What do you do when you feel exasperated? Here is what I discovered when I didn’t feel heard, but it was really important that I got buy-in. I tried something I hadn’t done before, out of a need to be more influential.
Here’s what exasperation felt like to me
I was standing next to an open ditch. It was supposed to have a new water main (pipe) in it. But it wasn’t there. Three people were telling me all of the reasons why the installation would be delayed.
In my usual, calm thoughtful manner, I was exploring options. Though every suggestion I made was quickly rejected.
I felt like I was lobbing tennis balls over the net, only to have them all smashed back. Eventually I was standing in a pile of worn-out tennis balls. In that moment, I knew I had to be more influential. I needed to be heard. A lot of kids were going to be impacted if we couldn’t solve this delay to getting their new school open.
To get my point across I decided to make a shift.
The tennis-ball machine rapid fire
Metaphorically I put a whole bunch of tennis balls in the ball machine and spat them rapid fire over the net.
In reality, I told spoke really quickly – not loudly or angrily but really fast.
- They couldn’t interrupt me.
- Their eyes opened wide in surprise.
- And they could finally hear and feel the intensity of the situation.
The dramatic shift in my engagement, got and held their attention. Applying new influence changed the dynamics of the conversation and opened more options for collaboration.
Curious if we opened on schedule? Well, it took a lot of team work, but yes, we got the water main done in time.
Sometimes fast; sometimes slow
In my situation, I sped up my speech to disrupt the flow of the conversation.
Maybe you want to slow down your speech to draw in an audience at a presentation.
Maybe you want to match your speech to the tempo of the CEO when you talk with her.
Exercise for strengthening influence muscle
Here’s an exercise for your influence muscle:
- Today, get something to read – a book, an article, a long blog
- Then, set a timer for 2 minutes, and read aloud at a comfortable pace until the timer goes off. Mark your last word.
- Take a breath and sip some water. Then start a stopwatch and read that same section aloud, but slower – and stop the watch when you reach that word. Your goal is to stretch it out to 2.5 minutes.
- Take another deep breath. Then try reading aloud quickly, aiming for 1.5 minutes.
- What did you notice?
- When talking slowly, where did you pause and which words did you emphasize?
- When talking quickly, what did you brush over and which words did you punch?
- Through the week, find an opportunity each day, to intentionally change your speech speed, and see what happens.
- At the end of the week, notice how it feels to confirm that you have different speeds available in you.
