Stand Up to Stand Out

If you have ever been to a comedy show, you know the hardest part is retelling the jokes to your friends afterwards. You might not always remember the whole setup and punchline once you get to the bar, but you do remember the jokes that gave you that great joyful feeling. Those jokes that you believe are the funniest, aren’t necessarily the best written ones, the ones your friends think are the best or the ones which the comedian spend most of his time on. It’s the jokes that you recognize, that you will label as the funniest of the show. “OMG, that joke about the gas station was so funny, I literally had the same situation last week. That thing he said about men in the shower, I laughed so hard because it’s so true. Right honey? You do the same thing every morning.”

Comedians like Eddie Izzard, Robin Williams, Kevin Hart and Michael McIntyre made their trade out of recognizable funny situations. They don’t even have to add punchlines anymore, the setup and acting it out in a very associated way will already have done the trick. It looks easy when they are doing it, but it’s a true art that taps into our love for things we recognize and can relate to.

When something becomes recognizable, it becomes tangible. When it becomes tangible, it’s able to trigger an emotion. And when emotion is involved, things become entertaining and interesting. Grabbing people’s attention and earning trust finds its foundation in creating recognition. If you have a positive memory of something, you know it. What you know, you obviously recognize, and that positive recognition creates trust. It can be applied to first impressions as you have seen before and even your gut feelings. When you have a good feeling about somebody, you might say your gut is telling you that person is alright. What happened is that you recognized something in that person that you experienced as positive before or is also a feature or behavior you have yourself. You can’t pinpoint it, but your subconscious knows it and therefore rates it as trustworthy. What you recognize you trust. What you know, you like, and when you like something, you don’t mind giving it your attention. Use this insight in your first 60 seconds and to keep the attention throughout.

I love to write. The reason I hope you are enjoying reading this book as much as I enjoyed creating it. I also post the occasional blogpost, even in this video dominated world. A blogpost I published on LinkedIn in 2016 was titled, “Why Belgians don’t drink milk in a meeting and the Dutch love Mondays.” An article about my experience doing business as a Belgian with the Dutch. Not the classical observations of differences between nationalities, but based more on behavior in a professional context. I’m not an online influencer and have no ambition of becoming one, so the small crumbs of organic reach social media platforms offer me for my labor will have to do to reach my network. This blogpost however, exploded within the hour with massive reach, due to shares, comments, likes and was even featured in some magazines. I don’t know if you are Belgian, Dutch or have ever worked with one of them, but I couldn’t resist including this post in the book, because it used so many of the points we are going to discuss and the blogpost reaped the fruits of it.

Why Belgians don’t drink milk in a meeting and the Dutch love Mondays

Belgians are beer drinking, chocolate eating, too down to earth for their own good, compromisers. They live next to Dutch trailer-pulling, cheap, orange, cheese eating, tulip lovers! Or at least that is what the stereotypes say. I’m a Belgian and have spent the last two years traveling between Brussels and Amsterdam. The two questions I get the most are: “How long did you drive?” and “Do you see a difference between Belgian and Dutch people?” My answer to the first question is mostly, “Too long.” To the second one, “I do.”, and it is not the stereotype cultural differences you would expect. Below are 5 differences that I experience when it comes to working together and doing business.

Cappuccino Monday vs. It was good

The first cultural difference between Belgium and the Netherlands starts first thing Monday mornings. Having a meeting on Mondays in the Netherlands always requires you to add an extra hour to the meeting time. It starts off with a chat with the rest of the world at the coffee machine. Here you don’t make a black depressing Monday morning cup of comfort, but a nice happy flappy stylish cappuccino. If you manage to get out of the coffee corner before the end of the week, you can all go to the meeting. A meeting that always starts with everybody introducing themselves, even though most of the people in the room already know each other. BUT there could well be a spider in the room that wasn’t there the last time and we don’t want to exclude anybody now do we. Somebody will then pose the million dollar question, “How was everybody’s weekend?” (here is where you need the extra hour). When a Dutch person asks you how your weekend was, that is a question not to be taken lightly. When a Dutchman asks you this, he genuinely wants to know how your weekend was. Not only from you, but of the entire room. (And please, don’t be afraid to go into detail). The remarkable thing is, a Dutchie will actually listen and is really interested. You may have passed your story on as just something you start the week with, but he will ask you a week later if your cat is now feeling better after that big hairball last weekend.

On the other side you have Monday mornings in Belgium. The coffee is black and the conversation short. It doesn’t mean we are not friendly, we just love being efficient. So the question, ‘How was your weekend?’, is mostly answered by, ‘It was good, now back to business.’

