WIN 44 - Swayed: How to Communicate for Impact with Christina Harbridge

Welcome to Win the Women Investing Network, the podcast where you can learn from successful entrepreneurs, business leaders and real estate investors who are winning in business and life. Learning from others is the fastest way to grow your skills, gain knowledge and avoid pitfalls so you can win. Join our hosts, Elizabeth Embry and Jason Hartman. Elizabeth is a seasoned real estate investor, experienced corporate executive and skilled mentor. Jason is a self made multi millionaire investor, entrepreneur and highly acclaimed thought leader. Together with their successful guests, you'll get the tools you'll need to win.

Welcome to another exciting episode of Win the Women Investing Network. It's my pleasure to introduce Christina Harbridge, CEO of Allegory Inc. And author of Suede how to Communicate for Impact. Christina, welcome to the show and thanks so much for being here.

Absolutely, thanks for having me.

So tell our listeners a little bit about yourself so they have context and also your company Allegory.

Oh, absolutely. So Allegory is a behavior change company that I started after I had hired a ton of training companies to teach my team conflict. And I got very frustrated because my team would love the training and then nothing would change.

No stickiness?

No, I doubt they loved it. They'd rate it 10 out of 10. But the behaviors that they had, they'd go back to. And so I hacked this way of doing behavior change that is around physiology and emotions and how our operating system deals with volatility and change. And I have no commas after my name. I'm a total hack, but it seems to be working. And so that's what Allegory is.

Well, and I think that that's the root of innovation, right? When you see a problem and then you figure out how to make it work. But you say you're a hack, so what's. Or that you hacked the problem. Rather, tell us about your background. How did you get into this space?

Well, in a very odd way, I went to work as a teenager at a collection agency and I met the nicest people you'd ever meet in the break room. And then I went out on the floor and my hands shook. I couldn't believe how mean people were. And I got it in my head that I wanted to start a collection agency that collected debt by being nice. And I couldn't get it out of my head. And I did it. And we thought we would collect less by being nice. This was all accidental, but we ended up collecting three times more and getting invited to weddings by the way we collected.

So being nice gets you results. Tell us more about that.

I was very surprised by this I was doing it because I wanted to improve the way the world was. I thought that these horribly mean calls were wrong, and I just wanted to fix that. And I figured I could sell on customer service. But the number one goal of a collection call in my collection company I had then was to establish enough relationship so the person tells you the truth, because once you know the truth, you can help them. There's only three reasons why a person didn't pay. And once they tell you what's going on, you can direct them, help them. And if they don't owe it, you don't want them to pay it. You can help them address it. When we started bonusing on thank you cards rather than money, everything changed.

Oh, my gosh.

The person with the most money collected always had the most thank you cards. And we realized that humans are. We're. Me, myself included, we're irrational and emotional, and if someone upsets us or makes us feel small, we will do the opposite of what's good for us because we're triggered.

So the idea of sending a thank you note to your debt collection person is just astounding to me. I mean, that's really a great show.

And no, and I'm telling you, it's even. I mean, I was surprised. So everybody always talks to me about this like it was some brilliant strategy. It was so accidental. It was iterative. And we had a toy box in my company because so many people brought their kid in to meet their bill collector. And we felt like if you get a toy at the dentist, you could get a toy at your mom's bill collector often.

Wow.

It was crazy. Yes.

So is this a regional debt collection or was it a national firm? Or like.

It was a national firm. We didn't do international work, but we did national work. And, you know, the company did a hockey stick. It grew accidentally. I never intended it to take off the way that it did. And, you know, I sold the company when my son was born 11 years ago because I wanted to just do the behavior change because we had this whole body of work. I trained my team 30 minutes every day so that they would stay curious when getting yelled at. Because that's hard to do.

Yes.

And clients started saying, hey, will you teach us how to do this? And that became the part of the business that I just loved.

