Rebels innovate – Mario Santoyo

You’ve finally nailed it and were invited to the most recognized, interesting event in your industry. As the D day approaches you cannot easily fall sleep for thinking about the vast quantities of new ideas, war stories and people you will meet. Wait a second: meet new people? Now you will definitely suffer insomnia. 

Most of us, geeky fellows and related species, once exposed to a social situation suffer from either social stammering or acronym over user; and, even if we are on a BOF* gathering we still have problems on performing the first maneuvers to engage in conversation. Definitely loss situations if you are trying to make a dent in the universe, since without good communication skills you will not be able to pitch your ideas, learn from others and eventually share with the world.

Guibert @ Globant photograph provided by Missi...

Regrettably, I believe there are no rules that will help you communicate better with everyone you will meet. An interesting topic for some can also be a muscular relaxant for others. Some of us love to laugh and keep on betting on the healthiness of using jokes in mid conversation while others just face the world with general seriousness. You get the picture: what once worked and produced a lifetime discussion my also fail in the future. Don’t fluster, this is life after all.  The years of seeing the game from the line and yearning to exchange ideas with others at events, some therapy (not joking here), bed talk with my lovely wife and hours of communicating (either face to face, email or via twitter) with mentors (Guibert Englebienne, Christian Boelhke) and industry big fish have helped me work on my social weaknesses-

Golden rule: don’t over act the moment. As life changing as it might seem small talk is just small, you won’t get hired or rejected by a chat. It is just another opportunity to open a path to a new relationship or a chance to clear something we were ruminating about. Over expecting will only increase your anxiety hence augmenting your nervousness and breaking havoc.

These are the tips I follow when on small talk mode, especially when chatting with big fishes. 

Ask thyself about the motives why you are approaching someone. This will help you asses if you are either just playing along with the sheep around you or really expecting to receive a benefit after the chat. These are the questions I usually ask myself: Are you an admirer? Do you want to discuss something she is an expert in? You feel she missed something in her talk? Frequently enough, the answers to the questions elicit the hook I will use in the upcoming conversation.

Don’t over expect on staying on a single subject. So you were right on the middle of the conversation, almost approaching the point at which your interlocutor will share with you the secret to her success and out of the blue the subject changed. Don’t fall on your knees and cry, a subject change is usually a good sign, it commonly means the conversation is so engaging your interlocutor wants to share other subjects. Who cares if you didn’t learn her secret recipe for success? You had the opportunity to listen to someone you respect and chances are if you play it right you might get in touch in the future.

Listen. You were the one who approached her didn’t you? Well, to listen also works the other way around when you were the one being approached. Part of having a delightful conversation is to know when to stop chatting and start listening. To listen is the first step needed to take in order to understand.

KISS (Keep it simple and short). Keep the talk small, if you play your cards right you will have the chance to further communicate with companion in the future. If you are talking with a big fish, on a social gathering, chances are she is expected to engage in other conversations and her ability to focus on the subject being discussed will diminish with the time elapsed. 

Closure. If you’ve felt rapport was built or you need to dive deeper on the topic, thank your companion for the time being, state your intention to keep the conversation going and politely ask to swap credentials so you could get in touch in the future. Truth most be told, not all times you will be able to go home with personal card and sometimes even getting a personal contact won’t bring forth future conversations; it all depends on how the talk went. If you are part of the lucky ones don’t over play it, use it carefully since you have just earned one level up on the social scale; and who knows, you might even end building a relationship.

An interesting way of practicing these tips is to start using twitter, which  I believe is an interesting small talk medium. Follow some peers and leaders of your industry or subject matter and form time to time converse with them. This is a fragment of the people I follow via twitter to help you get the idea or eventually get you started down the road:

Hjörtur Smárason. Mastermind behind “If the world could vote” and author of “The Marketer’s Magic Chest. Marketing tips, tricks and tools to unlock the chains of recession”. 

Guy Kawasaki.  Founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures and co-founder of Nononina (the owner of Alltop.com and Truemors.com), he used to be an Apple Fellow at  Apple Computer and have authored eight amazing books. He is an overly admirable and kind Guy. 

Kathy Sierra. She used to be master trainer for Sun Microsystems, teaching Sun’s Java instructors how to teach the latest technologies to customers, and a lead developer of several Sun certification exams. Along with her partner Bert Bates, Kathy created the outstanding O’reilly’s Head First series. She’s also the original founder of the Software Development/Jolt Productivity Award-winning javaranch.com. I am a die hard fan of hers.

Tim O’reilly.He is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc. His “Internet meets world” talk on the web 2.0 2008 expo is one of my constant sources of inspiration . 

Pd: To those of you who have asked about my coach, you can contact Alicia de la Fuente thru her website.

*BOF: Birds of a Feather

Some of us have been there, sitting on the cafeteria bench, gaily contemplating our surroundings and slowly, acquisitively, opening our brown bag; until, out of the blue your personal bully materializes and snatches it away, amidst general laughter. Oops, that was part of my happy youth.

