The Longest silence...
This is a story I shared over the last few years in a number of my sessions including manager as a coach; feedback; development conversations; connecting with introverted colleagues; importance of trust and rapport in NLP, coaching and communication, etc.
The most recent instance was when I was doing a session early this month on feedback skills for project managers of a client and I shared with them what great managers first do with their team members on an individual basis.
They connect.
That’s when one of the participants asked for a way of connecting with reserved colleagues. And hence I thought of sharing it here.
It was in late October 2015 that a senior contact with a training and coaching firm in Delhi called me to his office and spoke about one of his staff and requested me to mentor her.
She is a problem case, he said. She comes two hours earlier than other people and leaves two hours earlier than the official closing time. She doesn’t talk much with other team members, is difficult to work with and does not collaborate.
I smiled and said, “Sure, provided you first speak with her and she agrees to me working with her.”
Done, he said.
The appointed day came and I could clearly notice how conscious she was. I had been to that office a couple of times before also; had done a few projects for them and even though in a way she knew me but this time she was like a deer under a spot light.
I told her to relax and said that we will have the conversation outside the office. I didn’t want others to think that she was being fixed. We went to a park nearby with a good number of benches and a joggers’ track.
It was a nice sunny morning with an early wintery nip in the air. The gardeners were busy watering the plants and the distance from the main road offered a bit of a buffer from the blaring horns of the slow moving vehicles that were a chock-a-block.
We sat on one of the benches and I told her that even though her boss had asked me to mentor her, I would first prefer that she feel comfortable with the exercise and that it would be a two way conversation than me trying to fix her.
I asked her to ask me anything that she wanted to know about me that would make her comfortable for a conversation with me.
And then came the most challenging 25 minutes of my life.
She kept fiddling her fingers and I could sense that there were a number of things running in her mind. I watched her fidgeting fingers and shuffling body language settle down in that time and then a small hint of a curious smile came over before she turned to ask me her question.
But before I reveal her question I need to share that those 25 odd minutes of silence between us were important to navigate. I had to fight hard to bite my tongue and not interrupt her; not hurry her up. I had to remain present there but I also tried to distract myself by looking at the gardeners going about their work; soak in the tender sunlight and enjoy the cool air.
In that moment I didn’t remember the important words of Nithya Shanti:
Connection before Correction.
But I am sure that they did play on in my mind given how profound those words were when I first heard them.
Finally she turned to me and with a curious smile asked: “Sree, I have always wondered how come you are so calm and peaceful?”
It wasn’t a question I was expecting so I burst out laughing lightly but in that moment I knew that we had a breakthrough. I answered her question and then we went ahead with the purpose of our meeting.
She was open and I asked her to share her understanding of why we were interacting.
To cut a long story short I understood that she was one person who could focus and get more of her work done in silence and hence she came to office two hours earlier and left two hours earlier; also to avoid the peak hour traffic. With quite an evident tinge of hurt she said that her boss never counted the fact she would work till 11 pm every day even after reaching home and that almost all her weekends were also spent working on proposals and sending mails.
We hit it off that day and it was a great experience working with her on projects that came afterwards till I finally said a silent goodbye to my senior contact in December 2016.
But that ex-colleague of his, her other colleagues and I are still in good touch.
Like it is attributed to Mother Teresa:
“We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
I learnt a powerful lesson that day.
_/\_
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