New Year’s Resolutions Part 1: Increasing Conversational Intelligence for Game Changing Results

Chris Curran: Growth Igniters Radio with Pam Harper and Scott Harper^®, Episode 99: New Year’s Resolutions Part 1: Increasing Conversational Intelligence for Game Changing Results

This episode is brought to you by Business Advancement Incorporated − enabling successful leaders and companies to accelerate to their next level of success. On the web at businessadvance.com. And now, here’s Pam and Scott.

Pam Harper: Thanks Chris. I’m Pam Harper, Founding Partner and CEO of Business Advancement Incorporated, and right across form me as always is my business partner and husband, Scott Harper. Hi Scott.

Scott Harper: Hi Pam. As always, it’s terrific to be joining you again for another episode of Growth Igniters Radio With Pam Harper and Scott Harper. And if you’re listening for the first time, our purpose is to spark new insights, inspiration, and immediately useful ideas for visionary leaders to accelerate themselves − and their companies − to the next level of growth and success. So Pam, what’s up for today?

Pam Harper: As we’re closing the book on 2016 and looking ahead to 2017, it’s appropriate to take a moment to think about New Year’s resolutions. We’ll do this in two parts this week and next week, as we hit our 100^th episode.

Scott Harper: One hundred episodes! We’ve been doing this for almost two years now.

Pam Harper: It’s true; we started in February 2015. For this week’s resolution, were focusing on something that should be an ongoing practice for anyone who is committed to dramatically growing their company so that it’s first fast and foremost. That is elevating the ability to have more open and effective conversations. In order to ignite and sustain the momentum that it takes to get through the inevitable ups and downs on the journey of growth, we need to communicate through more than email, tweets, and texts. There’s just too much room for misinterpretation, even with emojis. We need to communicate with each other through conversation.

Scott Harper: Right; you know, we all have conversations − at least we say we do − but there’s a real difference we’ve noticed over the years between talking with somebody, and actually having a really truly effective conversation that connects, that engages and motivates, that really informs and gets down to the bottom of stuff. The reason for that is that conversation is based on both neuroscience and how you actually apply yourself in the conversation.

Pam Harper: You’re right; we’ve learned that from the guest that we are featuring this week. We are going revisit an encore of our very first conversation with Judith E Glaser, CEO at Benchmark Communications and Chairman and Cofounder of the Creating We^® Institute. This conversation was our third episode, and we’ve had Judith back over the years on and off. This first conversation sets the tone for what conversational intelligence is really all about.

Just a bit more about Judith − She’s the award-winning author of the best-selling books, Creating WE and Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results.

In 2004 Judith was awarded Woman of the Year in New York City. Since 2006 she has been listed in as one of the top 10 consultants globally in the Excellence Top 100 Consultants and is considered one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders globally on the subject of leadership. In 2011, Judith was awarded the Drexel University Distinguished Alumni Award, and in 2006 she was inducted into the Temple University Gallery of Success.

Judith is frequently quoted on her revolutionary workplace approaches in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Crain’s, Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, AMA World, etc. and is a contributing Editor for Executive Excellence Magazine

Scott Harper: And we are lucky to count her among our friends. You can visit growth igniters radio.com and select episode 99 to see show notes for this episode, including links to other conversations that we’ve had with Judith over the past two years. Now, let’s pick up on our conversation with Judith E Glaser about why conversational intelligence is a game changer in business. Stay with us…

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Pam Harper: I am so excited to have her here. Welcome, Judith.

Judith Glaser: I’m so thrilled to be on your show. I’m really, really excited.

Pam Harper: That’s wonderful.

Judith Glaser: Yeah.

Pam Harper: Judith, talk to us a little bit about what is this field of conversational intelligence.

Judith Glaser: We use conversations all the time, every day, from the time a baby’s born until the time we end our lives. It’s the glue that holds human beings together; but so often, we think of conversations as giving information to other people, or telling people things to do. It’s that we’ve been growing up in the information age, and so we think of conversations as information between people. In fact, the dictionary definition talks about it that way.

Pam Harper: Conversation is information?

Judith Glaser: That’s not what I say it is. That’s what the dictionary says it is.

Pam Harper: Interesting.

Judith Glaser: Yeah, so I wrote a dictionary a bunch of years ago for Random House, and it made me think about how the way we define things in the world shapes the way we experience them. From the time I was young I was interested in neuroscience at a crazy level, and so I said to myself, “What if conversations were something different than what we thought they were? What if, in fact, conversations have many levels to them,” which we all know, because when we sit in our head and think about something as we’re talking, that’s a level.

