Conversational Intelligence

041: Judith Glaser: Something was wrong about our interactions

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

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Jim Rembach:    Okay Fast Leader Legion, you have to make sure that you actually share this episode because it’s absolutely going to be one of our best. I’m one of her biggest fans and I’m just so excited to have her on the show. Judith Glaser grew up on Broad Street in Philadelphia in a family of three children, Judy, Joan, and John. Her parents ran a very successful dental practice and before the age of 10 Judith and her siblings were taken to Mexico to live in an international camp for almost three months as her dad had been appointed as the first dental ambassador from the US. Her father was a speaker, taught himself seven languages and was awarded 180 awards for his speaking engagements in over 21 countries. The back story of this incredible childhood is that Judith discovered at the age of 10 that her father was a stutterer most of his life until a teacher took him under her wing and coached him to take a lead in a play and in that role his stuttering stopped. 

Learning that her father had been an emotional orphan the cause of his stuttering, she became a student of neuroscience. At the ripe age of 11, reading medical books to help her explain what was going on in our brains that could free her father from his extreme stuttering. Judith’s unbridled curiosity drove her to make a life commitment to understanding how the quality of conversations can change the trajectory of a person’s life. She studied conversational patterns, mapping them, experimenting with new ones, teaching about them, writing about them for over 50 years and it’s a part of her works on conversational intelligence. Judith is currently the founder and CEO of Benchmark Communications Inc. and the chairman of the Creating WE Institute with over 30 years of business experience working with CEO’s and their teams and establishing WE centric cultures poised to strategically handle business challenges in the face of moving targets. Judith currently resides in New York City and Norwalk Connecticut with her husband Richard. Judith Glaser are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Judith Glaser:    Yes.

Jim Rembach:    Okay Judith. I’ve given our listeners a brief introduction but can you please tell us what your current passion is so that we get to know you better.

Judith Glaser:    My current passion has been with me for 50 years, so current is long. I am so focused on bringing conversational intelligence around the world. I know we’re going to be talking more about what conversational intelligence means but I’ve come to realize after spending so much time in this field and doing so much research around how the brain works and how human beings relate to each other that conversational intelligence is a universal capacity that lives inside of all of us and when it’s activated human beings interact differently with each other which leads to outcomes of share success, it leads to people working together to transform the world, it leads to so many good things that we’re going to talk about today. So I will say, and I say it with almost tremored and realize that I’ve been fixated on this for so many years but truly the results that I’m seeing and doing this kind of work and doing this kind of research with others just leads to such good outcomes for humanity, so that’s my passion.

Jim Rembach:    There’s so many things in there that can easily have so much complexity, absolutely have a lot of depth. But you know, when I refer back to something that I learned when I read a book by Chip and Dan, they talk about having a problem with knowing too much about a particular subject and not being able to connect with others because you have such that depth of knowledge, they call it the curse of knowledge. So, when you started talking about the conversational intelligence and several things within which you were explaining, is there a way that you can kind of make it a little bit simpler, for me?

Judith Glaser:    I will. I can’t believe you raise this question because truly is the curse of knowledge, that we can get caught up in facts, data points, things that seem to be in the subject matter zone and lose the essence at times and most of all as human beings there’s too much stuff there to almost spill it out in a conversation and in an effective way because words appear one after the other It’s like they’re very linear but in our heads we see it as a whole and it makes it hard to translate. So I’m going to give you conversational intelligence in a very clear, specific, one page format for listeners as well. 

What I realized is that conversations are not giving each other information. Although we focus on school, we focus on that in business, there’s a lot of data it’s all about data, words, concepts, but that’s now what’s going on. Human beings connect through energy fields and conversations enable us to connect in a healthy way, to navigate with others, and to grow with others. So it’s a whole different, it’s not information related as much as it is activating each other’s capacity to grow and develop throughout our whole lives. An example of a couple who lived together and one of them dies, passes away before the other and they’ve had a healthy relationship, the other person often dies shortly after that, why? Because their healthy connection is what was keeping them alive, many years longer than you would anticipate. So some of these couples could live over hundred because they’re thriving with each other. So conversations are about connecting, navigating with others, and growing with others.

Jim Rembach:    Even when you were talking about and explaining that, I started thinking for whatever reason about music and in talking about being able to make something that is enjoyable to listen to and the conversation and the interactions with one another, really it’s your instrument whether it’s conversation or just  say your brain, body, and soul and some hell of those things, is it really making a good thing to listen to when we put the two together, why was I thinking that? Do you have an idea?

