Rock.Paper.Scissors.Blog

And for L&D folk?  Like entrepreneur Marie Forleo’s mother says, ‘everything is figure-out-able.’  And a successful strategy for reducing fear & figuring things out is falling back on what our participants already know.  In the case of social media, it’s that people are ultimately & already social.

2. Change:  Change is tough.  We don’t want to be embarrassed, especially in front of other people, so sometimes it takes a more indirect approach.

I think maybe the only difference [with social media] is the potential broader reach. If you

have a little bit of a gaff & it’s you & I talking at a cocktail party, then maybe I’ve embarrassed myself in front of you. Maybe you’ll tell a couple of friends about something odd that I did. But it doesn’t end up on Google. But I think with that down side also becomes a much greater opportunity, where the good things that you do can be amplified a lot more. That’s what I think is important to focus on for people.’

When you’re trying to effect change (which is what all good L&D people do) & all else fails, Mike recommends an indirect approach.

If there’s someone in an organization where they’re maybe trying to convince the senior staff to get it – usually there’s some kind of mid-level market that’s a little bit forward looking, that’s paying attention, that’s on your list. And they’re trying to convince someone higher up. A lot of times, them going directly to the person isn’t the right route, because sometimes those senior folks like to think that the idea was their own & they’re not willing to listen to someone else internally. So the piece of advice I’ve given to some people is buy a book that talks about the topic and just leave it on that person’s desk subtly, without them knowing that it came from you. Then hopefully they’ll read the book & then they’ll get the idea themselves & then they’ll come down to your office & say, ‘We need to start doing this social media thing!” You can say, ‘Oh really? That’s a great idea!’

And for L&D folk?  Sow seeds, be indirect & be subtle.

3.    Sex: make learning & development like sex

One of HubSpot’s recent blog posts is ‘how social media is a lot like sex’.  It’s a great example of using effective L&D techniques such as:

–       strategic attention getting strategies

–       raising curiousity – show don’t tell

–       allowing for self-discovery – gently direct, don’t force

–       using humour strategically

–       spreading it out – we learn best when information is presented in chunks

And for L&D folk? Check out their post & see examples of the above strategies, then use them with your particular subject matter expertise.

4.    Education:

Marketing today is no longer about interrupting people with a message about why they should buy your product. It’s about how you can be the thing that people are interested in. That, to me, is education. People love to learn, they’re always looking to better themselves both personally & within their careers. So our marketing is highly educational and there’s lots of things that we do – webinars & videos & eBooks.

And for L&D folk? Just like marketing, learning & development isn’t about interrupting people anymore.   Increasingly people select not only what they want to learn but how & when.

5.    Example: marketing.grader.com

When I asked Mike for an example of his favourite educational marketing tools he talked about marketing.grader.com

You put in your company or your competitors & compare them. It’ll give you a grade but it also educates you about why you got that score & what are the things you can do to improve. That’s been used by over four million businesses to evaluate their marketing. What’s neat about that is it’s also highly personalized & customized. It kind of assesses where you’re at & says ‘here’s the educational plan for you’.

And for L&D folk? Check it out, both for the marketing advice (it’s very cool, trust me) but also for the great L&D principles at play. (By the way, don’t put ‘www’ in front of it, it won’t work).

6.    Personal & personable – be human & acknowledge emotions

There’s an element of cheekiness to HubSpot, which helps people’s barriers come down.   When I asked Mike to expand on this he said, ‘I think humour is definitely one way. I also think just being human as well. We try to have most of our e-mails come from a real person at HubSpot. We try to put their photo in the bottom of the email.  We try to have people make that connection with a person.

I think what’s interesting about marketing & about sales & about education is that you’re often trying to get someone to make a change. I think that there’s a couple of dimensions to it. There’s the logical side to it & then there’s the emotional side. I think, too often, we only work on the logical side & we just try to beat people over the head with logic. That’s an important thing to do but I think we need to try & think about the emotional side as well. How can you embrace that & make it easier for people emotionally, that’s the non-logical side of decision-making.

And for L&D folk? Strategize for how you can encourage the personal, the emotional.

7.    Shhhh the secret …

When I asked Mike what’s a question that people don’t ask him that they should, he said ‘I feel like they should ask what’s the secret. The answer that I wish I could give to more people is that social itself is not really a strategy. To me, it’s about what’s the content? Social is a way to amplify & build engagement around that content. I think too many people start doing social without having anything meaningful to add, or any good content there. So a lot of people just say ‘Oh I’ve heard so much about social media. I’m going to start a Twitter account & I’m going to start tweeting something’. But what they’re putting out is mostly nonsense. I think you need to think about what’s your value add. You can pick up the phone & call people but if you don’t have anything valuable to say, they’re going to hang up on you. The equivalent of that on Twitter is that they’re not going to follow you. They’re not going to pay attention to your message.

What is the value that you’re adding to the Internet? What is your unique value proposition compared to the rest of the information out there? If you get that right, I think that you’re much more likely to be successful at social.

