Ready to observe?

Here’s a challenge for this week: observe obsessively. In every encounter with other people, pay attention to not only what they say but how they say it, their every minute body language feature (eyes and feet especially!), their mood and feelings, their pauses and rhythms. Become the social anthropologist at your workplace, learning from your peers, reports, supervisors and other stakeholders as much as you can. Avoid filling in the silent gaps or inserting anything of your own; you are there to research and examine, your goal is to learn and understand these people. This is your moment to stop and look at your community with a new pair of eyes, to really pay attention to who they are, what they do and how they do it.

It may be difficult to do this because we easily offer our input in social interactions. But if you can bear a week and collect your findings in a journal, it’s all worth it. You will become so much more sensitive to the world around you and start seeing the nuances that lie beneath, the unspoken and what simmers but cannot be seen yet on the surface. You will train your intuition muscle when you silence your own noise and focus on observation. This is important because we may easily lose our ability to take stock, retain perspective and remain curious in the hustle of everyday business.

If you want to practise being present in the moment and learn to collect data in communicative situations, this kind of coaching approach is for you. When you focus your energy on learning about the other person’s agenda, your interaction with them takes a leap to the next level. Having a curious, researcher’s mind helps to get started.