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HUMAN DYNAMICS

As people dealing with Board members, which is often a group of people who don’t act as a high performing team, you need to understand humans and how they work. Like a closet psychologist if you will.

Ask the right questions

Human dynamics in the context of a boss with learning/survival anxiety otherwise known as the Simon Says boss; a boss who already has the answers to problems and just requires others to execute. Often a boss of this kind will not take onboard ideas or initiatives from others unless you can engineer it as their idea.

This engineering process often takes patience and a truckload of emotional intelligence (EQ as opposed to IQ). The key being to ask a subtle couple of innocuous questions about them, soften the ego a bit, and assess their mood. See framing a solution in the ‘Approach’ section for more detail below.

Where are you positioned?

It’s very useful to think about the human dynamics in the room. Who is sitting where? How can you position yourself to get a different effect?

The term “right-hand person” is derived from a reality effect where most people will listen more convincingly to people on their right-hand side. So when attending a session, try to engineer that position to the decision-maker.