Generating support for your ideas

So far in this season we’ve looked at Connective energy and the value to be gained in terms of energy from forging alliances with others.?Just making the ask are you curious, are you willing to explore further will immediately bring your connections and energy you didn’t have before.

Despite your awesome connective energy skills there comes a time when things just don’t seem to gel, you’re making the ask but somehow people are not getting what you’re saying and the connection is not happening.?

Your head is full of great ideas but somehow things aren't landing and it's easy to lose confidence in yourself instead of considering that the people you speak to are all different, with different needs and with likely differing responses.

In this newsletter therefore I wanted to take a look at this so you’re not deterred in your efforts to craft connective energy.

THE ADVOCATES, EVANGELISTS, PASSIVES AND DETRACTORS

Generally when you’re seeking to forge relationships you’ll cast your net wide without much idea what people know or what people think.?This is a normal part of the process.?Once you’ve cast your net you need to be in careful listening mode, not just for the words but also for the body language.?

Over time people have got used to the art of fuzzy words where the recipient hears something but isn’t entirely sure they’ve really got what’s being said.?Often for those using fuzzy words, it’s a smokescreen for indecision or a reluctance and shyness for saying no.?Fuzzy body language is something people really haven’t mastered.?

If you’re hearing fuzzy words, look for the congruent body language.?You needn’t comment on your observation of folded arms, looking at the floor or around the room for imaginary life rafts to appear.?Take it in, it’s all information.

The people you’ll meet fall into four categories:

THE ADVOCATES are a great group to work with.?An advocate is interested in your idea, brings equity of their own ideas to the table and has thoughts and ideas how to build the idea up into something bigger.??The thing with an advocate is learning to then give them space to build their equity, this is the art of connective energy.?

If you go fishing for a sponsor, an advocate will sense a hollowness of your intent and you risk losing them.?Ask questions of an advocate, what do they think, how have they experienced the problem, what perspectives have they had or tried before on this, what do they think is missing right now, how might this be solved.?Your own vulnerability, what you bring but what you don’t have is a cue for advocates to recognise the integrity of your request and that it’s an appeal to join in and bring a specific contribution.??

Advocates are an ideal group to collaborate with.??Be sure to pop the magic question – I’ve loved our discussion, now you know about this concept, who else would you recommend I speak with.?This signals respect and faith in the advocates own integrity and knowledge but is an open invitation to add a further jigsaw puzzle piece to your evolving team.

THE EVANGELISTS love a great idea to work with.?An evangelist can bring you great power in broadcasting a message for you with enthusiasm and they could be a vital part of your connective team.??Evangelists bring tremendous energy and persuasive energy if they are harnessed and pointed in the right direction.?

If they’re not, things can get just a little chaotic.?There are two big things to watch out for with evangelists.?First it to ensure what you think they understand of your message is what you wanted to convey.?Evangelists are often so excited by the thing they’ve heard the need to share this news with others takes over from listening to the rest of the story.?You may think you’ve got an awesome storyteller and hopefully you have but you’ll want to be sure you’ve heard the story back from them first.?So try asking them what are your thoughts how we can explain this idea to others.?And then listen, have they really got the story or have they got what they wanted to hear from the story.??

The second thing with evangelists is their role in the story.?This is a tougher one to figure out initially so you’ll need to watch initially what they do with the message.?For some evangelists, separating the message and content from them the messenger is really hard – they have built their identity around ideas and find it hard to separate.?

If you’re seeking to forge a voluntary team of connectors then one issue is having an evangelist in the mix who has positioned however inadvertently the idea as being their idea or they are the project leader, founder or other such title and you can have your voluntary team collapsing around you before it has got going.

THE PASSIVES??Most people when you float an idea are going to be in the passive category.??Often when starting out developing your connective energy it’s easy to feel the passives aren’t going to be of much use to you and then ignore them in search of more evangelists and advocates.??I don’t see the passives in that way.?Passives are the undecided, and everyone takes their own time to form an opinion.??

