, it doesn’t serve you well in your performance management. Why? Because performance is about managing your energy, and each performance requires different energy. You don’t need a uniform. You need a wardrobe.

Your default zone may be a comfortable, efficient place in which to operate, but it can all too easily become your one-size-fits-all uniform, that grey T-shirt. Imagine going to the cinema or theatre and seeing the actors wearing a grey T-shirt no matter what character they were playing or what story they were telling!

A more resourceful and effective way to prepare yourself to be your best is to ditch the grey T-shirt and ‘dress for the part’, energetically speaking. This means getting into the right state of body and mind for the role you’re performing, what you want to achieve and how you want to influence your audience.

Think of all those different scenarios you surfaced in your environment map: important one-to-one conversations, team meetings, pitches and presentations, video conference calls, and everything in between. Take a moment to visualise yourself in those situations. Do they require different types of engagement and performance from you? You bet they do!

We all have our default styles, our ‘uniforms’. Maxine, in banking, habitually spoke in a soft, monotone voice. She presented a relaxed demeanour that signalled her preference for one-to-one conversations. Her body language was reflective and inward-focused. So far so good. But how do you think that worked out for Maxine in all her scenarios? She got some pretty tough feedback in her performance review about needing to ‘come forward more’, ‘speak up’ and ‘sound more interested in what she was talking about’ when engaging with larger audiences.

To show up effectively in the different roles you play, in the different environments you play in, you need to calibrate your energy. The energy, tone, pace, body language, presence and engagement required for one-to-ones is different from that required for formal boardroom meetings, and different again from that required for virtual conference calls, for presentations and pitches, and for team meetings.

I’ll say it again. One size does not fit all! You need to tune up the way you turn up!

It’s time to step into your energy wardrobe and ‘dress the part’ . What’s great about this wardrobe is that it’s lean and portable – strictly hand luggage. There are only three pieces in it.

If you’re a numbers person, think of your energy wardrobe in terms of intensities:

If you prefer words, think of your energy wardrobe in these terms:

If you’re more kinaesthetic, think of your energy wardrobe as having ‘states’:

We are not one-dimensional, and neither are the environments we perform in. Making a conscious choice about how to calibrate our energy for the role we’re playing – how to ‘dress for the part’ – requires answering one question:

How can I best serve my audience in this moment?

The great news is you can mix and match your energy wardrobe to fit any scenario. For example, you can do ‘campfire’ energy while sitting around a table. Lean in, make eye contact, take your time, gather attention and put your point on the table for all to look at. You can also do ‘auditorium’ energy while sitting around a meeting table by sitting up straight, putting your hands on the table and creating a bigger space and ‘force field’ around you, being more ‘vertical’, thinking ‘stand’ even while sitting.

Observe how you shift gears, how different you feel and sound in each of these states of energy. Notice how each of these states helps support your intention. Enjoy mixing up your energy wardrobe as needed!

In the course of a meeting or a presentation, you have many choices for impact. Sometimes:

So start trying on and trying out your energy wardrobe and notice the results.

Once you get the hang of having an energy wardrobe and choices for impact, you’ll be able to ‘change clothes’ with ease because you’ll have clear intentions. You’ll ask, ‘What needs to happen here?’ and your body language, voice, energy and quality of engagement will follow.

The secret sauce of impact and influence is the quality of engagement you create for others. How you are affects how they are.

What scenario gets the better of you? In what scenario are you not at your best or most effective? It might be a situation you can’t stand. Perhaps you’ve built up resentment about it. Perhaps it leaves you feeling frustrated or drained. Perhaps you try to avoid it altogether. Perhaps you had one bad experience and the story of it has stayed with you and become mythologised in an unhelpful way and is holding you up. Old stories can become a habit!

Think of an example of a challenging situation where you’re not at your best. Be as detailed and forensic about this story as possible. If you have a friend or trusted colleague you can share this with, doing so will be super helpful.

Well done for stepping into your challenge story and staying with it through the discomfort! Now, have a fresh look at your environment map and note where you’re at your best. Again, if you can share your story with a friend or colleague, great! If you’re doing this solo, consider your ‘at your best’ story in as much detail as possible.

OK. You’ve described what it’s like to be in your ‘at your best’ state and you’ve gathered your inventory of greatness. It might include things such as ‘When I’m at my best I am a great listener, passionate, energetic and enthusiastic, decisive, a creative problem solver, good at putting people at ease and asking the killer questions’, and so on. Let’s return to your challenging environment, where you are not at your best, and apply one or some of those ‘at your best’ strengths. Put those assets to work!

Try it out at your next opportunity! In the words of Maya Angelou, ‘If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.’ 23 Sometimes the smallest shift within us can create a very big impact on others. When stories no longer serve you, it’s time to shed them, and you can. You have more strengths and resources than you realise. They need airing and reviewing from time to time. The more you use them, the more choices you have for your impact and influence.

A few years ago, I worked with a group of executives in a global technology company. For them, working remotely, in virtual environments, was the norm, and many of them had never met their bosses face-to-face in all the years they’d worked in the company.

Cut to my world: most (but not all) of my coaching work happens in real time, face-to-face, hands on. In my business, the ability to gauge energy, read body language, observe non-verbal communication and make personal connections is key to getting the data I need in order to serve my clients well.

Cut to somewhere in the middle, where we all live: most of the day-to-day working environments we operate in include remote work and depend on virtual technology: a global conference call spanning different time zones and geographies; Skype, Webex or Zoom meetings; webinars with breakout groups, etc.

In our increasingly technological world, we’re enabled by the speed of our connectivity – but we’re also seduced by it. Just how connected are we really? (Think about mute buttons, video opt-out, multitasking.)

Here’s the thing. Virtual environments require us to be extra vigilant about our presence and our capacity to create engagement. For connectivity to be real, felt and shared in a virtual environment, we must prepare ourselves. And we must be ready to be empathetic.

As well, the zone of the virtual is often cluttered – coffee cups, mouthpieces, screens, headphones, slides, text messages and alerts are just some of the distractions we have to compensate for. Then there’s the habitual ‘zone of slouch’; we scrunch down into our chairs or hunch over our screens.

The magnificent contradiction of operating in the virtual world is that we have to be more conscious than ever about connecting to our bodies – our first environment – to be present with our audience.

Here’s a toolkit for preparing to host in a virtual environment.