Pam Harper: True.

Judith Glaser: When we observe someone after we’ve had the conversation, that’s another level. I said, “Conversations really have to be redefined as how we connect, navigate, and grow with others.”

Scott Harper: It’s about more than just words, then.

Judith Glaser: It’s absolutely more than just words. Words are important, and we can talk about that too; but the key is to broaden people’s awareness about how conversations are so important that we should actually prime for them, and while we’re in them, we should check and see how we’re doing. Afterwards, we need to also think about the impact. We’ve broadened conversations from the words to a whole process of engagement between human beings.

Pam Harper: You know, that’s really interesting, because we have conversations with people as naturally as breathing, and we all get into these habits.

Isn’t that true? Don’t you find that there are habitual ways that people have conversations?

Judith Glaser: Well, you’ve actually nailed the heart of what conversations and conversational intelligence is all about, so thank you for re-focusing on that, and that is that conversations are habit patterns that we get into, we’ve gotten into, from the time we were little when a parent says, “Don’t do what I do, do what I say” − all those clever little things that people used to control us when we were bad.

Pam Harper: That’s true, and so it’s almost as natural as breathing, sometimes. That’s what makes it so tricky.

Judith Glaser: Mm-hmm, it is; and yet, every time we start to think about conversations in terms of rituals instead of the bad side, which is the habit patterns that don’t work, when I shift it or refocus people into thinking of conversations as rituals that we all can learn to do, we have the ability to open up different parts of our brain, different parts of our body, meaning even our heart, and enable us to tap into wisdom that even we didn’t know that we had.

Scott Harper: Judith, you mentioned that you had this interest in neurochemistry and neurophysiology, so it sounds like a lot of your understanding about conversation intelligence is really based upon evidence. It’s evidence-based, science-based, which really resonates with me, because I was trained as a scientist. I like to say, “Why do things work?” If we understand why things work, then we can understand how to make them work better. What is some of the science behind conversational intelligence that takes it out of opinion and more into the realm of theory and application?

Judith Glaser: I’m so glad that we’re able to talk about science now, because, Scott and Pam, as you can imagine, when I tried to bring science 30 years ago into the discussion about leadership, I have to tell you, I had at least 100 rejections of this book that is now Conversational Intelligence, which says it all in language that people can understand. The thrust in the last ten years of neuroscience has been to become a part of everybody’s thought agenda. Even in schools, people are thinking about it; it’s made it easier for me to talk about this.

Here are a couple of really cool things. One is that in .07 seconds, our brain can get something. It’s a level that’s so much faster than just the words alone, because for me to just say a word, it’s much longer in terms of time. Our body, as we’re interacting with each other, in .07 seconds is picking up chemistry and electrochemistry, and the waves that we’re sending each other, and making decisions on our behalf.

Scott Harper: What’s an example?

Judith Glaser: Whether I trust you or not. We now know that within ten feet of another person, the electrochemical waves of me processing my experience with you, and you processing your experience with me, are happening. As we get close, our hearts pick up that chemistry. It’s a combination of chemical and electrical, and our heart reads that and sends messages to the brain − either I trust or distrust this person.

Pam Harper: It’s a gut feeling.

Scott Harper: That gut feeling really real, it’s not just in my head.

Judith Glaser: Right.

Scott Harper: Well, I guess it is in my head, but it’s more in my brain and my body, right?

Judith Glaser: Yeah, it’s in your heart –

Scott Harper: Wow.

Judith Glaser: – and in your gut, and the neurons that go from the gut to the brain are different. They are longer and more powerful; it’s like a speedier train. You can take an Acela train, or you can take a slow train; that certain nerves have been built and designed for us. The VONS neurons, for example, which are the ones I’m talking about, are made to have speedier connections, and so when we say, “Do you trust your gut,” that’s there for a reason. That’s an evolutionary phenomena.

Pam Harper: That’s amazing.

Scott Harper: So the more we understand that, the more we can start to really shape our conversation in a much more beneficial way.

Judith Glaser: Yes. An example of shaping the conversation more beneficially, Scott, is that there were times that people would say, “Use your head, don’t use your gut.” In other words, the guidance was that you can’t trust it. It’s just a gut, right?

Pam Harper: Right.