Judith Glaser:    I sure do, it’s funny you should say that. And when I tell you this, this is exactly why and I’m loving that your listeners are going to hear this. I had a phrase that when human beings are in sync, great music plays. What I believe you and I have a connection. We talked a little bit before the show and I got to know you for the first time but I felt such an open heart to your symphony that you’re sharing with me and the depth and transparency that you provided in our conversation to start out with. What I believe happens is that human beings, that mere neurons which are the way that we connect with other human beings, live inside of our prefrontal cortex heart connection and when people feel comfortable with each other and they feel trust. Trust also lives in the prefrontal cortex heart connection so you simultaneously, and this is one of the words I use simultaneity things happening at the same time inside the brain, we simultaneously are activating different parts of our brain that expand our capacity to get to know each other, to make that connection. So, I think you were reading my mind that’s what part of this work suggests is that when mirror neurons are activated, mirror neurons are mirroring each other’s being and some of that is electrical energy fields that connect between human beings whether you’re in a healthy conversation or not they’re there. And that I felt trust in you, I felt openness, so my mirror neurons started and you literally read my mind.

Jim Rembach:    Wow!

Judith Glaser:    Does that make sense?

Jim Rembach:    I mean I, it does to you and thank goodness because I didn’t think I had that ability.

Judith Glaser:    Oh yes, oh yes. Well I’ll tell you something I didn’t tell you before. Which is that, you sound so much like a gentleman that I worked with in one of my first clients Boehringer Ingelheim, you sound so much like him that I just went into a piece, like I said, “Oh my God! I think I’m really going to like this guy.”[Laugh]

Jim Rembach:    That’s amazing! I find myself as well going in and looking in and finding those things that resonate with those positive feelings that I have, when I thought there and find myself trying to go deeper with that person because I kind of already got past an initial barrier, it’s like…

Judith Glaser:    Yes. 

Jim Rembach:    I mean, it’s amazing. Now I know that when you start talking about having a passion that last 50 years, there’s so many different sources of energy that keep you going down that path. One of the things that we like to look at on the show is leadership quotes because they can do that and then they can make beautiful music and that’s why we like them. And I know with the depth of knowledge and research and exposure and all these things that you had in your career, is there a quote or two that kind of stands out that you can share with us?

Judith Glaser:    The quote that I use and it anchors me every day in this works, so I’m still using it to remind myself, I call it reclaiming my purpose every day and that is that, “To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of a culture, which depends on the quality of relationships, which depends on the quality of conversations, everything hums to conversation.”

Jim Rembach:    It really does and that conversation these days takes on many different forms, at least that’s what I see. I mean everything from the texting to all sort of visual cues and that can be conversational in nature. When you start thinking of conversation, what’s your scope of it?

Judith Glaser:    It does cover everything. I have at the lowest level when people are in conversation times there is a neurochemistry that takes place. And so, the neurochemical levels the first one and we literally pick up energy from each other, we pick up a quality of energy, we pick up an intention from other people. Most people don’t talk about this but we jump up to the level of words and sentences and concepts and ideas and beliefs and inferences and assumptions that’s all in the word zone but that very first thing is that we connect through these energy fields that give us information about whether we can trust a person or not. So that’s like level one is a chemical level. 

And level two is the emotional level, that’s where we start to put words. We have seven universal emotions it’s living next at that level where you can start identifying, this person feel good? Am I in trite? Or am I open? And do I like this person? And so that’s another level, and then we go in to the language level of beliefs and thoughts and ideas and conclusions. So in a way,  neurochemistry which we haven’t talked about in the world for the most part until recently and I’m so glad we are, is the basis of what starts all of these and then it’s how we connect as human beings and then it’s how we open up and share with others.

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that. We also find situations in our life where we have defining moments, moments of truth and goodness knows I’ve had many of those, and we talk about those in the show. We talk about getting over the hump. So if you think about a hump that you’ve had to get over that kind of defined you, set you in a different direction, set you on the right path, so many of those things where we have those epiphanies. Can you think of a time where you had to do that, get over the hump and it made an impact on you?