Listen to the boss vs. What does the cleaning lady think

In Belgium it doesn’t really matter how many people you put into a meeting room, because there is an OrgChart to respect. For a Dutch person an Org-Chart is something that is just there to show him the way to the top and how many levels he is still away from success, but for a Belgian it actually means something. When in a Belgian meeting it mostly comes down to who has the biggest paycheck in the room. This person will make the final decision and he or she will speak first before the minions take a stand (I know I’m exaggerating this a bit, but it is for the good of the blogpost).

While in the Netherlands it is a whole different story. There, everybody has to have an opinion, which is ok, but also everybody is asked that opinion. Even the cleaning lady will have to come in and have her say. No disrespect to cleaning ladies of course, but everybody has their expertise. It is sometimes even hard to tell who is the biggest honcho in the room. In Belgium you would look at the size of the car, but with Dutch car taxes versus ours, the presence of one Belgium in the meeting might cloud this parking lot strategy.

We see you there vs. Do you have some time

When the Dutch know what they want, they take it. If they think you are useful to their cause, they will not hesitate to contact or involve you in their mission. While the Belgians want the same thing, but are a bit more polite by asking first. There is something to say about both approaches, but in the end it comes down to having a week full of Dutch meetings, while Belgians are still trying to squeeze in some time. The same thing goes when the meeting is held. The Dutch walk in and say “Coffee, nice, want some!” Belgians, on the other hand, first apologize for their presence, ask if it bothers anybody if they breath and then, when asked if they want some coffee, answer “Well, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Screw it, let’s do it vs. We will get back to you

Judging by the traffic situation in Brussels and Antwerp you wouldn’t say Belgians are very efficient, but I dare to state the opposite. I always compare Belgians to Hobbits. Not to offend them or myself, but to describe their way of working and looking at the world. We are small as a country, half of the world still thinks we are the capital of Brussels or do not exist at all, even though we host the European Union. We aren’t the loudest bunch of people and because of our small market, don’t always have the biggest budgets to work with. But due to those restrictions and humble approach we are very efficient and get things done. (Talking about our way of working, not our politics) The Dutch are more like the dwarfs, more gold, so more money to spend, louder and maybe a bit bigger. When they go for something, they also get things done, but it might not always be the most efficient way. Although they will make it look like that afterwards. The big result of this difference is that a Dutchman will invest in an idea if he believes in it and will take the hit if it fails. A Belgian will analyze the risk and will back down if the risk of failure is too high. They often say, let the Dutch try it first, if it works, we will take it and make it better.

After work drink vs. Are you crazy, it’s 5 pm

If you live in Belgium as a foreigner, you will probably notice that it is very hard to make Belgian friends. Even for Belgians it is hard to do that, because if you weren’t part of the team in high school, well then chances are you are never getting in. This makes friendships, deep, long and lasting, but also hard to develop. Looking at the business side of things, you see pretty much the same thing. Work in Belgium is work and after 5 pm the will to go and get drunk with colleagues isn’t as strong as with the Dutch. They are completely the opposite. The more people the better and any reason is a good reason for an after-work drink. For example: The Belgians plan an event and discuss if there is still time for a drink afterwards. The Dutch start with planning the drink and go from there.

Now I know what you are thinking, “We still don’t know why Belgians don’t drink milk in a meeting?” Well, it’s very simple. There are three kinds of people that drink milk; babies, Dutch people and BA Baracus. All the rest of us know it is just weird when you are an adult.

This blogpost tapped into the hearts of Belgian and Dutch professionals and even beyond the Benelux borders. A post that uses surprise, cultural observation, a bit of humor, audience insights and a glimpse into the life of the storyteller himself. Use these whenever you are expressing yourself and notice nodding heads and a rapid increase of emotional connectivity, attention and trust.

One of the easier forms I often use to enable recognition. Observation gives you great insight into the situations and people you are confronted with. This information will, on a deeper level, reveal personality aspects, relationships, convictions, … which we will discuss in part 3. It will offer you on a higher level, easy to use elements that won’t take much effort to spot or to use in your story. I’m a big fan of comedians that are using it to make people laugh (observational comedy). Jerry Seinfeld for example, is the all-time master in my opinion. He can see the joke in everyday words, conversations, products or behavior. Simple, normal everyday things for you and me, but once confronted with it by his sharp jokes on stage and you can only laugh and say, “It’s funny, because it’s true.” One of his jokes, for example, goes as follows: “When you’re a kid, everything in life is ‘up’. Get up, wait up, stay up, clean up… When you’re an adult, everything is ‘down’. Come down, slow down, quiet down, keep it down, sit down…” Observation can be hard at first when you are not born with the eye of the tiger or you haven’t really practiced it, but like with everything, you can learn. Just go more into your dissociated mode, take some distance from what is happening and analyze the situation or the person. When you have found the golden egg, go into your associated mode and bring what you observed with emotion, energy and conviction. Once you get the hang of it, you will find it a very easy and effective tool.

