It was 10 PM on the West Coast. No one was looking forward to the meeting.
Teams from three companies, different time zones, some tired from a long day, coming together to hash out supplier issues. All three gearing up for an unpleasant, finger-pointing, contentious hour of disagreement and stubborn resistance on all sides.
All three teams expected to walk away frustrated.
Valerie, the vice president I’m coaching, was one of the 12 people attending. That’s a tough number of people to manage in a heated debate.
Valerie arrived to the meeting early. And did something no one had ever done in previous meetings:
She turned on her camera.
The first thing they saw when their screens flickered to life was Valerie’s genuine smile and warm eyes. Her personal and warm “Hello!” was irresistible. They found themselves involuntarily shifting gears and smiling back.
As each person joined one by one, Valerie looked past the black square on the screen and saw the person on the other side of the camera. She greeted them individually, warmly and established rapport with each one. Genuine rapport.
One by one, without being asked, they all turned their cameras on and, the next thing you know, they were talking warmly with each other. Like friends, actually.
Valerie had set it in motion. The effect was amazing. Their discussion began with something they never had at the start of their previous meetings: a solid foundation built of rapport.
A little bit of chitchat and then jumping into the agenda is not the same as building a solid foundation.
Valerie built a solid foundation of rapport between all of them. And then she re-defined what they were there to do.
She told me their response to her was “instant positive”. She said it was “amazing how quickly people responded”.
And from there, Valerie said, “It snowballed.”
The meeting transformed from conflict into a collaboration.
Valerie said, “We went from feeling like we were enemies to being on the same team.”
The definition of friend in Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition is someone on the same side of the struggle.
The moment you put them on the other side of the struggle, they’re your enemy.
The moment they’re on the same side of the struggle with you, you’re friends.
Doing this requires a unique skill. It’s the skill of re-defining the struggle, defining it big enough that you’re both on the same side. If you’re fighting, you haven’t re-defined struggle well enough or big enough. It makes all the difference in the world. This is a skill we also coach you on inside Beyond Persuasion: The new route to extraordinary outcomes.
The results were extraordinary. The discussion was productive. It took less time. They all left the meeting energized instead of frustrated. Valerie’s boss was in awe. Valerie was beaming as she told me about it.
One person can change the course of a conversation. It doesn’t take effort and you don’t need to experience stress. What you need is the ability to transform any difficult situation into a meeting of “friends.”
Be the cause!