Connection with the Transactional Alpha Executive

You dread your dates with Joe.

Joe is 100% transactional. All business, all the time. You feel rushed when you speak with Joe. And you don’t know how to stop the alpha train.

Worse yet, you are a person who values ​​relationships. You know everything works best in business when you’ve built a rich relationship with a coworker. A reciprocal business relationship energizes you.

Nothing about Joe indicates that a relationship matters to him. With you, or with someone else. He just wants to “do it”.

Ouch.

I found myself thinking about this challenge last week when I was giving a Master Class on Influencing Skills. Building authentic and lasting business relationships, I hope this inherently makes sense, is a key lever of influence. People who are more influential are better able to develop relationships with key stakeholders.

How to build a relationship, Someone asked me, with someone who is not interested in a relationship?

If only you could feel how important you are in the lives of those you meet. There is something about yourself that you leave behind every time you meet another person.

Fred roger

It is a difficult challenge. We tend to talk about hitting that wall in terms of better understanding personality differences or adjusting our communication styles. This is a more fundamental dilemma, however. How do we connect with someone who doesn’t seem to like connecting?

Let’s start here:

• Don’t try to stop the alpha train.
• Accept that you won’t have a good relationship with everyone.
• Learn to love what is.
• Focus on Joe’s assets, not his debts.
• And – drum roll, please – don’t give up the possibility of connecting. Because psychological evidence shows, time and time again, that no matter what personality type, no matter how ‘closed’ a person may seem, the desire to connect runs deep. Connection is what we’re here for, wrote Carl Jung. This is what gives purpose and meaning to our life.

Consider the following tips when engaging with a highly transactional alpha framework. Think of them as your “disarm them” toolkit.

4 ways to disarm a transactional executive

Meet them where they are.

Don’t force a conversation. Don’t talk about what you and your family did over the weekend. Don’t ask him what he likes to watch on Netflix. Ditch your favorite connection method, just for now. Make peace with the transactional, because the transactional is very good.

Refram transactional, for yourself. Transactions don’t have to be cold, formal, obnoxious or difficult. Transactional is all about completing a transaction. And completing a transaction, beyond the lens of human connection, can be very satisfying. So please relax.

Connect around the present moment.

Instead of bringing unnecessary stories into a conversation, notice what’s going on in the present moment. If there’s a thunderstorm brewing outside your window, mention it. If there is a vacation photo on the other person’s desk, find out about it. If there is a beautiful painting on the wall behind your coworker, recognize it. These are simple and safe ways to start a human moment that doesn’t have to be forced. And your guests can invite the other person to share more.

Gina, a corporate controller, described such a moment to me. I was on a Zoom call with my international team. Some of them that I have never met in person. Archie from the UK wore a sweater with this wacky pattern on it. I was laughing to myself inside, noticing Archie’s sweater. I wasn’t sure if I should comment on the sweater or say something cute.

If Archie is wearing a wacky sweater, Archie wants you to notice the sweater. It’s almost rude not to recognize the sweater. The sweater is literally staring you in the face. This is the reality of the present moment. And recognizing the sweater may well prompt a funny story or two.

Log around the work history.

If you feel a coworker doesn’t want to get into “personal stuff”, dig deeper into professional content. When you are trying to solve a problem or have to make a decision, open the door to the past. How have you approached this in the past? What was the biggest challenge you faced the last time this happened? What have you learned in previous times that we should consider today?

Questions about past experience are safe. They explicitly recognize the other person’s experience and expertise. They will always broaden a conversation and may spark an unexpected story or idea. Everyone wins.

Celebrate them.

Successful people rarely get enough praise. Here’s one thing I hear all the time in my executive coaching practice when we talk about giving a compliment. It always surprises me. Well, I don’t want to sound like I’m sucking it.

Please be clear – this is your crap about giving and receiving compliments. Drop it. If you find yourself in a quick transactional conversation and the other person says something really helpful or insightful, please acknowledge it. It was so helpful, Joe. I’ve never looked at it that way before, Joe. Thanks for helping me see this situation differently, Joe. I appreciate the way you analyze a difficult situation, Joe.

Don’t say it if you don’t mean it. If you mean it, say it. Your comment might just open the door to a much richer conversation than you thought possible.

Sometimes our light goes out, the theologian and philosopher Albert Schweitzer said: but is again inflamed by meeting another person.

Think of the connection possibility as one of those instant flames. Respect conversation boundaries and the other person’s personal boundaries. Don’t force yourself on him and her. And, at the same time, do not forget that the simplest statement on your part has the power to ignite the flame.

Stay in the moment. And light the match.

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