The concept is simple, you will use something you noticed in the situation, the room, up front or in the behavior of people and address it. It could be interests, news items, decoration, clothing, possibly even elephants in the room seeing as they are also an observation… Actually anything that is linked or often not linked to your story, but seems important, of interest or could have a positive impact on your audience. It will mostly be rewarded by some laughter, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be funny. The goal is creating attention, trust and good feel by using low entry things that your audience knows and recognizes. Nodding heads and friendly smiles will confirm you hit the sweet spot, for example:

A friend of mine winning his pitch for a multinational brand in the first seconds by starting with his love for a certain soccer team and their recent game, he’d learned the decision taker was a huge fan as well.

Reading the amazing book ‘Shoe Dog’ by Phil Knight (creator of Nike). Being invited to their offices months later, by coincidence, to train their teams. Having learned the entire history and the power of the shoe from the book, we of course wore our Nikes for the training. A logical thing to do, you might think. When we started the session, the group immediately said they very much appreciated the fact we were wearing Nikes. Not a lot of suppliers bothered to do this.

Starting a workshop with a new client on ‘how to inspire action’ and connecting with people. Noticing the number of posters hanging in the hallways of the giant office, on my way to the room. Posters announcing a new event they were organizing for their own clients focusing on connecting in a more human manner with their customers. In my setup I added a slide with a visual of the communication I just saw and started the workshop mentioning the fact that I was happy to see that it’s a very important topic for the company. The people who were responsible for the project were also in the room and immediately said with pride, they were the driving force behind this project. After the workshop they came to me and asked if we could also further train their department.

Walking around the office of a prospect on our way to the reserved meeting room, I’m not an art expert, but I noticed there were a lot of beautiful pieces hanging around the office. More than you would normally expect. I said to my contact that I loved the art I was seeing (wasn’t a lie, really looked great) and wondered why there was so much of it. My contact stopped with a sparkle in his eye and asked, “Are you also into art?” I said, I can appreciate it, but that my knowledge doesn’t go beyond saying what I like and dislike. He continued talking about how they support upcoming artists, everything is for sale in the office and they love the combination of creativity with the hardcore business they are in.

Meeting a client for the first time and being asked what I would like to drink and seeing as it’s Monday morning, I ask for a nice cup of coffee. How do you like it, he asks? Having read their philosophy on the company website, I know they compare their way of doing business to black coffee. Once you add milk (compromise) you will never be able to go back to black. So, I respond with a smile: “I’ll have it black, just like my chocolate. You don’t mess with or add things to a good product.” He immediately knew I had read the website, but also agreed with the part I added about the chocolate. He is noticing I’m not just mentioning it to make a client-supplier connection, but I also believe in it.

Depending on your message or context, observations can offer easy ways to grab attention and earn trust. It can be anything that might help you break the ice, create an added value opening, to eventually earn you that attention. You mention the way people are sitting, when talking about body language. It can be how you clean the table versus how your partner does it, when talking about team dynamic and human behavior. It can be you notice the person at your network table is wearing a suit from a local designer and you use it to start a conversation and confirm his good choice in clothing and your eye for detail.

Cultural observations, like the ones made in the blogpost, are also very impactful. People like to hear how people from other countries or cultures look at theirs. Easy conversation starters, often very funny, insightful and in so many ways can be integrated in whatever message you are bringing.

I was walking around Stuttgart Germany with some of the event organizers before my talk on storytelling within digital transformation. As we walk, we encounter a large amount of rubber boots in a shopping mall shop. My German chaperons started talking in German about these rubber boots and I suddenly heard the remarkable word, ‘Gummistiefel’. I asked them about it, and they explained with a surprised look on their face that it’s just the German word for rubber boots. In that moment I decided this was going to be the opening for my talk the next day. The following afternoon, I took the stage and asked how people were doing. Were they feeling pumped for the afternoon, because I saw them dozing off in the workshop rooms (which were apparently extremely boring, i.e. the elephant in the room). People recognized they were almost falling asleep earlier that morning and laughed about it. The mood immediately changed to positive and I got attention and trust points for addressing it. Then I said, “I’m pumped” and I was already enjoying my time in Stuttgart. I had even learned the best German word ever, ‘Gummistiefel.’ The whole audience laughed, while it wasn’t even a joke. I just said the German name for rubber boots, but coming from a Belgian, it became a funny observation. Interesting to see what a Belgian noticed about the German language. I got the same result with the Danish mentioning the way their taxis look in Copenhagen and with the British on how over polite they are in London.

