Darin

Engaging with an Unreceptive (or Hostile) Audience

CAVEAT: This is geared less toward sales and more toward partnerships.

Often, we are required to develop partnerships with organizations and people who are less than receptive to our message. Even if we are passionate about what we are doing, we sometimes are unable to convince people to partner with us.

As part of my community engagement work, I have attempted to partner with several large religious organizations. In one instance, I was specifically told by the organization’s leader they would not be working on this project…nothing personal, but the organization was making a stand against the government’s involvement in this matter.

Being shutdown or rejected like this is difficult. I left this interaction with questions about how to better approach the situation. I spent some time reviewing over other, previous interactions which started out similarly. And, I feel the following points were very helpful to me to engage with unreceptive or hostile audiences:

Actively listen to their viewpoint and objections. I often have a tendency to have my response or rebuttal already formed prior to the other person even ending their statement. This is the wrong approach. This is something that I am actively working on—being a better active listener. I need to ingest and digest the other person’s points of view before continuing to develop a relationship. I need to listen to their full statement before I attempt to counteract it.

Meet them where they are physically and mentally. Physically, it is important for me to show that I am willing to go wherever they want to meet — to break down the tradition of meeting halfway or having the other person come to me. This go-to-them attitude shows that I respect their time so much I will make a personal sacrifice to meet them.

From a mental standpoint, meeting them where they are means for me to empathize with their position. Often, I find myself taking a more indignant position—I know that I am right because I am right. Or, I know I am right because this is how it is going to eventually be. In my time with the FBI, I had this mentality in certain instances. I would participate in joint projects and activities with my colleagues from other agencies, but I knew when things “got real”, we (the FBI) would probably take over and control the environment. After all, we were the feds.

Be open to change or modification. While we all have standards to adhere to, it is important that we know the rules and protocols well enough that we can change or modify to meet their needs. As a former Bible school student, I learned about missionary work being done in South America. Many, effective, missionaries would learn about the indigenous cultural traditions and then find a way to marry up the Gospel with the local traditions. There were times, obviously, this didn’t work. But, it is important, especially when dealing with an unreceptive audience, to attempt this method as best as possible.

Be patient. One of my favorite expressions is “it’s not a sprint, it is a marathon.” This is important for how view our progress with these audiences. We should realize that we may not be able to immediately change or sell them to our cause. We should try to focus on the little wins we make along the way.

I’ve used this expression before, but instead of viewing this process like ‘The Game of Life’, we should view it as ‘Monopoly.’ We should realize there are going to be many cycles we make around the board before we get to a stage of having some comfort or control in the environment.

Like in the game Monopoly, there are always going to be times in which we have to venture into other peoples’ territories. This can be scary, but if we “actively listen to their viewpoint and objections,” “meet them where they are,” “be open to change or modification,” and “be patient,” then we will be more successful in our journey.

Read the original here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/engaging-unreceptive-hostile-audience-darin-challacombe

Across the Microwave

Today, I led a group of seven volunteers to visit a local shelter for people experiencing homelessness. The shelter’s volunteer coordinator and I had talked a few months back about providing a cooking class for the residents. There was one catch: The residents would only have access to a microwave.

I like to cook, but I mostly just cook for meal prepping. I do not use the microwave very often. Designing a recipe booklet with only microwaveable choices was difficult, but I felt up to the challenge. And, over the past month, I have curated a few recipes and tested them out.

I put together a recipe book for the clients. Feel free to download, try out the recipes, and let me know what you think. I have the sourcing for the recipes if you are interested.

The photo was taken today at the shelter. (I received permission for the photo.)

Learning Styles

Several years ago, I worked on a project with youth from a state’s foster care agency. This project required teaching youth about their learning styles. My (then) boss talked about the five learning styles, specifically visual, aural, verbal, mathematical, and tactile. We all took a short quiz and rated our learning styles. I found out I scored high in all five, which I attributed to having to adapt to different styles based upon my years of formal education.

Christian Jarrett posted about a recent study conducted using the VARK learning styles tool. The study, authored by Polly R. Husmann and Valerie Dean O’Loughlin, found students who were provided learning matching their preferred learning style did not learn any better. While interesting, a few points to make:

The study focused on a sample of college students in an anatomy course. This would indicate these students were probably pre-med or similar academic track.
From the VARK site, a good portion of the aggregated participant samples are those identified as “university”, “two-year college”, or “high school”. This is a younger group of participants, which may support my experience (e.g., finding out I was not polarized on one learning style or the other) may be more common than is reported.

The Jarrett post and Husmann/O’Loughlin article tend to negatively focus on learning styles as a whole. I would like to argue that there is enough research to support there is something to learning styles. I believe, however, as an individual gets older and more experienced, the individual adapts to other styles and, in turn, loses a real preference for a specific style vs. another.

That would be an interesting study…

A Simple But Powerful Tool: Thank You Cards

Within the past month, we have been interviewing applicants for a senior recruiter position. As part of human resources, I have panel interviewed applicants. Earlier this week, we came to a decision. The decision was between two very qualified individuals. Both had great skillsets, interviewed well, and would fit the chemistry of our office. I initially gave my recommendation for one, but changed it after I received something from the other applicant.

For me, it was interesting how the simple act of a “thank you for interviewing me” email from this applicant impacted my decision so strongly. And, as serendipitous as things usually are, I ran across a recent article on this topic by Kumar and Epley (2018) in Psychological Science.

This study was straight-forward enough. In a series of four experiments, individuals sent gratitude letters to recipients; the senders and recipients were subsequently asked to complete surveys about the experience. Of course, not every recipient completed the survey, but enough did to get some clear results.

Kumar and Epley (2018) found people do not truly appreciate the value of gratitude on others. In three of the four experiments, the senders underestimated the recipients’ positive reaction to the gratitude. This undervaluing of the impact appeared to influence whether someone would express gratitude.

These researchers also suggested expressing gratitude in person or verbally made more of an impact than sending a card or letter. The latter appears to people as not being as sincere. It is definitely harder to express gratitude in person to someone, but it is important.

I have a stack of “thank you” cards on my desk. I fill one of these out when someone goes out of their way to help me. I try to take some time periodically to write these notes of gratitude to people. Sometimes I get a response; sometimes I do not. Either way, I feel that this small investment, overall, pays dividends. Given this research, I will try to more explicitly express gratitude in person from here on out.

Cultural Competency Defined

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of facilitating a group on the topic of cultural competency. The group of about 50 people were completing the training in order to be qualified to volunteer at Kansas City, Missouri-area elementary schools. This training was developed to provide people with the opportunity to be open and vulnerable to learning new cultures.

During this two-hour training, we developed a definition of cultural competency based on words and phrases given in a group activity:

The open and appropriate engagement of others through awareness, sensitivity, adaption, understanding, curiosity, and compassion in order to be responsive to others.

I liked this definition because it does seem to encapsulate what the training was attempting to do: Be appropriate and open when engaging with others who are different. Put aside the implicit biases we may have about others. Understand, every person is different and unique; and, while stereotypes may be (sometimes helpful) cognitive shortcuts, they often cause us to make incorrect assumptions about others.