Rather than writing off the passives it pays to really listen to their perspectives and experience.?Passives can give you valuable insight into aspects of your idea that maybe don’t work so well with certain people or in certain contexts.??Often passives can be wary of the sales pitch, they’re waiting for the hook that lies behind the bait.?You can counteract this by saying up front you’re interested in perspectives so it’s clear you’re not looking for money or a partnership or to be married for life.??

Be careful name-dropping in order to secure the attention of the passives as this immediately sounds like a sales tactic to encourage participation based on an association with someone else.?Instead you can say I haven’t yet sought viewpoints from people in the engineering industry and given your experience I’d be really interested in your viewpoint.??

Your radar will tell you whether passives are likely to eventually become advocates or detractors, if they are on the advocate side then your game will be to find a way to keep in touch with them but giving them space.?It’s been great speaking with you today.?I’m sensing there’s a bit more work I need to do on this but once that’s done it would be great if you’d be willing to take another look.??The magic phrase would you be willing, that’s quite difficult to say no to.

DETRACTORS?Steel yourself up because there will always be people who are downright negative about your idea and accept that this is OK.?It still means you can get useful insight from detractors.?Detractors are usually quite bold and keen to tell you what they see as flaws in your concept or idea or why someone else should do this, have already done it or shouldn’t be starting at all.?

This is all valuable insight that you can use in future to help you with positioning your idea with others.?So don’t be alarmed by detractors, yes it would be lovely of course if everyone played ball but since they won’t, you might as well get some value from it all the same.

If you have no detractors then consider whether your circle of testing your ideas is big enough or you risk Group Think.

FUZZY LANGUAGE

Often when we’re approached with something brand new we have a lot to process, particularly if it’s out of context.?It triggers the flight, fight and fawn process.?You probably already know fight and flight.?These are primal instincts in our body that can be challenging to control when we’re confronted by something unexpected.?The unexpected doesn’t need to be sabre toothed tiger it can be your great idea.??

Fight will be a series of objections either to the idea of maybe even the idea being raised within the social and business context that you’re in – this is not the place for this type of thing, we don’t normally discuss this type of thing here are acceptable fight signals in a business context.??Flight messages you’ll also recognise, these are people trying to escape from being in front of you – oh dear look at the time.?More often in a business context people’s perception of social norms instead mean they tend to fawn.?What we mean by fawn is where they show an outward sign of trying to please to try and avoid what they feel otherwise would be conflict.?It’s really common.

The trick here with fawn is in recognising the fuzzy words and what people really mean behind the words they actually say.??Here are a few of the most common fawny catchphrases.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT this can be a fawn expression for a simple I don’t like it.??You may be tempted to follow through with more detail.?Since we’re after understanding whether there is connective energy to be gained through the relationship, explain you’re talking to lots of different people and it’s genuinely helpful to understand which bits of the idea could be clearer and then watch the body language.?If it’s evasive then there’s little connective energy to be gained, thank you.

I’LL GET BACK TO YOU, LET ME TALK IT OVER WITH MY TEAM AND GET BACK TO YOU?can be a fawn expression for I don’t want to do this but I don’t want to say outright what I feel.??Here is pays to be attentive to body language.??Someone leaning in to a conversation, making eye contact might be genuinely curious and wanting the opinion of others.?Someone leaning back from the conversations, using their hands to metaphorically push you away is likely to be less interested.

Do you have to win everyone over??Not in the slightest and actually connective energy isn’t really about trying to win people over on an idea, it’s not influencing or negotiation it is trying to forge a connection with someone who will be willing to bring their energy and interests to join you.??Remember you have nothing to sell, you’re simply looking for people who are interested in collaboration and it’s not going to be for everyone.?We can sometimes get ourselves stuck in a loop seeking to avoid outright rejection and spending our energy trying to gain the energy of others.?This is a zero sum gain.?Learn to recognise your different types of supporters so you can work productively with them.?Don’t be deterred from detractors but see them as a rich source of insight.?Watch out for the fawners and their ability to pull you into a redundant circle.

That’s it for this time, let me know what you think and share your experience in comments, if you like Thriving Leader why not share with someone you think would benefit.

We’re all trying to grow. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.

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