How you ‘show up’ in your professional role is critical to your level of success.
We know that in order to thrive and lead effectively in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, we need to …
Show up differently
Listen differently
Communicate differently … so that everybody can
Think differently!
We now live in a thinking world, not a doing world. In that thinking context, it can be useful to reflect on whether you are showing up ‘of service to’ others or ‘in service of’ others.
Being ‘of service’ to others is driven by an ‘attention in’ mindset (me at the centre) and being ‘in service’ of others is driven by an ‘attention out’ mindset (others at the centre). The key difference is based on who is at the centre of your thinking and your perspective, and how you process the concept of prospective personal reward.
Being ‘of service’ to others is what my son does when he serves a customer at his part time job. The customer comes to purchase a product, my son helps them to select the product that he thinks will be right for them based on what they have asked for using his expertise and knowledge and what makes sense for him in his experience. Then, assuming that the customer agrees with his advice – which they almost always do – he sells the product to them. He feels good (rewarded) because he has been of service, and made a sale, and a customer is happy. He will be rewarded through his sales figures and good customer feedback. His ‘attention in‘ is the personal reward he receives based on his needs being met. It doesn’t really matter if the customer goes home and realises that they had been talked into buying the product that wasn’t quite what they were after.
When you are ‘of service’ you listen for what the other person is asking for and assume it is what they want, you search your knowledge banks for a match, then you offer your advice or suggestion. It’s a surface activity. ‘So what I think you need is …’ or ‘so what you need to do is …’. Sometimes the ‘attention in’ reward is saving your time or meeting a deadline that is important to you. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, but this approach does not align with what we now understand happens in the human brain.
The bandwidth limitations of the Pre-frontal Cortex – the executive, decision-making, deep thinking part of our brain – means that humans mostly present with an articulation of ‘symptoms’ or initial thoughts and ideas and a limited understanding of, or presence to, the underlying needs or drivers of their issue or challenge. We also know that the human brain seeks to preserve energy, so if another brain is willing to do all the work (the thinking) then it will happily avoid that expenditure of energy.
In organisations we spend a lot of time solving the wrong problems because we don’t take the time or have the skill to dig down to find the ‘real’ issue or to help others figure things out for themselves. In the education context, this is equally as relevant to the problems that children present and in fact, their brain development means that they are even less able to ‘think deeply’ and at the level of truth about themselves or their challenges, so the adults in their lives need to be skilled in assisting them do think things through for themselves rather than rely only on ‘teaching’.
In contrast, being ‘in service‘ is what a skilled coach, leader or educator does. The ‘customer’ comes with a problem. The coach assumes that this initial articulation is merely a starting point and asks useful questions (ie, not just any questions, but curious socratic-style questions) to truly understand what the person wants and needs, or to diagnose their thinking limitations. The assumption is that an individual knows best what they need, and it is the coach or leaders role to help them articulate or discover that for themselves. In many cases this is unlikely to be the same as the initial issue presented and is one of the big AHA moments that students in our conversation and coaching programs experience.
Whilst some parents, leaders and coaches do this naturally, it is not normal for humans to behave in this way, particularly when they are stressed, biased, emotional or time poor, and that has negative consequences. We are starting to understand that the less we know about the details of a challenge that someone else is experiencing, the more we can help. It is arrogant to believe that you can truly understand the experience of another person and have a simple answer for them. When you are ‘in service’ of others your personal reward comes not from your ability to solve the problem, but from your ability to help others solve their own problems – ‘attention out‘.
In my previous two posts I focused on the need to focus on and create psychological safety in our organisations. Taking an ‘in service’ approach to conversations is a very effective way to create that psychological safety one conversation at a time.
Take some time today to notice and observe the conversations around you, and yours too. Are you and others showing up ‘of service’ or ‘in service’ to others and how might that be impacting on efficiency, psychological safety, personal and professional accountability and growth?
To help you, here is a quick self-diagnostic you can use and share with others. Enjoy!