Judith Glaser: “Use your head.”

Pam Harper: That feeling is something that people would say is ridiculous…

Scott Harper: Yeah. It’s not rational.

Pam Harper: Especially in business.

Judith Glaser: Exactly. Exactly.

Pam Harper: Right. You’re saying we really do have to trust our gut.

Judith Glaser: Yes, learn to trust our gut. In fact, the new research on cognitive biases, is saying that our brain deceives us so often. For example, we really want someone to love us, so we give them a halo, and we don’t see, as a result of that, the signals they’re sending us that are the distrust signals. Now we’ve used our head in a way that makes us feel great inside, “Oh, they love me, I’m going to fall in love with this person. They love me,” and we’re not picking up the signals that our gut is telling us, “Hold it. Your relationship isn’t strong enough yet, don’t marry that person.”

Pam Harper: Or don’t hire them.

Judith Glaser: Don’t hire them, right.

Scott Harper: Or don’t sign that contract.

Judith Glaser: Yeah, exactly.

Pam Harper: Well, this is something that we’re going to have to do a little more conversation about, but we’re going to take a quick break right now. When we come back, we’ll talk more with Judith Glaser about how conversational intelligence is changing the way we think about leadership and culture change. Stay with us.

Scott Harper: We’re so glad you’re listening to Growth Igniters Radio with Pam Harper and Scott Harper. We’re brought to you by Business Advancement Incorporated, and we’re on the web at businessadvance.com. We focus on enabling visionary leaders to dramatically increase momentum in their companies for game-changing results.

Pam Harper: Does this topic resonate with you? Well, we have more. Check out related episodes to expand your perspectives, and take away even more immediately actionable ideas. Just go to growthignitersradio.com, select Episode 99, and scroll down to Resources.

Scott Harper: And while you’re there, sign up for our weekly alert of upcoming episodes so you’ll always be up to date…

Pam Harper: Welcome back to Growth Igniters Radio with Pam Harper − that’s me − and Scott Harper.

We’re talking with Judith Glaser, CEO of CreatingWE®, and the award-winning author of the bestselling book, Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. Judith, how can people find your book, and get more information about Creating WE?

Judith Glaser: The easiest way is to go to Amazon, and just type in Conversational Intelligence and you will find the book. The second way is to go to http://www.creatingwe.com, where we have lots of information, articles, and things that people can use to help them think through how they could use Creating WE technologies and conversational intelligence in the workplace. Lots of great interviews … Of course, yours will be up there as soon as we get it.

Pam Harper: That’s great. I have to say, it really is a wealth of information, so definitely check this out.

Pam Harper: Okay − getting back, we talked a bit about what conversational intelligence is and where it comes from, the scientific basis and all of that. Can you tell us a little bit more about why it’s a game changer in business?

Judith Glaser: I’ve been in my business for over 30 years, and when I started, people would talk about culture change and transformation, and the theory was that it takes seven years to change a culture.

Pam Harper: Right.

Judith Glaser: Right, and you have to do people, processes, strategy, the whole nine yards. There’s seven bullets, and each one takes so many years, and stuff like that. I have challenged that from the very beginning that I started to learn about the power of the neuroscience of WE, and the importance of relationships and conversations to making culture change work. I flipped everything upside down; and so when I talk about the .07 second effect, or I talk about the caring effect − which is, for example, when people really care about each other, not about just that “I win,” but how can we win, which is often a piece of what culture change is all about − that mindset shift activates a different part of our brain, which enables us to think more holistically.

I want to talk about that with you, because it’s so important for culture change, right? More holistically, more with greater connectivity, and with the ability to step into taking risks and challenging the status quo, which is what change is all about.

Pam Harper: That’s right − especially culture change and culture transformation.

Judith Glaser: Right. Just changing processes, or changing the order of things, or just changing strategies that you print out in a document, is not where change happens. We have to learn that change takes place when the prefrontal cortex, which is called the executive brain, when that part of the brain is willing to open up, meaning it trusts the environment that it’s in, the relationship environment or the cultural environment. Until that part of the brain opens up, we will continue to recycle habit patterns and strategies that you already know. We might move the chairs on the deck, but we don’t get change.