No need to come up with jokes, acting funny even if you are not funny or come up with creative opening lines. Observations are powerful and will often present themselves to you, if you keep an open mind and allow yourself to see the things happening and being said around you. Use these observations straight away or keep them in your backpack of anecdotes for later.

Anecdotes are also observations, about yourself and the personal or professional life you have lived until now. Give people insight into who you are by sharing them. The more they know you, the more they will start to trust you. As we said earlier, having a gut feel is your body subconsciously recognizing a positive feature without being able to pinpoint the exact trigger. Anecdotes do just that, but on a conscious level. I’ll show you who I am by sharing my behavior in certain past situations or my learnings from past experiences.

In this book I have already shared a lot of anecdotes with you to prove points, give you concrete examples, to show you I practice what I preach and to give you more insights into who I am as a person. We might never meet. You might be on the other side of the world right now, but these anecdotes will give you some insight into who the author of this book really is. Come to think of it, isn’t writing a book giving people a peek into your very soul?

Adding the assumption that you will recognize yourself in many situations and opinions that I share, my attention and trust level during and after this book will have increased. It’s the reason so many TED talk speakers start off with a personal anecdote. It’s the power of social media influencers, because they give you the impression, they are sharing their whole life. You get the feeling you know them, even if you have never met them.

I have had people in my coaching sessions who told stories within their companies about ambassadorship starting with an anecdote about their love for soccer and how they feel ‘as one’ in the stadium every weekend. Another man talking about team efficiency starting with his passion for sailing and how the team work on the boat has the same characteristics as teamwork within a company. Somebody delivering a motivational talk to his team began with his love for ultrarunning and how the training process is like the business transformation they are in. All similar to the ‘surprise’ example I gave you when introducing yourself. Not with classic data, but with remarkable information about yourself.

Golden rule when it comes to anecdotes: keep them relevant to your goal, audience and message. Nobody likes people that tell random stories about themselves. You are either drunk, a bit narcissistic or that one friend who always says, “Oh, that’s nothing, wait until you hear my story!”

The better you are at offering people an insight into who you are, the more easily you will establish a connection, lower possible walls and the more likely they are, to follow you in your story. When, as a result, you seem to resemble them, this connection will establish itself even faster and more powerfully. Great minds think and act alike. Time to look in the mirror and see if that’s true.

MIRROR,
MIRROR ON THE WALL

Be yourself, be authentic, just do you… are motivational phrases we hear all the time. Now define being yourself. What is your most authentic version and is it also the best version? Is being yourself offering everybody the same one-side-needs-to-fit-all personality or are you open to adapting to other people and situations? This last sentence can trigger reactions such as: “If you adapt to everybody, you will lose yourself and become unhappy.”, “Nobody likes a people pleaser.” or “You don’t want to be faking it all the time, it’s exhausting.” All very true, but when we are talking about expressing yourself in the most powerful way and inspiring people to take action on your ideas, you will need them to give you attention and trust, which is triggered by them recognizing themselves or parts of them in you.

When you are having a night out with friends, a walk on the beach with your partner or meeting people in general you already have an emotional connection with, you don’t have to worry about a thing. The attention and trust are already there, they know you, you know them, and you already found a way to communicate with each other. Meeting people for the first time or still being in the phase where rapport needs to be established, creating that recognition is key. We are not talking about making new BFFs, we are talking about connecting with people so they want to hear and act on your story.

But how do you offer that recognition if you are meeting with people that are different from you? That takes us back to the part in this book about the colors and personality labels we give ourselves and receive from others. We all have our preferred side, the side that we developed most over the years, because we copied it from our parents, it made us feel good, safe, accepted… as we said before; the driver that is currently driving the bus, not allowing all those other aspects of you that are dozing off in the back of the bus, to take a turn at the steering wheel. In life and business, you will encounter off-road paths, smooth highways, uphill slopes and a driver can’t be specialized in maneuvering the bus through every terrain. Luckily your bus is full of drivers who each have their way of handling things. Just allow them to step forward when needed.

Communicating to other people, aiming for that recognition in order to obtain attention and earn trust, you will need to accept 3 things:

•That you are able to develop different sides of your personality and become all the colors of the rainbow.

•That people can be different from you and will more easily trust you when they are able to recognize parts of themselves in you and it’s your job to offer that recognition.

Am I now going to discuss all the colors, personality research data and offer you insight into your introvert or extravert behavior and thinking? No. It’s not the purpose of this book. My only comment on this part is that whatever aspect you discover about yourself, you don’t use it as an excuse, but as an opportunity to further develop the sides that are not yet fully grown. This way you fill your backpack even further. You will grow your confidence, because you will be able to adapt yourself to people and situations when you need to get things done. When horsing around with friends or colleagues, just go into comfort mode and be your ‘preferred’ side. When inspiring people to take action, bring out the best version of you for that particular situation.

