How do you assess your IMPACT?

So you think you’re funny.

But does anyone else think you’re funny?

If you read my last blog you’ll recall I talked about the gap between INTENT and IMPACT.? For example our if your INTENT is to make someone laugh, you will behave in way that you think will achieve that INTENT.? (For example by telling a joke).? However the IMPACT of your behaviour isn’t really up to you.? How your words and actions impact others depends on how they interpret them. And how they interpret your words and actions is influenced by a whole heap of things like upbringing, beliefs, values and what kind of day they are having.? None of which are factors you control.

Furthermore, as I mentioned in my previous blog, whatever side of the intent impact fence we are on we often we tend to double down.? If our joke falls flat we might be tempted to tell the other person their interpretation is wrong.? We might tell them they can’t take a joke. We insist that our impact MUST be the same as our intent.? but guess what; you can’t force someone to find your joke funny just because you want them to find it funny.

In short; you cannot guarantee that your desired impact will be same as your actual impact just because you want it to be.

So this blog will focus on how we can close the intent impact gap by learning more about the IMPACT we have. Then we have the option to refine our behaviours so our desired impact (intent) is closer to our actual impact.

At this stage it’s easy to jump straight to “asking other people for feedback” as the best resource for understanding our impact, and indeed it is invaluable.? It can also be quite hard to get right (for example I recently read “The Culture Map” where Erin Meyer sheds light on how direct people are prepared to be in their feedback across the world and there is a huge variance.) Suffice to say there is an art and a science to asking for feedback.? For this reason, I’ll cover the direct approach of asking for feedback in my next article. This isn’t some ploy to increase subscribers to my newsletter by the way, my INTENT here is to break a very important and complex subject (to me at least) into manageable chunks so that this article has the IMPACT I’m hoping for; for you to learn about your own impact from the resources you already have right in front of you.

Ready? Here we go!

1. Learn about the gaps

I think a great starting point is to appreciate where the gaps are in the first place.? And we can do that by learning about different cultures.? I’m now an advocate of The Culture Map.

This gave me some great insight on how to adapt my humour: (I’m sticking with the theme of humour to make the point but you can extrapolate this to any desired impact; in this instance my desired impact was to for people laugh, your desired impact could be for people to feel valued, to gain trust or to help your team to grow - this book will give great insights into all of these)

I recently gave my first talk to a widely American audience SugarCRM

Someone had said to me “they won’t get your humour. It will be too subtle.”? ? I assumed it was because I’m too clever for them… but The Culture Map explained that this is because? Americans are typically very friendly and they don’t want to make the mistake of laughing AT you, (obviously Brits don’t have this problem - the gits) so you have to make it clear that, “this is a joke” so they know they won’t hurt your feelings.?

I tried this during my talk. I made my “cougar” joke. (I wanted to become Maverick from Top Gun but I ended up more like Cougar, the guy who crumbles under pressure.)

Silence.

Then I said, “It’s ok to laugh at that by the way, my partner is younger than me and I’m owning it” and then to my relief everyone broke into laughter.

That’s the just the tip of the iceberg of course.? Within Europe there are huge variations from country to country.? Not just on humour, but also on things like high context/low context communication, the power gradient, decision with a big D or a little d, application first or principle first (if these things don’t make sense right now don’t worry - they will.? Read the book).

Suffice to say, I highly recommend this book for anyone who works across cultures and wants to understand how to refine their behaviours so their desired impact will match their actual impact.

Of course you can’t get everything from a book.?

Luckily there are lots of ways we can draw on our human canny to figure some of this stuff out.

2. Assess likely impact before diving in.

Yesterday I was walking back from tennis with my son.? He had some brand new grippy trainers that his dad had bought him.? He was very proud of them.? We passed a communal patch of grass and I wiped my trainers on the dewy grass to get some mud off.? My son’s eyes lit up.? “Mummy watch this.” And he scraped his grippy trainers across the grass, removing the top layer as he did and revealing the damp soil underneath. “You see how grippy my new trainers are!” He said, delighted.

“Do you think the people who live here want their grass ruined?”? I asked.

His face fell. ? ?

It was immediately obvious to him, of course, that they probably wouldn’t.

