Eliciting Real Emotions in a Virtual World
Just last week the Human Capital Institute and I embarked on a webcast entitled Enabling Leaders to Create an Emotional Connection, which was sponsored by Oracle Human Capital Management. One of the unique features of the HCI webcast platform is its ability to poll the attendees in real time and I was excited to take advantage of this functionality in my presentation. When the webcast poll responses began flooding in with sentiments of deep emotional openness and genuine gratitude, I knew we had accomplished our goal of 'Enabling Emotional Connections.' The webcast attendees opened up emotionally and risked sharing experiences that changed their lives. “My husband and I lost our three-month old baby. It was devastating, but it also strengthened us.” “I’m the only survivor of a family of eight and belonging and teaming mean everything to me.” "Perfect strangers stopped to help us with our broken down car and left before we could thank them, how inspiring that was!”
In waves of grace the attendees led each other into a deep terrain of humanity and leadership. The depth of connections, trust and rapport between over 100 remotely distributed professionals was unlike anything anyone on the webcast had experienced before.
During our debrief, my host Andrew from HCI asked, “How did you manage to do that Val Jon?” You drew everyone out in such a respectful yet powerful way.” My response was that when we as leaders are willing to risk our own vulnerability by being emotionally open and real, it sets a precedent for others to do the same. Also whether we know it or not, our emotional presence and degree of emotional openness influences how open or closed others are around us. In other words, we are much like orchestra conductors and the behaviors we evoke in others are much like how each musician responds to the conductor’s gestures.
My analogy isn’t original however, as I borrowed it from a traveler I met on a flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles a few years ago. I had just completed a three-month consulting project in Asia and was exhausted. I settled into business class to try and sleep, but the guy next to me was intent on striking up a conversation. He looked somewhat disheveled and in my estimation, a bit over-animated as he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a leadership development coach and mentor and without a moment’s hesitation he said, “Oh, I know all about that, let me tell you all about it.” I thought to myself, “Why me? Oh boy, here we go.” Then he said something that piqued my curiosity. “I’m the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, in essence I’m a musical coach.”
His next sentence left a huge impression on me. “You know what great coaching comes down to Val Jon? (He didn’t wait for me to answer), “When I hear something great or inspiring from my musicians, I encourage more of it. When I hear something off or sour, I encourage less of it. That’s all there is to masterful coaching, encouraging more greatness and encouraging less pettiness.”
And that’s exactly what happened on our “Enabling Leaders to Create an Emotional Connection” webcast last week. We encouraged greatness and that’s exactly what the attendees gave us. And like a symphony of extraordinary musicians, they were a true inspiration!