Don’t worry I’m not leaving you out to dry. That would be too easy and a bit lazy on my part. Let me share with you the 4 easy but very effective insights I use most, when adapting myself to my counterpart(s) and the situation I’m in. To establish rapport more easily with people that aren’t necessarily thinking or behaving like me, I call them; How you THINK, how you PROCESS, how you ACT and how you TALK.

When me and my lovely wife, Natalie, go on holiday, I tend to relax from the moment we get off the plane. My holiday has started and I’m going to enjoy it from day one, the rest of the world doesn’t matter anymore for the next 10 days. Natalie on the other hand will become a bit nervous after day 4 or 5. I will notice that something is haunting her. Being together for 14 years taught me that when I ask her about it, she will answer, “Honey, do you realize it’s only 6 more days before we leave for home, it’s going so fast.”

This short example already revealed two styles of thinking that you can recognize in the future. First, I deliberately said that I relax from the moment I get off the plane. Insinuating that I’m not a big fan of flying. I do it a lot, I’m not scared anymore and know that it’s probably the safest way of traveling, but it’s my ‘locus of control’ that pops up in that situation. In situations that have the potential of hurt or death, I want to be in control. It can be sitting in the back of a car, in a ski lift, on a plane, roller coaster… I don’t fear the heights, I fear handing over control to a machine, cable or pilot. Second, when I’m on holiday I am totally ‘in time’. I’m in the present, enjoying what is now and not thinking about tomorrow or next week. Natalie on holiday is often ‘through time’. She is enjoying herself, but is already thinking about what is to come.

The way of thinking is different for each person in each situation. I, for example, have absolutely no problem letting go and handing over control when I’m managing a team. When they have my trust, I will fully support them and don’t need to check up on them. They are in control. On a plane, that’s something else. There, I want to be in control. When it’s weekend and we are at home, Natalie is ‘in time’ and enjoying her time on the Vespa, where I am ‘through time’ and thinking about what I’m going to say in the workshop on Wednesday. Completely the opposite of our slider in the holiday example.

We define 9 sliders when it comes to these thinking patterns and they are called sliders, because they alter according to the situation you are in and you can move your slider more to the left or right when needed. A strong communicator that wants to establish a connection, can detect these thinking styles within themselves, within somebody else through interaction and adapt himself and his story accordingly. On the following pages, you will find the 9 sliders with their names, short description and an example of what it could mean for your audience and your story.


I’m in the moment.	I’m already thinking of the future.
Fully present in a meeting, but with the chance of running late for the next one.	On their phone, laptop or saying they only have 20 minutes because a new meeting is coming up.
I have many clients or business partners who are very through time in a work environment. Looking at the current pace of society, it’s becoming rare to find truly ‘in time’ thinking people. Every meeting is dominated by speed, phones, laptops and people not really paying attention to the matter at hand. We try to solve it with cargo loads of Post-its, time limits, cutting up projects and putting away phones in a secured box. While this used to be how people discussed things with each other, we now call it being agile and scrumming our way through life. I’m also in meetings a very ‘in time’ person, but when meeting with people that are very through time and I need them to take action on one of my ideas or I need to establish trust, I acknowledge the fact that we all have busy agendas, make the meeting as structured and to the point as possible to try to save the other person as much time as I can without losing the power of my message. When I already have an established connection, I have room to address this slider and will softly teach them the benefits of being more ‘in time’. When you have a strong rapport, they will be more likely to accept this observation.


I need the approval of others.	The only approval I need is from myself
When there is personal PR in the project for him he will more likely support it.	She is very confident about her decision even if some people in her team have doubts.
I have worked with many managers in my career so far and they were all different in different situations. To get things done and inspire them into action to help me in the best way possible, I had to adapt. One manager was known within the company as somebody who loved being in the spotlight and being praised by others (external reference). The weird thing was, none of my colleagues were using this insight. I’m in most situations very internal referenced. To be honest, when I look in the mirror, I see a god. Just joking… or am I not?… When I had to get a project or budget approval, I made sure that in some way I tapped into this very outspoken slider. I made sure he got the feeling that this project would get him the necessary PR and praise for backing this. I also saw external partners getting deals by tapping into this insight (mostly without them realizing it) while they had not necessarily brought the best idea. But that’s how it goes in business, you always play the person in front of you, never the company.