I then gave him a little pep talk about assessing impact before diving in. “Before you do something, just ask yourself, “how will my actions impact others?’

I know, it’s a RIOT hanging out with me.

The point is my son is 9. And he is perfectly capable of making a pretty good estimate as to his likely impact.

This isn’t a foolproof system of course - we can’t predict how others will be impacted with absolute certainty, because remember our impact is determined by how others INTERPRET our actions and that bit isn’t up to us. The point is, we often skip this bit and go jump in with whatever serves our agenda without first pausing to assess our likely impact. ? This is why I’m giving this idea some attention now. And to give my poor son a break from the relentless lectures. And if you ask me, it’s a pretty good starting point, it costs nothing and it doesn’t require us to ask for any direct feedback.? (Terrifying thought)

Which brings me on to my next point. There is another abundant free resource we can all use to improve our understanding of our impact ….OTHER PEOPLE.

ASSESSING LIKELY IMPACT FROM OTHER PEOPLE

2. Read the signs

We human beings are primally wired to be sensitive to how others respond to us. Whether we realise it or not we will likely be making thousands of judgments at any one time and adjusting our behaviour based on how people respond to us.? This instinct is what allows us wrap up a presentation when it’s obviously been dragging on far too long….and to win at cards,? (because very few people actually have poker faces) Now, there is a health warning here.? We are wired for survival so we have an inherent negativity bias.? Which means we tend to lean towards a negative interpretation. (this is also why we can take thing more personally than we need to - See previous blog) And this only gets worse if we are tired or having a bad day. (In “Why We Sleep”, Matthew Walker reminds us we are pretty crap at reading facial expressions and will assume hostile intent even if we are just a couple of hours deficient in sleep.) So please exercise some judgment here.

And, as Nigel Taberner , Hostage negotiator and Vistage speaker, has been quoted to say “never assume you know what someone else is thinking” .? Again the point here is to pause and give this idea some thought because we often skip this bit entirely.

And there is a really good way to read the signs: Pay attention to them.

What’s their body language?

If it’s defensive, arms crossed, they are probably resisting you or what you are saying in some form or another.

If they lean in they’re probably interested.

If they’re texting someone else you’re having no impact at all.

We tend to be pretty good at picking up on signals so long as we are open to them in the first place.

I remember someone commenting on my Linkedin post. “I saw you at a recent event and I remember thinking how much I’d like to talk to you ….but you gave off a vibe of “back off”.? Next time I’ll ignore that and come and talk to you anyway.”

How do you feel when read that comment…. I felt kind of creeped out if I’m honest. My advice here is to read the signs and trust your gut - if someone is giving the vibe of back off, I’d probably give them a bit of space.? That way we can adjust our behaviour to the clues in front of us so that our impact is more positive than negative.

And yes, I get that on a different day the back off vibe could actually be code for “help me, I’m feeling intimidated” but you’re unlikely to know that about a total stranger. By reading the signs, you can at least be sensitive to the energy that the people around us are giving off, which is better than bowling in there with only our agenda on our minds.

What do they say?

Usually people want to save your feelings and will avoid confrontation, so they’ll probably only comment on the positives.? You can use that information to help you understand which bits have landed well and how to play to your strengths. This recently helped me to pivot to emerging needs in my industry. I’d given a talk which was principally about unitasking; how to focus and prioritise to help high performing teams be more productive under pressure. Afterwards the questions and comments all focused on one particular aspect of my talk - how we view failure and how to create a just culture where we can learn from mistakes.? ? By listening to what people were saying, my eyes were opened to the fact that a lot of organisations wanted to talk about learning from mistakes and I designed a talk specifically around this emerging need.

In particular pay attention to what you hear repeatedly.? Once is an opinion.? But several times is a trend.? This will give you a good clue to what is making the biggest impact with people and you can make your decision on what to do next accordingly.

What do they not say?