Scott Harper: Okay, so Judith, just to put this in context as an example: I’m going to frame something and then ask for your opinion. Way back, years ago, when I first joined corporate research and development from academia, one of the first things my supervisor at the time said is, “Don’t talk to those people in marketing, because they’ll steal your ideas, they’ll take credit, and if it doesn’t work they’ll blame you.” We were really siloed. After a few years, slowly the leaders at the top actually changed − the CEO changed − and we started getting more and more encouragement to be multidisciplinary and to work together. It did take a long time, but finally we started to get that feeling of, “Okay, I can trust you; you understand me, I understand you. We have different agendas to some extent, but we have a common goal.”

Pam Harper: Are you saying, then, Judith, that conversational intelligence could have speeded up that process? It took a long time.

Scott Harper: Yeah, at least three years.

Judith Glaser: Yeah, exactly. I understand that fear of sharing the best of what you know with other people, because all of a sudden, especially if you’re getting rewarded in your company for having great ideas, all of a sudden you’re giving “the enemy,” which is what it feels like, the goods. In fact, the word collaboration means “cohorting with the enemy.”

Scott Harper: Oh, really?

Pam Harper: Cohorting with the enemy?

Judith Glaser: Yes.

Scott Harper: I never knew that.

Judith Glaser: Look it up in the dictionary.

Scott Harper: You learn something new every day.

Judith Glaser: Yes, yes. Exactly.

Pam Harper: Okay, everybody out there, take notes.

Judith Glaser: I mean, goodness gracious, we’ve really created walls for ourselves, haven’t we?

Pam Harper: That is really interesting.

Scott Harper: So how can we then use conversational leadership to change the way we look at leadership and culture change, and make it more effective and faster?

Judith Glaser: The key in conversational intelligence, and why this work excites me so much, is if you change the feel of the environment, then you change the chemistry of the conversations and relationships. Let me explain that. If during the course of a change process, the whole process was designed around how to create cross-functional integration in conversations, how to set up strategies and systems and communication protocol, or rituals, to enable people to share the best of what they’re thinking from their disciplines, and try to piece it together to try to create a puzzle that’s much bigger, that’s a great thing. In other words, to put the puzzle pieces together to determine, or uncover, unearth, your organization’s greatest assets, because you have a marketplace that you want to bring your work to.

Pam Harper: Exactly.

Judith Glaser: How do you find what’s the best of the best? With that in mind, you will shape a completely different strategy for culture change and transformation that actually activates that prefrontal cortex heart trust … That’s where trust lives … Part of the brain, and people won’t be afraid anymore to share. In fact, the excitement of sharing will lead to higher levels of dopamine, that gets us excited; endorphins, that’s where best practices emerge. People start to see a completely different outcome – when they think in terms of conversational intelligence frameworks.

Pam Harper: Interesting. Do you have just a really quick story maybe you could share of how that actually worked in practice?

Judith Glaser: Oh, my goodness, I have so many. I have so many.

Pam Harper: Just anything.

Judith Glaser: Yeah. One of the biggest ones, because of both the economic result as well as the culture transformation, was work that I did with Clairol. You know, the hair color company, right?

Pam Harper: Right.

Judith Glaser: They really put hair color on the map. At one time, they were hair dye, and that was a dying marketplace … Excuse me for the humor.

Pam Harper: Ba-dum-dum.

Judith Glaser: Ba-dum-dum, right. I was hired to come in and create a conversational strategy framework for them to go through their transformation. The company was $250 million at the time. Within seven years, they became a 4.5 billion – that’s billion – dollar company.

Scott Harper: Whoa. How many years?

Judith Glaser: In seven. They were sold to Proctor & Gamble, and Proctor & Gamble adopted the protocol that we used for the culture change, which is now what we call conversational intelligence.

So far, does that make sense?

Pam Harper: It does. That’s a real story, and I think that’s what’s interesting. So, before conversational intelligence, where were they with all of this? I mean, conversational intelligence really transformed them.

Scott Harper: What did it take them from?

Judith Glaser: So, we started out with a company that was fragmented. Like you were describing − marketing and sales didn’t talk to each other.

Scott Harper: Right, and R&D…

Judith Glaser: And R&D, yes. And we made the project so that everybody on the team came from marketing, promotion, sales, management, and the CEO’s executive team. We made the team who sponsored this be all the people that had to come together, so they had a vested interest, okay?

Pam Harper: Ah, ha. That’s great.

Judith Glaser: And then –

Pam Harper: And then? Keep going.