He always wants to know step by step what the plan will be.	I believe the concept of the idea is more important.
I want to know exactly what it is.	He has great ideas, but they aren’t very tangible.
I had a call with a potential client that was interested in working with us on an internal event they were organizing. In the way he talked, I immediately noticed structure, control and being very to the point. Also, in the documentation and Excel files he sent me after the call, this was very much present. I’m not so structured (you should see my desktop) or into thinking in procedures by default, but I noticed this was very important for him. For the next call that was going to decide if we would actually do business together, I read all the files, opened them on my computer and had made a list of agenda points on my notepad. He started the call and said, “You might have seen that I sent you some files, maybe we can first go through them to get an idea of the event?” I said, “No problem, I have them in front of me, already went through them and wrote down the most important points we need to discuss from my side concerning the event.” The subtle joy in his voice after I said this, confirmed to me that he had just subconsciously recognized his own preferred behavior and way of thinking in what I did. At that point I knew I made a massive trust leap.


I want to be able to choose.	I want to have a clear way of working.
She loves it when there are a lot of flavors to choose from at an ice cream stand.	She is not known for her flexibility, she follows protocol no matter what.
Just after the hot Belgian summer of 2018, I met a potential client at her office for a meeting. She came to pick me up at the reception and we walked, sharing some small talk about holidays, to the elevators and on to the meeting room. During the small talk, she told me how she went on a road trip through Italy with her husband during the summer. I asked her what she liked so much about road trips; it’s not really my cup of tea. She responded by saying, “Oh you should try it. It’s amazing. Nobody is telling you where to be at what time. We liked a certain spot and stayed 2 days longer. When the location appeared not to be so great, we moved on after a day. The freedom of being able to choose on the spot, is a lovely way of traveling.” In that short chitchat about her holiday, she told me everything I needed for the meeting to come. I had to still pinpoint if this was her way of thinking in the business context we were in, but given her associated behavior that wasn’t too hard to do. She told me there and then, without knowing it, that she likes having options, is internal referenced, nobody needs to tell her what to do. I knew then that I had to offer her choices and freedom in my proposal (story) and needed to give her the feeling that I was there to help and partner, not to tell her what to do. I quietly compared her to another client of mine, who loves to have a clear concrete proposal and is very reactive and risk averse, I need to confirm and guarantee him that this choice is the best one.

Sliders move along the scale depending on the person and the situation. Career focused people who are achievers, being internal focused and through time while at work; can be, in a form of compensation maybe, totally the opposite when they get home and jump into family life. People who are very reactive and procedure oriented at work, may slide more to the other side once they execute their favorite hobby after hours.

You might think, “Isn’t it also the job of my audience to adapt themselves to me? Why do I have to do all the work?” Well, you are the one telling a story that needs to lead to the other person taking a form of action (sale, approval, date…). You often don’t have the time or already the desired trust and attention to start coaching and changing people’s way of thinking and their linked behavior. You can curse it, fight it or ignore it, but that will leave you empty-handed and frustrated. Like I said, you are not here to make best friends, you are here to inspire action. It’s not such a big stretch if you trained yourself in moving your sliders and doing that for those very short interactions you have with peers, colleagues, partners, clients… where you still need to make a connection. Make sure they recognize themselves in you, so they start trusting you and granting you their attention. Once that is established you can slowly take more freedom and will be granted more time in your comfort zone. Observe and train and in the end, you will notice through observation and practice, everything will start to become your comfort zone. That’s a great place to be, because with all your colors, adaptation and confidence, you will have turned into a human chameleon or rainbow unicorn. Whatever you prefer.

People aren’t only different in their thinking. They also vary in their way of processing information. I often hear speakers say, “A great speaker doesn’t need slides.” That it doesn’t necessarily need to be slides a speaker uses to support his story is correct. But a great speaker knows he needs some sort of visual support if he wants the attention of his entire audience. I, for example, have a harder time keeping my attention and focusing on a story if there is no visual support or very clear and supportive movements by the storyteller. I need some sort of visual trigger, whether it is by movement and very associated behavior or by video, slides or a simple flip chart. Behold the return of the importance of tone of voice and body and eye movement. Unlike Elvis, associative and dissociative behavior never leave the building.

We all have 5 senses, some people even claim to have 6 (wink). Most of us are able to use these 5 senses to take in and process information. Like with our personality features we also have preferred senses. For me feeling and seeing are the most important ones. Smelling, hearing and tasting are less prominent. Not that I don’t use them, I even train them. But a message will just have more impact when they tap into the first two. If you want to grab the attention, keep it and have maximum impact with your message, you will need to let go of your own preference, detect that of your audience and use it. The bigger the audience, the more senses you will have to consider. 4D movie theaters are making a first attempt, but in most cases feeling, hearing and seeing will go a long way in communication. Restaurants, event catering and the occasional secret fart of a random passer-by will take care of the rest.