People often tell me, “just don’t read too much into it”. After all, I am a sensitive Susan and can overthink things.? But being sensitive can also be a super power. It can help you to spot nuances or gaps that others wouldn’t. For example after a talk I gave online recently, I noticed that the facilitator left out the praise that I’m used to… they thanked me for talking and sharing my experience, but they didn’t say they’d enjoyed it.? Given the human tendency to be polite, and that my overwhelming experience is that people will compliment me, this struck me as odd.? I immediately wondered if the talk had landed badly.? The questions flowed easily enough afterwards but they were noticably more formal than I’m used to.? And I wondered if some of my jokes (yes we are back on humour) had been pitched inappropriately.

The next day I got a very polite email from the organiser, again thanking me for my time and complimenting me on my career, but still the absence of a compliment on the talk deepened my suspicions.

I replied - “I hope the jokes were ok… very hard to tell on zoom … I was trying to be a bit lighthearted about a serious subject …but if anyone found it a bit inappropriate then please do let me know! (And I’ll say sorry)”

The response was polite but unambiguous.? Several people had felt uncomfortable by some of my jokes and had commented on it directly.

I was mortified.

And it raises some interesting lessons for us all.

??First of all - it IS harder to assess our impact on virtual platforms, so we may need to play it a little safer.

?? Secondly you can tell quite a lot from what people DON’T say.

?? Thirdly, the politeness of human beings is an epidemic. The organiser wouldn’t have said anything to me unless I’d asked directly. And many people would have been offended by my talk and I’d have been none the wiser.

The point is, sometimes, reading “too much” into things isn’t a bad thing. It can help you to realise when you’ve made a giant arse of yourself.

Which brings me on to my next point.

There are 2 phrases that can usually be relied upon to have universally positive impact.

2 PHRASES THAT ALMOST GUARANTEE POSITIVE IMPACT

Sorry.

If you mess up, if your actions or words land badly, if someone feels wounded by what you’ve done, just say sorry.? I know it can be tempting to feel defensive. We might double down or try to correct the other person’s interpretation.? But in my experience this causes more conflict and offence. A better option? Just say sorry.

Saying sorry doesn’t have to be an outright admission of guilt.? It doesn’t mean you intended to offend. But it does show you care and are prepared to acknowledge how they feel even if you don’t agree with them. And in my opinion, that’s much more likely to create lasting positive impact.

Thank you.

We all loved to feel validated and appreciated don’t we. An easy way to do this is to say thank you.? Interestingly THANK YOU has much more favourable impact than saying WELL DONE, because? when we say thank you, we are pitching ourselves as an equal, when we say well done we’re implying we are superior to them. So remembering our ps and qs is a super easy way to ensure we have a positive impact on those around us.

Final important health reminder.

As I mentioned earlier, I think it’s good to consider our impact, simply because we often forget to.? Asking ourselves the question “what do I want my impact to be” is a great way to start considering how we can enhance the experience of those around us. Then you can also ask yourself, “what do I think my impact is.”? And the good news is, if you’re a bit of sensitive Susan you’re are probably already pretty good at sensing how your actions and words impact others.? So use this as a superpower.

Tune in to how people respond to you so you can gauge your impact.? And learn from it. Do more of what lands well.? Less of what lands badly.

But remember this shit can also be exhausting.? We CAN chase it too much.? We can get wrapped up trying to people please all the time. So please exercise a bit of judgment and cut yourself some slack if your impact isn’t always as positive as you want it to be. The truth is, we rarely get out of bed to be dicks.? Most human beings are basically good humans (97% of us in fact according to Roger Steare who gave a fascinating talk on ethics and morality at Babble Fit to Lead event.) Suffice to say, our intent is almost always positive, even if our impact isn’t.? And sometimes knowing our intent is positive is enough.

After all, even people pleasers can’t please everyone all of the time.

?? Intent (desired impact) is not always the same as actual impact.

?? We can ask ourselves “what would I like my impact to be” and/or “what is my impact likely to be” before we dive in with our own agenda.

?? We can usually get a fairly good sense of how our words and actions land - we simply need to pay attention to the signs from the people around us.

?? If in doubt, Thank you and Sorry are 2 words that have fairly universally positive impact.

Sarah Furness is an ex RAF helicopter pilot and Sqn Ldr. She is the author of the No1 best selling book Fly Higher, executive coach and keynote speaker.?

If you’re interested in hearing more about how to build emotional intelligence or close the intent impact gap please email [email protected].?

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