And there you have it, wise words from Mike Volpe.  If his last point doesn’t have you recognizing yourself (whatsamatter you!), let me shed some light.  We, as learning & development professionals are all about great content.  In that vein, we’re one step ahead of, ahem, marketers.

Those 3 ways of conversations falling apart are matched by 3 misguided attempts to save them: oversimplifying, thinking we can win, & believing we aren’t at fault (insert graphic image of innocent angel here).Things get even further off track when: we try to contain the conflict & avoid confrontation at all costs, our emotions get in the way & we ‘leak’ the conflict, we swing from extreme to extreme (we try to contain & then we burst) or as Weeks calls it ‘take it, take it, have a cow,’ we stick to our one, single standby reaction (thinking one size fits all conflict) or we resist building our skills.

In order to transform stormy seas to calmer waters we need to focus both on being strategic (thinking) & tactics (handling our emotions).  One of the filters for success is realizing the need for being unilateral.  In other words, in tough, damaging conflict we can’t rely on the other party.  We have to come up with strategies & tactics ‘on our own, without reacting to your counterpart & accepting that you can’t control what he or she does or thinks.’

When we feel like we’re being blindsided, Weeks urges us to resist the battlefield metaphor (with it’s accompanying swamps, pitfalls, dead ends & win/loose mentality) & replace it with a parkour metaphor.  Parkour is the art & sport of moving ‘from one place to another, negotiating the obstacles in between. The discipline uses no equipment and is non-competitive.’

One of the many great things about Weeks’ book is its plethora of strategies & tactics, based on extensive research for how to navigate the quicksand of conflict. (her case studies are worth the read alone) Here is an overview:

–       Respect – 3 types of respect are critical says Weeks – respect for yourself, the other party & for the problem & landscape.  Forget vicious circles, ‘together, respect & self-respect make a virtuous circle.’  Weeks is quick to point out that self-respect is an entirely different beast than self-righteousness.  Why respect for the other party? ‘Regardless of what our counterparts are doing in a conversation, respect for them is in our interest because disrespect takes such a toll on reputations & relationships.  Respect for our counterparts is a strong advantage to us.  It’s not a gift to them & it’s not contingent on their respecting us in return.’  Also, ‘respecting the other’s perspective doesn’t mean you agree with it.’

–       Seeking balance / moving in from the poles – Weeks advocates ‘moving in from the poles’.  Take a satellite view, see the big picture & you’ll have more options than you think. (see figure for an example)

By seeking balance ‘it’s easier to recover from a mistake if you start from neutral ground. Think of a folding fan – when it’s closed, the ends are all we see; when we open it up, there’s a lot more inside. We want to put ourselves in positions to work out difficult conversations rather than have them happen to us.  It’s the difference between diving & falling into the water.  There is skill, on the one hand & on the other hand, there’s an accident, one that hurts a lot.’

–       Power – Weeks says when we are ‘one down’ (in a subordinate position) we feel threatened by power & we try to control our self.  Conversely when we are ‘one up’ (we are in a position of authority) we feel threats to our power & try to control others.

–       Mock interview – part of our strategy when preparing for hard conversations should be doing a mock interview, where we honestly answer the following 3 questions (for our purposes, no one else’s): what is our preferred outcome?, what do we want our working relationship to be? (with the party we’re in conflict with) & what interferences are there? (what’s conflicting/interfering).  We tend to think of conflict as a one off event but it doesn’t have to be.  Time out(s) to think, strategize & regroup are perfectly fine.

–        The big 3 emotions – beware the 3 most ‘popular’ emotions when in conflict à fear, anger & embarrassment.  Consider what your ‘emotional history’ is.  Where are your roots pointing when it comes to the big 3?

–       Thwarting ploys – I love this phrase.  It sounds like it comes out of a children’s fairy tale where the dastardly devil, while rubbing her hands together, with a sly smile & a crooked grin, whispers ‘I’m going to do a thwarting ploy on you my pretty!’  Weeks calls strategies that are meant to undermine, sabotage & otherwise sideline us, by the party we’re in conflict  with, thwarting ploys.  She says we can immunize ourselves against them by mock interviewing ourselves & being aware of the big 3.  Changing tacks by having more than one strategy at our disposal also helps (as opposed to using the same strategy for every conflict you come across).

How do we know if the other person is using a thwarting ploy?  Simple.  We can’t know, so the better question is ‘are we vulnerable to the ploy?’  Our first response, says Weeks, should be an innocent offensive, because it may be true (the person may not know they are truly being offensive) & what’s more, by not making any assumptions on our part & reacting with big guns blazing, we won’t escalate the situation.

–       ‘Blueprint for speaking well in tough moments’ – Weeks’ blueprint is threefold – make sure the content you’re communicating is crystal clear (no room for wishy washy here), ensure your tone is neutral & use what she calls temperate phrasing.  ‘People react to provocative phrasing regardless of the content.’

As conflict is one of the big 3 you can’t avoid in life (death & taxes being the other 2), if you need to strategize your way out of some difficult conversations & want to expand your con res strategy beyond ‘take it, take it, have a cow’ check out Week’s book.  It’s like a milk & honey salve to the most challenging conflicts.