Sven Kerremans, the coach who introduced me to NLP, gave a very simple example of the importance of triggering the right sense to make sure the curiosity and attention of a person is triggered. He said,

“When I recently went to a dealership to buy a new car, I immediately looked at the lines, the design and wanted to sit in the car. I wanted to feel the leather and the feel of the steering wheel, because I’m also a very visual and feeling-oriented person. Then came the smooth sales guy, who started talking about the engine, how it sounds and that I really needed to listen to the special speaker system this model has. I tell him I’m not so interested in the engine or it’s sound. It’s a nice to have, but the interior and exterior options are more important. The salesman ignores my remark and continues to boast about the sound of the engine.”

It was the inability of the salesman to listen to his client, to let go of his own way of processing things and hear the clues his client was offering him to work with, that cost him the sale. Sven was looking at the interior, talking about the design of the car; clear indicators he is more interested in the look and feel than the sound or the smell of the gasoline. But people will often offer more clues. Clues hidden in what they are saying, if you are just open to hearing and spotting them.

Combine these spoken indicators with their behavior and it will give you a good idea of what senses are key to processing your message. Adapt yourself and possible support tools and grab the attention with maximum impact.

An important extra is the use of pauses. It will help you grab the attention through a bit of surprise and offer you and your audience the opportunity to process information at the same time.

President Barack Obama is probably the master at using silence and pauses to amplify his message. The more nervous we are the more we want to fill up silence with words. We rattle our way through it, some just freeze up and take silence and pause a bit too far. People need time to process information and a pause offers them that opportunity. Pauses before or after your words will increase their impact. Don’t overdo it or you will lose your pace and look like an elderly person falling asleep and the pause will go from impactful to awkward.

Silence also creates excitement, curiosity and eagerness to know what will come: a speaker that comes on stage and takes a moment to have a sip of water; a pianist waiting a few moments to find focus and at the same time create a silent atmosphere in which the first note can impact the audience even harder or a manager pausing a few seconds before he starts speaking. All those openings would seem awkward to a nervous, non-pumped person, but for the audience it will create that healthy tension of expectation, time to process and for you a moment to get your act together.

You can learn a lot from people when you listen to what they are saying. As I showed in the earlier examples, the most common interactions can hide a load of information about your audience. When we are talking about creating a form of recognition, listening to what is being said and using the same language as your audience is key. People chose certain words or concepts when they are talking to you, because they heard it somewhere, they think it’s a fancy or cool thing to say, or they link a specific meaning to the words. It’s key that you can give the other person the feeling that you are talking about the same thing and he recognizes himself in you. When you change the words or correct him when you feel there is a better way of saying this, it might trigger a form of frustration, defense or misunderstanding.

It can be as simple as an old lady calling a customer service employee and saying there is something wrong with her internet box. Where the normal response is to correct her and use the word, ‘modem’ instead, for this lady, in her mind, that thing in her home that blinks all the time is the internet box that makes sure she can skype with her grandson. Now you have to decide if it’s your goal to teach her the correct word or that it’s your goal to help her as efficiently and friendly as possible. I would go for the second option and give her the best customer experience, so I would say, “What is wrong with your internet box madam?” I want her trust, a connection, so I will use her language even if I know that there is a better word for it. When you are an IT teacher and your goal is to educate people and a student calls with a question on the internet box chapter, better to correct him to using the word modem on the exam.

It can also go a little further. When the words have a deeper layer, linked to the convictions or values of whoever you are communicating with.

For example, I had a gentleman in a one-on-one coaching, where we were talking about his role within the company he was working for. He said, “I really crave for some more autonomy within the company. Being able to decide which projects we as a team do.” I made the mistake of saying, “So you are looking for more freedom for you and your team within the company.” He replied, “No, no, no, not freedom, because freedom scares me. I need my structure, my company guidelines…” In my mind, I was thinking that what he was describing is exactly what I mean with freedom, but for him this word had a whole different meaning. If I wanted to build a connection, I needed to start using his words even if I knew what he was saying and I believed I had a better word for it.

The easiest way of noticing when you accidently tried to change a person’s language, is when you completely understand the concept of what they are saying and out of empathy and sincere interest you respond, but with your own words. The reaction that follows is very often, “No, not really, that’s not what I mean by…” and then repeat exactly what you knew they meant in the first place. Do this a lot and the other person will decide that you are not somebody that understands what he or she is about. I don’t recognize myself, therefore I don’t grant my attention and trust. Copy somebody’s language to earn that trust through recognition.