Well, I can imagine that if you can stay nice through a conversation about, hey, you owe company XYZ money, then you can be successful anywhere. Most of our listeners, you know, are women that are. That are investing in their skill set. They're growing their skills to either get into a new area or to get deeper into their own career. They're also investing in themselves and in real estate and in the market. How can people apply, you know, so speaking to our listeners, how can they apply some of these techniques that you've developed in this, you know, through this long observation pattern and through fine tuning your techniques, how can they apply that in the corporate world?

So one way to apply it in the corporate world, I'll just give you some really silly examples and you let me know if these are relevant or not. So it can be as simple as how we start a phone call or how we start a meeting. So we often go into, let's say, for example, sales. We go into a sales call and the first question that a person can ask in a conversation is, what do you want to make sure happens in this phone call? Because if I ask that question of an incoming call for sales and they say, can you be here on Thursday to deliver a training? That's a different conversation than I have no idea what you do, which is a different conversation than what's your price? But we often go into a dialogue without really understanding what the other person's expectations are. And the same is true with kids. The same is true with dating. Like, if we ask the person first, what do you want to make sure happens? Then we're increasing our influence and understanding of the other person.

Yeah, no, that's a really key one because you're right. I've been in meetings with people and we start talking and then we're like, huh, why are we even in this meeting? Or, you know, should we have the meeting? Or, oh, we don't have the right people in the meeting.

Yes. And if I'm doing one on ones with my team, if I'm a CEO or an executive, if I ask that question first, I will get a read on where that person is emotionally. So if I have to tell that person that they failed in a pitch, and I know that I have to give them tough feedback, and I say, hey, before we get started, what do you want to make sure happens today? And they tear up and say, I don't know if I can do this anymore. That is not the right time to give them tough feedback.

Right, right.

And so it's a way of checking in and seeing where things are before we dive into a conversation.

Yeah, no, I love that. Do you have other tips that people can leverage?

I do. Do you want me to give you more?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay. So here's another one. There's a saying that we have on our wall that says a complaint means a person stands for something. But what happens when a person's complaining is biologically our body gets defensive and resistant. We push that complaint away because it doesn't feel good. If a person comes at me with a complaint, instead of focusing on the complaint, I try to focus on what they're standing for. So an example would be if you came up to me and said, christina, we are awful at execution in this company. That is a buzzword that's hard to fix. But instead of saying, well, you need to work better with your peers, which is solving a problem that might be wrong, that might be the wrong problem. If I said, hey, can you give me an example of that? And if that CFO says to me, because product and engineering can't coordinate, our counters are delivered 13 inches too low every single time we're losing this much money, That's a different conversation than just execution. I can get an initiative on that and fix that issue if I ask for an example.

I like that. I like that.

Can I give you one other example that people say works for them in that?

Oh, absolutely.

This works in parenting, too. So what I teach people is how you do anything is how you do everything. So if you're going to do it in leadership, practice it everywhere so it becomes a habit. So if my son comes home, throws a water bottle on the ground, and says, I hate school, everything in my body wants to correct the way he's complaining. I want to tell him, you have to go to school. Don't throw a bottle. But if I focus on what he's standing for and the outcome that I want, which is I want my kid to tell me stuff when he's upset, instead of correcting him, I can look at him and say, man, I hated school in fifth grade. My teacher made me feel really small. In fact, called me stupid. Why do you hate school? And if my son looks at me and says, mom, a substitute teacher put her hand over my mouth today, that is a totally different conversation than, you have to do homework.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

I sit in rooms and myself included, I'm a hypocrite. We often solve something before we actually know what we're talking about.

So let's unpack that a little bit. So I'm a really direct person, and so I could just see my gut reaction of, you know, what's going on, how come you're not doing your homework or whatever. How do people that are less Charismatic. How can they apply some of these tips? How can they ingrain this into their habit?

