Waking Up

I’m not very sociable first thing in the morning. If you ask my wife she says I’m not in the land of the living until I’m half way through my second cup of tea.

So when I arrived in the gym on Monday morning without my tea I was still half asleep. I was exercising all of my resolve simply to keep my eyes open and my body moving. At six o’clock in the morning, and without caffeine, I lack tolerance, especially for people who think exercising on the elliptical machine should include talking on their cell phone. I want to ask, are you here to exercise or to talk on the phone? I don’t ask because I wouldn’t be able to curtail the disdain in my voice.

I’ve come to the conclusion that some people, whether fully awake or not, are walking around asleep as to the impact their behavior has on others. They’re either clueless or indifferent, and on many days I’m convinced they’re simply indifferent.

While standing in line to board my flight home to Seattle Monday night, a man entered the boarding line while reading his boarding pass. What he didn’t see was the fact that he stood so close to a woman that she took a step back with a bewildered look on her face. He gave a tiny look as if to say “yea, so what.” Her face asked the question “is he clueless?” Since he was about six foot six and weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds I kept my thoughts to myself.

This post isn’t about my state of wakefulness in the morning, nor is it about the boarding process for those who are not flying in first class. It is about how all of us need to wake up as to how we interact and impact those around us. The woman on the treadmill and the man in the boarding line seemed completely unaware of how they were being perceived by others, and left me thinking that they lack the skills to pick up on the subtle clues of those around them. They can only see in bold broad brush strokes.

If you work with others (that means everyone) waking up as to how people respond to your ideas and your presence is essential, for in reality, almost every activity you engage in (especially exercising and boarding a plane) involves, impacts, and influences other people.

Do you know whether you are positively or negatively influencing others? Do you care if it’s negatively? If you don’t care, reading this post will end up being a waste of your time. If you just don’t know what your impact is and are curious and concerned, then consider this post your wake up call.

If you’d like to learn how to determine your impact and whether you are negatively or positively impacting those around you, drop me a line and I’ll share with you my 3-D Leadership Branding activity.

Now, where is my tea?

Tags: accountability, behavior, communication, individual effectiveness, influence, leadership, performance, team development, team performance

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 6:28 am and is posted in the blog category. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.