Now that you are copying language, you might as well continue down that path. What works for the language, works even better when it comes down to the physical behavior. The normal reaction for most of us, when we are having a hard time connecting with somebody that we would really like on our side, is to over invest in interest and eagerness to be liked. We sit on the tip of our chair, stand close, focus all our attention and effort towards that person. The response we get in return, is a lean back doubtful audience that isn’t showing any sign of positive attention and trust. The more we sense this the more our body and mind goes into overdrive. We are programmed to wanting to be liked. When somebody is not answering that call, we panic and go berserk. Certainly, when the other side is a client, the love of our life, a recruiter…

Best way to deal with a situation like that is trusting in the idea of recognition. Next time, try copying not only the language, but also the behavior. Mirror what your audience is doing. Not every single move. It will become awkward real fast, when you are scratching your head every time the person on the other side is scratching his. Copy those micro movements and you will soon look like a couple of monkeys. Mirroring behavior means slowly and often delayed, taking over a posture. Is a person leaning back, because he is not interested, also lean back. When they use a lot of hand gestures, try mimicking this at certain points in your story. Is somebody crossing their legs, do the same. It will feel weird at first and like you are going to get caught right away. Trust me, nobody notices, not even the people that know about this technique. Copy their behavior and they will see themselves in you. The attention and trust will grow and as if by magic, the not so interested grumpy audience will lean forward and show more and more interest and the language will go from defensive or dismissive to acceptive and curious. The best way to know if you are successful, is when you start noticing the other person starts to copy your behavior. That signals, you have successfully made a connection and earned trust. The mirroring of language and movement is also within police work, negotiations, coaching and many other forms of communication where extreme trust and attention is required to achieve a goal, the top techniques being used.

Two years ago, I was invited to meet a high profile leader from the Middle East. His assistants connected with me to arrange the meeting and told me up front that this wasn’t going to be a sales meeting. This occasion was just to see who I was and if there was potential to work with me as a partner. I went to the meeting and was guided into the office. The assistants told me to sit in the huge leather chairs and wait for him to come in. He would start the conversation and decide how we would proceed with the meeting. The assistants sat on either side of me. I was pumped, but also on my toes. This was not the kind of meeting I was used to. He came, shook my hand and immediately made clear there wasn’t much time and that he also had other things to do. In short, who are you and why do you think you could do something for us? He was leaning back and not showing great interest, my normal reaction would have been to lift myself out of the huge chair and start convincing him of my potential. I decided words weren’t going to cut it. It was mirror time. I started to slowly mirror his behavior no matter how uninterested it may have appeared to the other people in the room. After a while I started seeing his behavior moving more towards me, showing interest and even copying me at certain points. You could also see the tone of the conversation changing from “Why are you here?” to “What movies do you like?” To the last question, I answer, “I’m a big movie fan, so many genres, but my all-time favorite has to be the Star Wars saga.” At that point, he stands up and says, “OMG, then you have to check this out.” He walks to the back of his office, the two ladies already with surprised faces. He opens a closet, puts something on his face and turns around with a Chewbacca mask on. Yes indeed, the Chewbacca mask I mentioned earlier when talking about the pitch video I made for Stockholm. There I was, with a very important leader making the Wookie sound with a Chewbacca mask on. I reacted with great enthusiasm and said I also wanted to buy that mask after seeing the Chewbacca-mom video on YouTube, but that I couldn’t find it in Belgium. He answers, “Well, I bought two of these in London on my way over here. My son back home only needs one. Here, you can have this one.” He gives me the mask and says to his team, “I like this guy, do business with him. I’m stepping out, when I return it must be arranged.” He steps out and the rest is history. When I got home, Natalie was preparing dinner in the kitchen and asked, while stirring the soup, with her back facing the door, “How did the meeting go, honey?” She turned around and there I was – wearing the Chewbacca mask and going all Wookie on her, thinking, this mirroring really is something. (I admit, the Star Wars thing was a lucky hit, but going from “Why are you here?” to “OMG, then you have to check this out.” wasn’t.)

Recognition, a powerful thing in many communication forms. Recognizing something that you know and experienced as positive before will lower your guard and connect you more easily to the story and the person telling it. A mighty insight that will help you connect with even the toughest nuts in the basket and grab the attention of the biggest audiences in an instant. Remember, using these insights and techniques with people you already have a good connection with, is an extra and will often strengthen that connection, but isn’t a must. Just go for a walk on the beach with your partner, take a second to look at your step. Big chance you will see your steps are in sync like a Korean military parade. It happens automatically, your body knows what to do. Using this recognition chunk when you still need to create that much needed rapport, will make your life and story a whole lot easier.

IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE IT’S TRUE

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL

IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE
IT’S TRUE

MIRROR,
MIRROR ON THE WALL