There's this term emotional literacy, that gets thrown out a lot. The way that we define emotional literacy at allegory is can I behave in a moment in a way that gets me closer to the outcome that I want? And so if the outcome that I want is for. In this moment, for me not to be uncomfortable, then I can just correct whatever I think just to make that person go away. But if my outcome includes that person having some level of commitment, it only serves me to ask questions and be curious about it. So the easy way to hack this for people is to notice when you're uncomfortable and love that you're uncomfortable and get curious and ask a question instead of correcting.

Yeah, no, I think that that makes sense, especially when you're. When you're dealing with people that are more delicate or in a more delicate situation, I guess even less, not so much that they're delicate. It's that you're trying to drive a true intent in the conversation.

Yeah. So the purpose, you know, the role of an executive is to confront reality sooner and then improve upon it. That's one of the primary jobs. But I don't know if you've ever sat in meetings with people where the moment someone brings up that the baby is ugly and things get uncomfortable, the conversation gets shut down, and then the meeting after the meeting happens, and there's all this spin. But if that leader instead can see discomfort as a sign that something's going right, it means she hired well, it means it's time to have this, facilitate this dialogue right now. Then the meeting after the meeting doesn't have to happen, and real problems get solved. And the way to do that is with an example. Like examples are a way for people to get out of this buzzword complaint attack mode to just speak from examples.

So, Christina, I can see how having one person change their influence might be effective. But for a corporation to really change the way that they're thinking about things and prevent that meeting before the meeting, meeting after the meeting type thing. How do you get the whole leadership to start really thinking about this approach?

So one way is a perspective shift, which is to help peer leadership teams shift their thinking that something called first team. So I am not a member of the team that I lead. My peer group is my team. And this is a fundamental shift in how I have to build super tight relationships with the individuals that are my peers. And the challenge is they're likely not like me if we have hired, well, the woman in the other department processes information different than I do. We biologically bug each other. But if we can get close enough and close together, we can have the kind of conflict that increases performance. And the second way is to get out of buzzwords, to stop talking in generalities. So if someone says we don't collaborate well or we need to collaborate better, it's getting curious about it and saying, give me an example of that. Where are you seeing that? Or instead of telling you to collaborate better, look at you and say, can we meet on Thursday to talk about the deliberate trade offs we made this week so that we still come in on the dead? That's more specific and actionable rather than complaining.

Well, and it's results oriented as opposed to, like you said, complaining sometimes feels good emotionally, but it doesn't actually yield results. I like the points that you're making.

And the third thing is to facilitate conversations. So if you and I, if you're the head of product, I'm the head of engineering and we're going at it in a meeting, people often sit and watch it like, wow, this is a total nightmare. If someone can just facilitate and say, hey, what I hear Elizabeth saying is this, Christina, how does this align with what you're doing? So someone to jump in and help them understand each other. But we often soothe it and then the greatness that will happen between those two people goes away. It doesn't happen.

Yeah, you're right. I think that there's a lot of missed opportunity unless people are trying to drive toward not necessarily the direct approach, but the, the larger outcome approach now in today's political landscape. Right. There's a lot of, lot of conversation but not a lot of practice and it's actually gotten quite brutal. So I'm wondering if this concept of kindness and of suede influence, how can people respond to that in this situation?

I have sat in boardrooms with executives and watched competing executives destroy a company because they were so deep in us. And them and politics are the same way. I think a simple proximity. We are one story away from our closest friend if we hear that story. What's happened in politics is our legislators sit across the aisle now they're not next to each other. If you sit next to Joe and you hear his stories and you have random non transactional conversations, there will be more of a relationship there. But when we have no proximity and we're not interested in hearing people's stories, we make up a lot of stories of our own. And they're Often not good.

You really bring up a great point. I think I saw a little video snippet of 2 House of Representative folks out of Texas. One was a Democrat, one was a Republican.

I saw that.

And they had to drive together. And they were having. They were. They became best friends by the end of this drive. It was amazing. It really proves your point.