Locker by Steven Fernandez

You get the picture: after much effort and energy invested into something, someone else slips right in to place and takes the standing ovation. What to do? Should you stand up and shout at the top of your lungs that you were the master mind behind it all? Shy away from the scene? Punch someone in the nose? Well, I’ve tried several options and would love to share what I’ve found works for me in this cases.

Golden rule: the only one you need to fascinate is yourself. When we were kids, we all dreamed about having jobs that not only gave us fun things to do but also hordes of fans. Most of us have grown out of those archetypes but still worry when we don’t hear good things about our work, hoping that thru the optimistic reviews our work is even better. The idealization of positive criticism is, perhaps, the reason why every time someone else gets credit for our work we felt dismayed and sometimes even tricked.

Over expectation around appraisals comes hand in hand with having an image of ourselves. Once someone else steps into our hard earned place, it feels like that other is zeroing on that ideal we have constructed and we are further from it (social appraisal for some of us helps asses how far we are from that model), thus the anger and frustration.

What about your managers? Could the powers that be discern between the Milli Vanilli and real artist? Well, things can go to ways don’t they? They can be part of the crowd and just mesmerize at the performance or they could have been there sometime in the past and be able to know who was the one behind the scenes and act accordingly.

So what to do? Do the things you do, not to receive appraisal from others but to satisfy your inner needs, your goals. Follow your passion and if the time comes again and someone else steps into your light, you will be able to see right thru their intentions and understand they do so because they are in desperately need to harmonize their ideal with what others think of them and are loosing the chance to really build on their selves.

I can almost here you .. “aha and what about the managers?” How will the feared 360 evaluation go? Well, you have as much control over your managers as you would have over an applauding crowd: ZERO. Golden rule still applies: don’t worry about what they see, worry about playing your act right; at the end, either everyone will be able to see that the guy who explains things generally and without deep knowledge is a marionette or you will decide that your current workplace is not the place you should be since it values more the marrionette than the performer hence they adding no value.

Shine from the inside.

Further Reading
The Self in Social Psychology by Roy F. Baumeister

Be a team player
Originally uploaded by Yodel Anecdotal
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Have you ever ended a conversation with a tingling guilty feeling or with the sensation you’ve just been tricked? I hear you, I’ve been in that exact state, but you know what? We all have had our share of NO at work, and it is nothing to feel ashamed of; even more, it is not a situation you have to regret. As much as it might be cheerless or even distressing, a no is yet another opportunity to asses your environment and learn more things about it for future use.

Golden rule: don’t walk a way with just the skinny answer; make sure you get enough information to work out the bases of it and act accordingly. Every answer has a background and you are entitled to know it. If your salary revision was rejected you can both boo and cry about the injustice of it or you could act the adult and ask the motivations behind the refusal.

Work is yet another constituent part of our lives; and as such, it exists within the boundaries of our humanity –the way we communicate and relate with others-. I believe human relationships are based on the balance of what we need from others, what others provide to us and what we give to others. There are few other aspects of life that can inform you more about the balance of a relationship than the answer for something you needed and asked for. It tells you how much your counterpart is willing to share with you and what you need to give to the bond, to keep the balance.

A salary rejection could have a lot of different motivations behind it and I would like to work around the most generalized ones.

You are not given enough to the relationship. Let us assume you’ve done your groundwork and have assessed yourself as a candidate for a salary revision, yet you’ve been turned down. What happened? Most enterprises are willing to raise their workforce salaries when they perceive they are adding value to the organization and as much as you thought you were a candidate for the prize, the organization authorities think otherwise. Make certain that you gather what is the business expecting from you, what you are currently giving and where you are just missing the mark. This is a hallmark opportunity to revise your role, better define what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t and state what does the establishment currently values and what it does not.

You haven’t built a solid case. You have clearly seen what the organization cares for; how you can add value and benefit the company, and even acted accordingly. Yet still, you’ve been rejected. Have you ever wondered if you are correctly building your marketing efforts? It might be that your efforts are just not being seen and valued, especially by the ones who decide upon this kind of things. This is far from being and invitation to boast and run all cocky around the cubicles; it is a call to review the way you feel about your work and how you communicate to others your achievements. Understand what makes your corporation pulse and how you add to it; how your managers think (are they visual, audile or tactile) and how you can communicate easily with them

Further Reading
Learning Styles and Strategies (Felder & Soloman)

Hard times. You might have asked the right question at the wrong moment. Sometimes, companies’ authorities have a humongous responsibility towards stakeholders and employees and sometimes are asked to make really hard calls even if those are controversial. Your rejection might have just landed on the wrong times and there is nothing you can do to change the decision, and though it might be hard to be turned down because of this motivations it gives you a lot of information about your company authorities: are they only playing around or do they really care about what they do? Are they open or covert about their intentions and needs? With kind of information you would be able to plan better your future moves. A rejection on this kind of surroundings and its complementary information is an open invitation to be either a team player or an escapist, your call.

Further Reading
Tough times, hard decisions (Calcanis)

Dissclaimer:

For those of you who have asked: I haven’t recently asked for a salary raise and haven’t been rejected. I wrote this post to help others on this awkward situation where I’ve also been in the past and by no means I intended it to be a reflection on my current state.