Hey, New People! Let Me Try Some Principles On You
I don’t interact with new people often. But last night, I attended my first Community Development Commission meeting. I volunteered to serve on the Commission after the November election. And this meeting meant an opportunity to interact with new people and thus to put some principles in action.
“Smile and use names, smile and use names,” I thought to myself as I made my way into the city building and up to the second floor. A police officer left his office as I waited for the elevator. He seemed put off by my smile. OH WELL KEEP GOING!
Upstairs, I rang to get buzzed in to the conference room, and the person who came to fetch me looked familiar. He knew me, and I recalled meeting him a month ago at an orientation meeting. BUT WHAT WAS HIS NAME? I wouldn’t remember that information for another 30 minutes. OH WELL KEEP GOING!
I was the first commissioner to arrive, but there were some city employees there. I smiled and introduced myself. It still feels weird to keep smiling. It’s more comfortable to let your face rest naturally. OH WELL KEEP GOING!
Soon enough, another couple commissioners arrived, including an older woman who sat two chairs from me. I introduced myself and then… well, here’s a thing I didn’t do: I didn’t immediately jump in with questions or appreciation or anything. What I did instead was listen.
So far, a lot of our principles have focused on one-on-one interaction. In these cases, unless both people are sitting in silence, one person will be talking. Carnegie says, “Get the other person talking, and get them talking about themselves.”
But what about larger groups? Sometimes becoming “genuinely interested in other people” means shutting up and listening to an ongoing conversation. You can show your genuine interest by looking at the person who is speaking, laughing when someone says something funny, and making other non-verbal signs that you are interested and paying attention. Why doesn’t Carnegie talk about this more? For many people, this kind of listening behavior is counterintuitive. Perhaps that’s because children are taught that it is rude to interrupt and rude to eavesdrop. Thus they need to be taught how to join an ongoing conversation without saying anything.
Soon enough, that conversation ended, and I noticed the woman had a nice bag with lots of pockets. I complimented the bag, and she joked it had too many pockets, so many in fact that she had one pocket dedicated solely to pictures of her grandchildren. What a wonderful person! Not only does she carry around pictures of her grandchildren, she also gave me a big, wonderful cue of what she was interested in. “Well, hey!,” I said. “Let’s see them!”
If I had to look at pictures of strangers posed for the camera all day long, then it would probably be boring. But I don’t find anything boring about seeing pictures and hearing about someone’s family for 5 minutes before a meeting. I enjoyed seeing the pictures.
Soon enough, it was time to start the meeting. And here’s where being an extrovert comes in handy. Because I had made a point to follow the principles and interact with others—rather than sitting and looking over meeting materials on my laptop—I was feeling energized for the meeting. I wanted to interact with more people, ask more questions, and learn more. Following the principles gives me energy. The meeting flew by, I got to chat more afterwards, and overall, it was a successful night living by the principles of HTWFAIP.
