Hello!
In the past weeks, I participated in a series of workshops entitled “Intra- and Interpersonal Competencies for academia” organised by the Human Resources at ETH Zürich. These were hosted by Gerald Weber, an improvisation theatre expert, and Dr Marieke Buffing, ETH research fellow & facilitator.
Even though I could only be present in two of the three units, “Group Dynamics and Social Influence” and “Interpersonal Interaction and Diplomacy”, the knowledge and insights provided by Gerald and Marieke in these two days were astonishing. In this post, I would like to share five practical take-aways I learned that can positively impact interactions with others, both in personal life and at work:
1. Look for ways to connect with other people
2. Separate judgment from the production of thoughts
4. Be aware of how status influences interactions
5. Be flexible to adapt your status
1. Look for ways to connect with other people
From the beginning, Gerald would actively look for details to start a conversation with each individual and be fully present to get to know each other. The workshops were carried via Zoom, which could pose additional challenges to establish such connections. Nonetheless, these “conversation-starters” were as simple as visible objects in the background (such as paintings, plants, photographs, to name a few that start with “p”) or the Zoom background itself, and whether there was a story was behind it. More importantly, as the workshops took place on different days, Gerald would pick up these details in the next event, showing that he did listen and wanted to reinforce this connection.
Furthermore, another powerful and yet simple behaviour is to relate to what others are saying. In one of the exercises, we purposefully tried to identify actions or traits in our lives that some participants would likely share. If it was the case, everyone who also shared the same situation would say “Me too!” and we would continue with a new example. Relating to others sharing personal information was presented as a great way to break barriers and bring people together.
2. Separate judgment from the production of thoughts
We often need to generate new ideas, whether it is for an experiment, a group project, or to plan a memorable event. In this shared brainstorming process, we may feel internal pauses preventing us from saying random thoughts or ideas we think will be turned down by others. In this regard, we learned the importance of improvisation and the power of trusting the association of our first thought to external stimuli. By immediately sharing what comes to mind, we break the connection between ideation and judgment and allow ourselves to fully express our ideas. Ultimately, this strategy should produce enough material that can be later assessed with a more judgmental attitude to decide the best approach.
“It is better to work from abundance, generate many ideas and then decide which one to pursue.” - Dr Marieke Buffing
A technique shown was to create a train of thoughts where every new contribution had to start with “Yes and…” and later “Yes and because of that…”. With this strategy, we worked on taking the previous idea and adding something extra to build it further, always trying to block the judgmental split-second in our mind.
3. “Socialise the product.”
Next, we also addressed how to build and sustain engagement in team efforts. A successful collaboration usually requires all members to be motivated and willing to contribute to the common goal. Therefore, “socialising the product” by sharing the responsibilities among everyone while showing appreciation for each individual’s work is a great way to value contributions while maintaining a degree of commitment from each person. This approach may also foster future collaborations since showing appreciation for the work done will leave a positive memory favouring an affirmative response to further requests.
Simultaneously, when promoting teamwork, we should try to remove pressure regarding the expected quality of the contributions from each element. In more straightforward terms, by saying “What are three ways you could solve this situation?” instead of “What is your best solution to this situation?”, we expand the creative space to allow multiple possible scenarios that may complement each other, instead of requesting an elegant solution that has to fit perfectly the problem in hand. Ultimately, we were told this should lead to an overall better outcome.
4. Be aware of how status influences interactions
We also discussed concepts related to “power” and “status” and how they influence our perception of ourselves and others during an interaction. Although power was shown to be associated with external factors, such as the cultural context of our society or our hierarchical position within our group, status was presented as a dynamic trait that could change during a conversation, depending on our inner attitude and the external signals we convey to others. Furthermore, since we always communicate some information, even involuntarily, this will affect how others perceive us. In this regard, we did an exercise where each person was given a status level on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the highest status), but each person only knew others’ status. Through the interactions, each participant tried to identify their level on the scale. This example made it clear that if we are perceived with high status, others will engage and try to get our contribution to the discussion.
“Status is how you are treated.” - Gerald Weber
Furthermore, it showed that being always in a high status is not necessarily essential. Even in lower status, we can provide valuable contributions, for example, by supporting other people’s contributions and being proactive to take on a task that will be appreciated by others.
5. Be flexible to adapt your status
After understanding the importance of status, we focused on influencing the “status distribution” during an interaction. On a personal level, we can control our inner attitude about how we perceive ourselves and how we want to be perceived to convey a more positive attitude. One of the exercises clearly showed that it is hard to stay negative in a conversation if everyone else is being optimistic. If we actively try to be positive, others will likely perceive us in the same way. For instance, if we choose to face criticism with a positive attitude, this will convey confidence in ourselves and should indirectly improve our status in a group.
On a different note, if we are already in a high status during an interaction, a great technique is to lower our status to meet other people and then bring them up, even if temporarily. In practical terms, we learned four ways to achieve this goal: giving compliments, acknowledging people, giving the spotlight and accept (our) failures. This will improve our connection to others with a perceived lower status and create space for their contribution. Actually, by holding space (or time) and attributing it to someone, we conserve our perceived high status by leading the discussion. Still, we show that we value others perceived with lower status by giving dedicated time to hear them.
Conclusion
This post highlights a glimpse of what I experienced during these events. There were many more examples and techniques discussed that would make this text endlessly long. All in all, the mix of knowledge and practical exercises carried during the workshops created a realistic but safe environment to experiment and understand how far we can push the methods introduced. For those that are part of ETH Zürich, I thoroughly recommend checking these workshops (they usually run every semester) and taking the time to participate. It is remarkable how it can change our perspective on relationships and highlight the various ways we can improve interactions with others in our life.
Have a great day!
Acknowledgements
Image by Nicholas Swanson on Unsplash