Judith Glaser: Then I shaped conversational spaces. I built a whole news network for them, and we were able to capture the success stories, the best practices, the examples of what the transformation was going to look like, so when the CEO would say, “Hey, this is what we want to do, this is what transformation looks like,” we created an ability for them to see what it looked like, to experience it, to share. The platform for conversations was about sharing and discovering together, which is what conversational intelligence level 3 conversations are all about.

Pam Harper: Sharing and discovering, together.

Judith Glaser: Sharing and discovering.

Pam Harper: That’s a really good point. Well, we’re going to take another quick break, and when we come back, we’ll talk more with Judith Glaser about why leaders can gain even better results from conversational intelligence, and how they can elevate conversational intelligence in themselves and their organizations. Stay with us…

Scott Harper: You’re listening to Growth Igniters Radio with Pam Harper and Scott Harper, brought to you by Business Advancement Incorporated. We focus on enabling visionary leaders to dramatically increase momentum for game-changing results. We’re on the web at businessadvance.com.

Pam Harper: If you’re enjoying and gaining useful insights from Growth Igniters Radio with Pam Harper and Scott Harper, can you let us know by doing us a favor and writing a short review on iTunes? Not only does this let us know what you value, your review is one of the most important ways that we can reach others who will benefit as well.

Now we’re reprising a special limited time offer in honor of the holidays. The first 10 people who submit reviews between December 14th and December 30th, 2016 will receive a complementary autographed copy of my book, “Preventing Strategic Gridlock.” Reviewers have said the book is a timeless resource, and a great book for overcoming stalls that derail strategic progress, regardless of the economy. To look inside, visit the “Preventing Strategic Gridlock” page on Amazon.com.

Scott Harper: Just be one of the first 10 people to use the Contact Us link on growthignitersradio.com by December 30th, 2016, let us know about your new review, and we’ll get you your autographed copy right away.

Pam Harper: Welcome back to Growth Igniters Radio with Pam Harper and Scott Harper. We’re having a wonderful conversation with Judith Glaser, CEO of CreatingWE®, and the award-winning author of the bestselling book, Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. Judith, how can people find your book and get more information about Creating WE?

Judith Glaser: If they go to Amazon.com, put the title in, and you’ll absolutely be targeted right to the book. To find out more about our work, www.creatingwe.com.

Pam Harper: Okay.

Scott Harper: Terrific, thank you.

Pam Harper: It sounds good. We’ve been talking about what conversational intelligence is, why it’s important, how it plays out in making amazing shifts in companies and their growth; and now let’s talk about what leaders can do. For all you people out there who are going to get off of this radio program and go out there and do something, Judith, what can they do?

Scott Harper: How can they really put it to work and make that transformation?

Judith Glaser: Here are a couple of things. I’m going to give you different levels. There’s a starting level that anybody can use, and when I say anybody, I mean mothers, fathers, children, teachers, educators, scientists, any industry; and then people in work, every leader, manager, and employee can use the same couple of principles I’m going to give everybody, because they are so radically important and powerful. You’ll get results immediately, okay? So let’s go.

Pam Harper: All right − first one?

Judith Glaser: Here we go. The first and most important one is: it’s all around listening. So much of what conversations have been, as we said when we started this conversation, we talked about it as giving information to other people, or telling people what’s on your mind. We’re now, and have proven over the 30-plus years of our research, that listening is the key. How we listen determines how we experience the other person. Now, that sounds easy, and it is, but it’s also profound.

What that means is when we listen to judge someone, we’re sending electrochemical messages that we don’t believe who they think they are, that we don’t trust them. Judgment closes down the brain, and we pick it up in .07 seconds. However, listening to connect, not to judge or reject, sends signals that you are open to that person and are giving … you believe in them, you trust them, and you want to experience them. Yes, shifting/listening is the primary shift.

Pam Harper: Shifting/listening.

Scott Harper: How do you do that, because so many of us I’ve heard, we listen, but then we’re actually just going on in our minds about what I’m going to say next. How do we shift that habit?

Judith Glaser: This is the part that’s the practice part of what I do, and in the beginning, it’s not easy. … I had one client, for example, who I coached because they weren’t even sure that he was going to stay with the company. He was very challenging to people, he didn’t realize that when he spoke, a lot of times he was so judgmental that it turned people off and they were frightened of him. Turned out that as I got to know him, his family had issues with him as well. His wife, his children…

Pam Harper: Oh.