It really is. You know, people have a basic need to feel understood. And in our society right now, we're so transactional in our conversations that we're not filling this basic need. And for someone to move. This incredible speaker said this, Malachi Lara B. Garza said, in order for people to move, their humanity must be tapped in some way.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I'm just thinking about how our listeners can apply some of the better ways to communicate. You'd given examples before, but do you have any tips that people can quickly remember as they're trying to improve their communication?

So here's one quick tip. Avoid acting in a way that makes a person feel small. When we get triggered, we often use our intelligence as a weapon. And if I make you feel bad about yourself, you will resist me. Maybe not openly, but there's a part how people feel about themselves matters in influence. So I can have a debate with you, but if I make you feel small, insignificant or dumb, I'm going to lose future influence. Do you want another one?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Another one is if someone is upset, and this is at the collection agency, we had all these ways to do this. If someone is upset, it's our impulse to calm them down that is not filling their need to feel understood. That is making a person feel small. Instead, match or exceed their concern for the problem. So if someone calls into my company, my old company, I sold it 11 years ago, I don't run it now. They called in and said, you ruined my credit. Instead of saying, well, calm down, just say, oh, my gosh, that's not okay. Let me see if I can help you. What can I do? So you hear my voice just got more excited than theirs. I am more concerned about the problem than they are. What typically happens is that person then says, thank you. Like they're completely different. They don't need to convince me to be worried. They don't need to convince me to care because I'm showing them a care. And this is particularly important with kids.

Yeah, I can see how that would. You can help de escalate an issue or gain traction with the person by being not only an empathetic listener, but by matching their communication style. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. And the third one is. And I have so many of these. So you tell me if I'm just bored. Want to stick a needle in your eye with boredom? Another one that's pretty easy is if there's a particular person I want to influence, like my boss or a decision maker, get out of my head and notice for two weeks what makes them listen and do more of that, what makes them check out and don't do that. If you notice someone that you're trying to listen checks out. When you show them six slides, don't show them those six slides. Don't do things that, you know. It's weird. It's like we try to get people to listen the way we listen because we think they should listen that way rather than adjusting to how they listen. And I can give you an example if you'd like.

Yeah, please.

So if I've got a CEO in a meeting that everyone complains about because he never listens, he won't listen. He doesn't listen. And I watch him for a couple of executive meetings, and I notice that when people are showing him decks, he gets visibly frustrated and says, next, next, next. I go in, I hand him the clicker. I said, go through the slides. Ask me if you have any questions. He goes through the slides. I give him like a three minute pitch, and he's like, this is the best presentation I've ever had. I get his favor and his influence because I didn't do it my way, I did it his way.

That's really key, being able to deliver a message in a way that people want to receive it as opposed to.

Trying to present it your own way. I can imagine that we do this unconsciously, right? We're just so used to wanting to be proved right. Even if it's your boss. Right. It's like, well, I put all this effort into this document. You really must, you must appreciate everything I've done rather than, what are you, you know, what are you trying to get out of this conversation? You know, the earlier point that you made and how can I provide it in your, in your way, your format, that's actually going to resonate with you.

What I hear often from really brilliant people is that, but they should listen to make a good decision, Christina. They should listen. And I always look at them and put my hand up. I grab their hand and I said, but they're not listening. And then they'll say, but they're being irrational by not listening. I'm like, but they're not listening. So aren't you being irrational by keeping talking? And they always laugh. I'm like, whether they should or shouldn't, they're not. So if you keep talking, you're the one being irrational because they're not listening.

So, Christina, let me ask you a question. Then I can see where people point by point can start consuming the information. You know, the great tips, the great information that you've provided. How can they actually make these a practice? Right? Rather than just a one off thing, how do they turn it into a habit? Is that outlined in your book?

Yes. Oh, so glad that you mentioned that. One of the reasons I wrote the book is because so many clients were asking us, we have a model on how to use context to have more impact and influence. So we've created deliberate practices that are really easy to do that. If you do those practices, it changes the habits over time. Willpower is not a good friend. And if it requires willpower, we're not going to do it when we're triggered. So if folks haven't read the book, they can just pick their own, like come up with a deliberate practice that you can do consistently in all areas of your life that tends to make you more curious or open or make other people open. Do you want one example?

