Secrets of Success in the Digital Age Part 1

Dale Carnegie

Comment:  I ran a series on Dale Carnegie sometime ago that summarized and reviewed his 1936 book "How to Win Friends and Influence People".  These were principles for cultures with a high degree of social interaction and people who had a strong understanding of face-to-face social relationships or a high context culture. The United States entered the postmodern era about the time Carnegie published his book. Postmodernism began to change human interactions, lauded relativism, and questioned authority. In the 1980’s the digital age began to take root and by the mid 1990’s the webpage had been created spawning the DOT com boom that rippled through society. As the digital age expanded and strengthened physical and virtual realities began to blur. Virtualization resulted in entire companies nosing into virtual clouds and sprawling cubical farms transitioned to having people isolated from other around them or to be outsourced to home workers. The social interactions became virtual and faceless in most cases as work dialogues were over emails, phone conferences, and instant messaging.  Therefore a new set of skills becomes important - skills for the digital age.  The Carnegie Institute has developed coursework for this purpose.  This post will review the highlights of this training.

Essentials of Engagement

The Carnegie Institute, CI, makes the personal appeal that a professional’s earning power is related to the ability to influence others. CI points to skillful human interaction as the key and professional success which is directly related to the strength of key relationships as everyone wants to feel important and valued as a contributor. The challenge is being heard in a world drenched with self-promoters and digital voices.

Flattery is excessive and insincere praise that is given to further the giver’s interests. Flattery is a most often viewed in a negative manner. For example, a boss may embellish an employee with misplaced praise such as 'I am am going to give you the best recommendation I can.' This on the surface is a flattery alluding to an outstanding recommendation when in reality that comment is really a gratuitous insult as the caveat the best I can is a nebulous limitation on the recommendation. Gifted jerks are skilled at this kind of demogoguery as it is easy to do and stokes their selfish pride in themselves. Affirmations assert a truth or virtue in a solemn manner with sincerity. Returning the example, an affirmation would sound something like, 'you performed well on this project bringing it to an error free conclusion. Please feel free to referred people to me for a strong recommendation any time.'  The more one leans towards affirmation instead of aloofness and flattery the more influence one will gain in the relationship. The difference is simple - genuine concern and appeal to principles in the digital messages.

Digital messages are received on an individual basis regardless of the size and scope of the network or organization.  Effectiveness at building strong virtual relationships relies on email, tweets, texting, blogs, and social networking posts. Time should been taken to craft meaningful, personal responses to all digital requests. While leaders and managers are driving schedules, they should attempt to casts the messages in terms of the recipient. This is a fundamental underpinning of Carnegie’s earlier works to become genuinely interested in other people and to talk in terms of other people. The language and tone of digital responses should be in the spirit of encouragement and reassurance making appeals to principles and genuine concerns.  If feeling agitated or frustrate upon receiving a digital message, wait to respond and blow off steam. When crafting a response later, fall back on the principles of building digital relationships. Cast everything in positive terms and use personal face-to-face time including video teleconferencing to discuss sensitive differences. The take away is to take time to observe the good in others and see things from other perspectives in the digital messages.

Influence requires more than intuition and intellect. A good listener will use social networking to discern what another truly wants. Listen and learn as they divulge over time their hopes, fears, likes, and goals. Express an interest in what they want. Use a gentle hand to attract others to your point of view rather than push them. Understanding what makes others tick and their core desires develops a heart to influence them into action.  A good metric to assess the strength of these relationships is the amount of face time versus digital interactions. You should find time each day to have face-to-face conversations with key stakeholders and influencers. Effective relationships is the objective.

Comment: In my experiences working in large offices and cubical farms that have become virtualized, people bury their noses in the computer screens. Thus, building relationships with the machine rather than actual people. In fact, other people assume the facade of the computer becoming the voice behind the machine.  Thus, a person becomes an email response or IM rather than speaking to a human by name. A good indicator of this culture is when face-to-face interactions become increasingly difficult. A person in close proximity requires that meetings are scheduled over the machine rather than walk ups. Impromptu walk ups often startle people who were buried in their computer screens. This phenomenon is called Peripheral Paralysis as people's attention, sensory and motor control are consumed by the computer monitor. All they are aware of is the screen contents and motor control is reduced to keyboard and mouse movements. The individual may be appear motionless for long periods of time with a seemingly catatonic stare into the computer screen. 

Thus, the playing field has transitioned or blended into the digital realm. Relationships are going to have to be developed based on digital messages as first introductions are occurring via digital channels. Crafting these messages and relationships skillfully is a real challenge as digital messages can be misconstrued often since they lack contextual information such as body language, vocal tones, and other information commonly sent during face to face communications. 

Early communication making the introductions and developing the relationships before there is a requirement to do so should be at the forefront of the process. 

References:

Carnegie, D. (1981). How to win friends and influence people. New York: Pocket Books.

Carnegie, D. (2012). Secrets of success in the Digital Age: Essentials of Engagement.  Resourced on 19 Oct 2013 from Secrets of Success in the Digital Age - HR.com.