Judith Glaser: Yeah, it was 100%. Then we started a practice. He said, “I started to focus when I was interacting with my family and people at work, and giving people three more seconds of focused time where I wasn’t thinking about me, but I was really just paying attention to them.” He said, “I couldn’t do more than three seconds in the beginning, because my mind would shift back to thinking about what I didn’t like about what they were saying.” He started out with three seconds, and every time we met after that, I’d say, “How you doing?”

He said, “This three second thing is amazing. It’s not only amazing for the people that I’m listening to, because I can see it in their eyes.” Now, notice he’s noticing more now − that’s a signal that he’s doing the right thing. He said, “But I found my mind shifting as well.”

Pam Harper: Ah.

Judith Glaser: Self-awareness plus other-awareness elevates when you listen elevates effectiveness.

Pam Harper: So, it’s like a virtual cycle

Judith Glaser: Yeah, exactly.

Pam Harper: Interesting. Interesting. What else? What else can people do?

Judith Glaser: That’s number one. The second thing is asking questions for which you don’t have answers. Too often … And you started to allude to this … We think about where we’re going next.

Scott Harper: Right.

Judith Glaser: And the questions that we … Right? The questions, Scott, that we often ask people are called leading questions, where we lead others to say yes to something that we’ve said. “So, you think that’s a good idea, don’t you?” That’s a question, right?

Scott Harper: Yeah.

Judith Glaser: That’s a question, but it assumes an answer.

Scott Harper: Right.

Judith Glaser: We didn’t talk much about this, but that is level 2 conversations, where we are advocating a point of view that we have, and we are trying to influence people to move in the direction that we want them to go. That’s positional.

Scott Harper: Okay. What’s level 1? We may have missed that.

Judith Glaser: Level conversation 1 is transactional, where we’re doing a lot of telling and asking, and it’s very information-driven, but we’re doing it to confirm what we know, and that is an important step in building relationships. I’m learning about you, I want to confirm that I know this, or confirm that I know that. The dark side of it is where we do too much telling, and really aren’t listening. That’s level 1.

Scott Harper: Now, level 1 can be perfectly useful if I’m, say, just interested in a transaction, please sell me that packet of gum, right? But if we’re trying to do something more sophisticated, more collaborative, we have to go beyond that.

Judith Glaser: Many leaders … This is a big takeaway I hope people will get from our conversation today. Many people have preconceived notions about lots and lots and lots of things, and when we try to do big-change programs, we want to confirm that we know we’re going in the right direction, so we do a lot of that telling, level 1, stuff, but we expect level 3 results.

Scott Harper: Ah.

Judith Glaser: A leader who goes around and does his road show, and tells and tells and tells, and says “This is where we’re going and this is how you get there, and I’m so glad you’re on board,” and all these lovely things, he’s in a telling mode, and then he expects people to do what he told them to do. “Do what I say.” He doesn’t get the results, and then he gets upset and frustrated. That pattern exists in corporate America, it exists in parenting, where we tell our kids what to do and they don’t do it and then we get upset and think that they’re rotten kids. It’s all being stuck in level 1, but looking for level 3 results.

Scott Harper: Wow. What else?

Judith Glaser: Level 2 is the persuading, thinking, we’re asking leading questions. Level 3 questions are asking questions for which you don’t have answers. If I ask you questions about, “What were you thinking when you were putting together your idea? What influenced you most?” I never would know that, but what a powerful question for me to know about, and for you to share with me, so that we merge our understanding of each other’s mindsets.

Pam Harper: We really have to trust ourselves as much as trusting other people. We have to believe that it’s okay to actually not have all the answers, and that other people do − that we’re creating something together.

Judith Glaser: Pam, that’s right … Yeah.

Pam Harper: At least, that’s what I’ve found sometimes when we’ve worked with people. There will be people who say, “Sometimes I don’t want to know. I think I have to know all the answers.”

Scott Harper: “And if I don’t, I’m a failure.”

Pam Harper: Right.

Judith Glaser: Yeah, yup.

Pam Harper: So, it’s opening oneself up to a new way of looking at oneself, too, as well as others. Very [crosstalk 00:26:16].

Judith Glaser: This is the thing, yeah. If you think of conversational intelligence as connecting, the quality of the connection determines how well we then have our conversations. The quality of the connection is first. The second is navigating with others, so we’re moving in and out of each others’ ideas and thoughts and beliefs, not to always influence the other person to our way, but to understand their way of thinking; and then growing together.