Yeah, that'd be great.

Okay, so one is get out of your head. Like that is when in a meeting or when walking around the office. Get out of your head and watch for what you like around you. Look for what's going on that you like. This is a habit that will give a person more data on how to influence our brains pick up what we don't like already by watching for what we like. I'm taking in information that gives me specifics on how I can shift my communication and it makes me more approachable as a human, which helps with influence.

Well, it's also going to just make you a happier person, just in general, I would think too.

Well, I mean, it definitely gives us more, more evidence of what's going.

Right, you know. So let me ask you a question then. Fundamentally, if people just are having an issue with the culture of a company, it sounds like they can be more effective in the moment. But can this change, can this influence the concept of culture in a company or how the person's perceiving culture? Or is it a matter of how they're going to more effectively communicate with the individuals around them?

We do culture stuff inside companies so people hire us for leadership training or executive retreats on how to. Because we don't manage time, we manage attention. So culture really matters. And what we've noticed is one person, one human, can shift a culture either positively or negatively. And so if someone is inside of a culture and they want to create a culture where people listen more and don't treat each other poorly, that person can just start a deliberate practice of small moments and really focusing on this. We are warm blooded tribal animals. We act like each other. And it's doing it without expecting a result. It's doing it as a deliberate practice so that we don't get annoyed and upset when people don't do it to us, which is the opposite of trying to drive the culture.

I have personal experience where people are saying, those people, those people, meaning people above me or the people below me. But if you're focusing on how you can influence your own sphere, right then it seems like you can really take hold and starting to shift at least what you're exposed to, if not the culture as a whole.

And I think it's. People are often so frustrated when miscommunication happens. And I spin that around, I am delighted. I am so delighted and appreciative when miscommunication doesn't happen. Because it's really. If. If a company is hired, well, the folks are different. They go at problems a different way. Miscommunication in a company and discomfort is a sign that they've hired well. They have people with different views. It's seeing it as a good thing to have a meeting that has discomfort. Not a bad thing. We're just trying to figure it out. We're trying to get to the best way using all of our brains.

I like that. I like that. So, Christina, is there anything else that we haven't covered that you wanted to make sure that our listeners were aware?

I think this one feels. Let me just say it and then you let me know if it lands. I believe our biggest challenges, humans, as most of us, was we were raised in a generation of just get over it. A lot of us were not raised to have feelings. We were raised to be happy. And if. If we were having a feeling someone didn't feel like having, we have to correct that feeling. And having worked with thousands and thousands of executives, one of the things I am very clear on, frustration and quote unquote, negative feelings like anger, pettiness, is often a sign of that person's genius. They are frustrated because something comes easy to them that the rest of the room doesn't get. And because we've been taught to numb that frustration. I think genius is left on the floor in companies because we manage for comfort rather than discomfort. And so the one thing I'd love for everyone to think about is the next time they're frustrated to think about what is coming easy to me in this moment that I need to teach. What am I expecting other people to be great at that they're not great at? And how can I check in? How can I help in this meeting instead of pushing away, which is what we often do?

I like that the manage for comfort versus manage for really results in satisfaction by not being afraid to have the harder conversations in a positive way. That's a really new a new way of looking at it. I like it. Can you give out your website and where people can buy your book?

Oh, absolutely. So my website is Allegory Inc. So it's a L L E G O R y I n z.com we put a bunch of tips and videos and stuff on both Twitter and Facebook under Allegory, Inc. So if folks want some free stuff to look at. And then the book is called Swade S W A Y E D and it's on Amazon.

Terrific. Christina Harbridge, CEO of Allegory, Inc. And author of Suede how to Communicate for Impact. Thanks so much for joining us today.

I so appreciate it. Thanks for all you do.

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