How Do I Show Follow Through? Draw Boundaries? Interrupt?
In this week’s Medium post, I’m unpacking (with the help of my dear coachees) some helpful strategies for the world’s biggest, most looming business communication problems. What I’ve gathered here become themes and patterns I noticed from hundreds of individual coaching sessions and the recurring learning: Communication problems become personal problems, but also room for growing confidence — and courage, as you’ll find below.
How do I share successes without sucking up?
This big ask comes from gifted, ambitious leaders who’ve heard (as part of their performance review) any promotion ties to ensuring all stakeholders, not just the manager, see their follow through. But how do we alert those outside of our silo of completed, successful work, in non-showy ways?
A few ideas surfaced, including:
- Permit yourself to get on your soap box and share — which becomes essential for any resulting exposure, for you and your team. Challenge any fixed, negative mindset, especially something cultural from your upbringing, home state, or motherland.
- Think: What’s in it for the audience? Why ought they care? And how can this message help them personally? Professionally? [Note: This step helps challenge any fears of seeming self serving, etc.]
- Get creative with how you share the success. Successful strategies have included: Thanking the leader for their help. (Because of you, we won the deal, closed the proposal, gained the nod, etc.) Offering the completed work as a vital, helpful resource they can utilize, too. Sharing the victory within a meeting as a small, but exciting additional share — and to help motivate others to do the same.
- Keep any language authentic, plain, and concise — almost like an FYI. Also, include anything visible, even a photo of your smiling, triumphant team, to show vs. tell what changed. Use the subject line strategically when/if using email. A potential: Project X launched today — thanks to you!
How do I draw boundaries — at work, and at home?
Boundary setting surfaces often within coaching because leaders find the opposite (no boundaries) gets in their way of feeling calm, productive, and confident, too. But how to draw distance in ways which avoid offending and creating more stress and worry along the way? Here’s what leaders have found helpful:
- Understand what’s the underlying fear — why do I struggle here? [Note: Often we struggle out of fear of disappointing others, falling back, losing opportunity, or, out of a fixed mindset we acquired as children.]
- Challenge our Judge’s lies on boundaries. One leader found her struggles with boundaries stemmed from learning as a girl within a narcissistic family, she’d only gain and retain favor if she stayed agreeable. Big breakthroughs came from getting mindful, grounding, and challenging this notion with: That’s not true because…Also, take baby steps regularly by gently pushing back in low-stakes scenarios.
- Avoid letting your Judge assume what’s really going on. When we’re in a Saboteur-induced state, our Judge can wrongly assume things about us, our audience, and even our situation. Get clear on what’s really going on.
- Ground and reset before stating the boundary. Only when we re-center, get out of our mind, and into our body can we feel calm and strong enough to state what we need — and why.
- Keep any stating of boundary short, simple, and powerful. Also, where able, tie your response to values. Some effective examples include: I choose not to pick up what you’ve laid down. I opt to say no, vs. yes to X to honor my values of self care, self love, and efficiency, too. Or: Thank you; but, I’ll gently decline our appointment on Sunday; that’s my family/self care day.
How do I interrupt — without seeming bossy or rude?
I love this request for help because it shows audience centeredness, a want for authenticity, confidence, and efficiency. And yet, often our fear of offending or seeming rude and/or ungracious gets in our way. (This feeling compounds when the soliloquist is our boss.) Here lie some tried-and-tested techniques for gently steering the flow:
- Listen for any small pause or clarity; then…
- Ask: May I gently interrupt your lovely sharing to address our agenda?
- Remind them also of the time constraint or hard stop ahead and…
- Try combining the two. E.G. In the spirit of brevity (or given our hard stop at X time) may I gently interrupt to get us to X?
- Pick up their language and braid it in. E.G. Speaking of X, that’s a great segue to X, our core topic today. Does now become a good time to start?
For 1:1 scenarios, you might also try some coaching techniques — coaches know to stay on topic and drive results, we must sometimes interrupt in service of the coachee. The key: Keep things kind, spacious, and audience centered. Also, look for connections. A few segues may include:
- I see you light up when sharing X. How does X connect with Y, if at all?
- I hear a lot on X; but you declared Y as your topic. Does X become where you really want to explore today? (Or, does X become the true topic?)
- We’re approaching time; but, I’d love to hear (bottom line) what’s coming clearer to you, if anything at all?
With that, you’ve insights into ways to interrupt in service of our audience, share our successes, and draw boundaries with those getting in our way. I hope this sharing feels helpful and sparks something small (or big) within. Have fun communicating this week.
Debbi Gardiner McCullough coaches and trains immigrant leaders to become more confident, concise, and authentic communicators. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communication effectiveness fellow coach to leaders all over the globe with BetterUp.