Scott Harper: Wow.

Judith Glaser: The growing is about being open to learn new things. Learning new things.

Scott Harper: Learning new things is critical. Now, Judith, you mentioned that we send out … and we’re sensitive to the aura of people next to us, which sounds New-Agey, but you’re telling me that there’s actually neurology behind that, and facial expressions and so on, all the signals that we send. But what about a conversation where you’re not in the same room, like the one we’re having here electronically? Are some of those signals sent electronically, and what isn’t sent?

Judith Glaser: Well, what’s even more fascinating, because I get that question, I would say, every single time I do an event, they say, “Okay, now we get the face to face thing, but what about … We spend most of our time on the phone.” There are signals that we are blindsided to see, meaning we’re not even noticing, that are happening all the time when we’re interacting. The length of time someone is thinking is a signal. The rapidity with which someone then joins into the conversation is a signal. These are all subtle, auditory cues that we’re sending each other. The fact that somebody’s not talking is a signal. As we learn to build this depth of this framework and this body of work, we’re going to start opening up to different types of signals, and to get in front of the curve with our signaling systems where we don’t have the visual signs.

We’ve been talking about body language forever, but there’s auditory language too. There’s auditory signals. You still feel your gut saying, “Something’s wrong. I don’t like the level of silence,” or “I don’t like what the silence sounds like.” We have to find words to put to this whole new language of conversational intelligence, where we’re interacting, but we haven’t had words before.

Let me see if I can say that better. When I wrote the dictionary, I had to come up with 3,500 new business terms. Every time I found a new term, or put one into the dictionary that didn’t exist before, it enabled people to see things differently or feel things differently. We now need to invent a language for the auditory signals. They’re there. They’re there.

Scott Harper: Wow.

Pam Harper: They’re there. Well, this, I think, deserves a lot more conversation, and we hope you’ll come back and join us, and update us periodically on some of the new things that are coming out with conversational intelligence and Creating WE.

Scott Harper: Now, one of the things that we talked about before we had our conversation here is that you have some tools that people can use to start getting into the whole exercise of conversational intelligence. Can you tell us about Neuro Tips?

Pam Harper: Yup. We have Neuro Tips. What I’ve been doing for the last ten years is taking the research that’s coming out, the new research from around the world, and taking each bit of new insight to a place for practice.. For example, there’s a place in the brain for sharing. A literal place in the brain, a button that pops on when we share, so people that are tweeting to each other, or sending instant messages, every time kids do that, that sharing part of the brain activates and sends chemical signals in the brain. The good news is that sharing and discovering get you to level 3. That’s why they’re such an addiction. I will send out little tips about this, so people know what’s going on.

Pam Harper: So what that means is if the people who are listening, all of you out there are sharing, that we’re all going to be activating these places.

Scott Harper: That’s right, we’re going to be feeling better about ourselves and each other.

Pam Harper: That’s right.

Scott Harper: To our listeners out there, who are our community, if you want to get a sample Neuro Tip from Judith Glaser, go to www.growthignitersradio.com, select episode 3, and on the bottom of the page for this episode you’ll find resource links. Click on “get Sample Neuto Tips,”, and fill in the form so that we can instantly send you a sample neuro tip from Judith.

Pam Harper: Okay. Well, again, Judith, thank you so much for being part of Growth Igniters Radio today. Any final thoughts that you want to leave with us?

Judith Glaser: I do. I was sitting here thinking how good I felt about how open and how exciting our conversation was for me, and all the things that we were able to talk about and for me to share.

Pam Harper: Great.

Judith Glaser: Which is wonderful, so as a result of it, my oxytocin has gone up, and oxytocin is what helps people bond and collaborate better with each other, so the lucky next person that I speak with is going to benefit from me feeling as good as I do right now, and I want to thank you for that.

Pam Harper: Oh, that’s great.

Scott Harper: Oh, that’s good. Well, thank you, Judith. This has been terrific. And thanks you out there for listening to Growth Igniters Radio with Pam Harper and Scott Harper. To check out resources related to today’s conversation, share on social media, find out about upcoming episodes, or open a conversation with us, go to growthignitersradio.com, and select Episode 99.

Pam Harper: Until next time, this is Pam Harper …

Scott Harper: … and Scott Harper …

Pam Harper: … wishing you continued success, and leaving you with this thought to consider:

Scott Harper: Communication happens whether you’re actually shaping your message or not you are always communicating.