Gerald Sindell Innovation

You turn on the radio, and some­one is giv­ing an opin­ion about some­thing that’s cur­rently in the news. How long does it take for you decide whether or not that per­son might have some­thing impor­tant to say?

You’re in a meet­ing at work and a per­son from another depart­ment, some­one you haven’t met before, has joined the meet­ing. When they finally speak, how long will it take for you to make a judg­ment about their knowl­edge, their com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, and even their intelligence?

In a pre­vi­ous post we dis­cussed the sim­ple appear­ance of intel­li­gence. We can give an impres­sion of smarts just by hold­ing our­selves a cer­tain way, and by mak­ing steady eye con­tact. If we’re nat­u­rals, or if we’ve been prac­tic­ing, so far so good.

Now comes the crunch. The time has come for us to speak, to give our insights. Some­where a tiny voice reminds us (as in Proverbs 18:28) “Even a fool, when he hold­eth his peace, is counted wise….” If we want to avoid remov­ing all doubt about that assumed wis­dom, we must accom­plish cer­tain min­i­mums when we speak. First, we must show that we have been lis­ten­ing care­fully to oth­ers, not just to our own inner thoughts. We need to acknowl­edge which of the ideas already been put forth we have some agree­ment with. We don’t need to recite or argue with those ideas we dis­agree with, since that will be demon­strated by our ignor­ing them.

Once we have pointed out what we like so far we have two choices. We can either step back and reframe the dis­cus­sion, or we can refine what we agree with. (If we sim­ply agree and add noth­ing, we won’t have done much to aug­ment our reputation.)

Refram­ing is the most ambi­tious approach, since it means we really need to have a new fresh view of the whole topic. We might even have a brave new metaphor that will help (or mis­lead) the dis­cus­sion. Sports metaphors are at the bot­tom of fresh think­ing, so beware the Hail Mary insight. Take away 5 points from your I.Q. and start over. But a smart and fresh metaphor, espe­cially if it clicks, can pow­er­fully reframe a dis­cus­sion and win you many points. If you’ve pre­pared for the meet­ing, you might have had your metaphor­i­cal insight ready. Just wait for the right moment: “Actu­ally, this whole issue reminds me of a farm.” Pause. Wait for those gasps of recog­ni­tion. Aha! A whole new body of lan­guage has opened up. Who are the sheep? Who has left the barn door open? Are the rich fields lying fal­low?
You’re a genius.

Short of refram­ing by the intro­duc­tion of a new metaphor, you can also demon­strate your sharp wit by see­ing some­thing fresh and impor­tant that goes to the heart of the issue. “We’re all talk­ing about whether or not to install night lights on the base­ball dia­mond, but have we thought about the impact on our astron­omy lab just 50 yards away?”

The secrets to appear­ing bril­liant in a meet­ing? Be pre­pared. Have sev­eral dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios played out and what you would con­tribute in each instance. Lis­ten care­fully, and don’t speak until every­one else has staked out their ini­tial position.

And if you’re an eye­wit­ness to a major event and some­one sticks a cam­era in your face, just remem­ber these all-purpose words: “Oh, the huge man­a­tee!” And repeat for effect.