Request Info | Back to Home Page

 

PROVOCATIONS
September 1997

"Emotional Leadership"

by Susan Bilenker

Maybe you should get your money back.

For all the thousands of dollars you spent on graduate school (are you still paying it back?), you probably graduated with no training in some of the most crucial skills for sustaining a design practice.

And if you’re like many of your peers in the design profession, you don’t even know how those gaps in your education can sabotage your best efforts to get clients and keep them coming back for your services.

Actually, you were taught some of these skills way back in kindergarten, but most of them were eroded by years of subsequent schooling with its empasis on data accumulation and management.

I’m talking here about social skills of the most basic kind. Here’s a sampler:

SMILE

Except perhaps for the most extraverted among us, human beings are generally apprehensive about meeting people they haven’t met before. It calls up anxieties about what the new person wants of us, our own insecurities about how we’ll be perceived, and it‘s a challenge to our status quo of familiar places and faces.

Walk into any architecture firm and you’ll be greeted primarily by very serious looking, somewhat distracted faces. The effect upon a visitor can be one of discomfort, anxiety, insecurity, or sadness.

"Do I want to deal day in and day out for months with people who look sombre, angry, or depressed?," thinks your prospective client. You may actually be perfectly happy inside, you’re just concentrating on the complex, demanding work in your office. But you can’t expect outsiders to understand that.

Practice being aware of the effect your facial expression has upon your clients and your staff.

SMILE! It stimulates the release of positive chemicals in the people graced by your cheerful countenance. And you’ll feel better, more positive, outgoing and effective, too.

Don’t dismiss this as sappy advice. It’s one of the least expensive, most high yielding techniques you can use to improve the quality of your day and the prognosis for your practice.

SHOW UP

One of the toughest times to exhibit emotional leadership is when things are going downhill. You’ve just lost a big job to a competitor, a key staffer has quit, your cash flow is too scary to contemplate, ad nauseum (literally!). All you want is for someone to nurture you and rescue your firm from the rocky shoals of disaster. All you want to do is go to sleep, go fishing, quit the business.

If you act on how you feel at such a crossroads, you’ll have plenty of time for sleep, fishing, and (forced) retirement. You may feel sad, terrified, depressed, and hopeless. Fine. Recognize that you’re feeling that way, and do something nurturing to soothe your shattered nerves.

As leader of your firm, though, you’ve got to stay in the saddle even in the midst of feeling terrible. Get on the phone and chat with your business contacts, keep your marketing outreach going, think of ways to meet new people (go to a business group meeting, play recreational sports like softball or golf, invite clients to lunch and ask for referrals to others who could use your services).

As a colleague of mine once said in the elevator as we reached our office floor, "It’s showtime!" Your practice is the show, and it must go on, so paste a positive attitude onto your aching insides and you’ll be empowered to lead your firm out of its difficult time and into the next phase.

TALK SMALL

"I’m shy. I can’t stand making small talk. Outgoing people give me a headache. All I want to do is work on interesting projects, I’m no good at sales." Do you hear yourself in any of these phrases?

Then think of "small talk" in a whole new light. Instead of dreading the ordeal of thinking of clever things to say about topics other than architecture, consider that "small talk" really means "to only talk a little." As in, you talk a little, and let the other person talk a lot.

Think of yourself as an investigative reporter. Your job is to be relaxed and comfortable and open in manner so the person you’re talking with feels free to share his/her thoughts with you. A friendly smile, the occasional "uh huh," and questions that encourage the other person to continue the conversation are all you need to do.

Your reward will be insights into a potential client’s wants and needs, and a new source of referrals or projects for your firm.

And if you wish you had more to say about a variety of subjects that come up in social settings, consider prying yourself away from your day-to-day practice so you can invest some of your time in having a more well-rounded life. Play or follow a sport, go to the movies, see a concert, watch some TV, make new friends who aren’t architects, participate in activities in your local community.

CONTINUE

A wise person once said, "When you accept yourself, you’re home."

However you arrived at this moment, despite all the coulda’s, woulda’s, shoulda’s that make you feel inadequate in your role as a leader, you have today to move your dreams a few steps forward.

If you smile, show up emotionally as well as physically, talk small and listen a lot, you’ll be miles ahead of your competition.

Remember, clients expect professionals to be skilled at the essentials of their craft. Everyone with a diploma is supposed to know the same stuff.

Clients prize and hire professionals they feel comfortable with as people. Your challenge is to develop your capacity for emotional leadership so clients and staff feel empowered in your presence.

---

Susan Bilenker is principal of Susan Bilenker Communications, specializing in marketing strategies and publicity for architecture and design firms. She is also a Web site developer and publishes DesignSite and Rivertowns Online.

PROVOCATIONS is an online journal of architecture and ideas.

Editor: Susan Bilenker, info@design-site.net.
Publisher: Susan Bilenker Communications for DesignSite™ .
Opinions expressed by authors published in Provocations are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Provocations, DesignSite, or Susan Bilenker Communications.

last update: 1/8/04