Judith Glaser:    What I’m going to capture is, and it’s just one hump but it’s a series of humps that seemed to happen around the time when I was around 10 or so. When I was old enough to realize there was something in my family and the way people interacted with each other that didn’t feel right. I remember literally in school bringing home a teacher for example, Ms. [inaudible 12:26] I still remember her name, because I wanted my parents to experience someone that made me feel really good. Now the reason is that the contrast in my family, something was wrong about our interactions and I didn’t know what I know now. Now I can say my father was a teller. My father had a picture in his mind of what he wanted this world to be about and what he wanted to treat us do and my sister and brother and I were the three J’s, mostly because my dad was conflict to verse and he wanted to treat us as one so we didn’t have to figure out how to divide up things and be nice to one and not to the other, it was so complicated, he wanted this perfect like and would tell everybody how to be in the play or the movie. My dad actually made movies, my brother became a movie producer, my sister a photographer, so boy, it just slid to our whole family that, for us it became an asset, but my dad just couldn’t handle conflict and he told everybody what to do and we got on schedules and that was it. So breakfast at a certain time, lunch at a certain time, dinner lasted from 6:00 to 6:20 every day at which time we went on to the hum radio which was a big part of dad’s life because he was talking to people around the world, blah-blah- blah—you can hear my emotion about this, it was a very unique experience and I spent my young life running away to people’s houses, finding a chemical shift that I could identify that made me feel different when I was in a family with lots of engagement and lots of love and lots of interaction and support but that’s all I knew as a child it was a runaway to something better. Does that make sense so far?

Jim Rembach:    It absolutely does. And I think it also draws a really important connection to what has driven you in regards to the work that you’ve been doing for the past 50 years. I mean it’s, it started early and it’s still going.

Judith Glaser:    Yeah, exactly, and exactly. So around the age of ten, what I discovered is that I didn’t know a lot about my parents. My dad have this picture of perfect and one day I was down on our basement and I found a photo book that had clippings and in it I found three clippings about my dad, things I didn’t know and also I found that I had a sister who passed away before me, “Diana”, who my parents never talked about and now looking back at that I realize that there was a lot of shame in my parents family growing up both my mother my father. The only thing I know about my mother is that she had three dresses they were so poor. In the winter she wore all three dressed to be warm enough in winter, and my dad I knew nothing. 

And so here I’m learning about that he was a valedictorian of his class, he was the head of the debating team, he was an actor, and he was in a tutu, and this particular picture and I decided to ask him what it was about, it was hidden away so he didn’t want us to know it that it was there. And I started to ask him all sorts of questions, like how did you do this? And how did you get there? And what he shared with me was that, and we had never heard this before, my dad grew up as a stutterer, my dad was a twin, his sister died at five and a half with water on her brain, my grandmother had a big carriage made, and my father’s job was to push his sister in the carriage, and my grandmother told him that she wanted girls not boys. 

Now, as God has it, after my father’s sister passed away my grandmother gave birth to three more boys, so she had all boys. However what I learned about is that my dad was an emotional orphan as a result of the interactions with his mother and how she felt about him and about the family, and so he stuttered his way through school and high school at the age of 18, he had a teacher who took him under her wing and helped him to be the lead in a play and I remember he c-c—ouldn’t-t—alk, he couldn’t imagine that he can be the lead in a play. And through her love, and coaching, and caring, and support, and the energy that float through him of being appreciated and loved and so many wonderful things, he would stand in this lead role and he’d stop stuttering. It was so profound time in his life, and he captured that and he was able to recreate that every day and my dad got in to patterns that enabled him to be healthy again, a teller, but healthy again. So, he’s valedictorian of his class, he was debating team and all these things about, he was just studying, and studying, and studying, how to say in that place of health. He went on to become a dentist and also was made an ambassador to the United States to bring dentistry around the world. He learned 7 languages, self-taught, even though he was deaf in one year and had polio, he became an emphatic learner of languages, a speaker, he had a 180 words for speaking all over the world and the hum radio set was keeping in touch with all of these people and places where he had been to help bring dentistry to other parts of the world, it was shame that hid it but look what he did with his life, at least the outside part of his life.

Jim Rembach:    Well I think that’s, man, that’s an awesome story. Thanks for sharing it. There’s so many things that we can talk about but there’s a couple things for me that kind of stood out. The one being is that which you had said about that teacher that you connected with early on and that you wanted your parents to see somebody that you connected with. That was an amazing reach out at that time that—that for me I’m almost like how did that go, I want more details about that, to see what the response was and that it change anything or did it make an impact?

Judith Glaser:    Here’s what’s so fascinating Jim, I remember, I can still see my teacher sitting on the sofa in front of the window that faced Broad Street, which is where we lived. I can still see her dressed up in her, she was a marine and so she had her outfit when she came with her marine clothes in the house to visit. I still see my parents and I still see her talking so that my parents could get it I didn’t rub it in their face I didn’t say, “Okay you should be like this” it was more to bring my world to them, I wanted them to be a part of my world and see something different and see if it would activate something different it was a beautiful conversation, it’s interesting now that you ask me I haven’t thought about this in a long time. 

But after that my dad did something with me that he has never done before and he played teacher with me, I haven’t thought about this since forever. I guess he must’ve seen that if I liked her, how he could be like her in some way. And I remember him sitting at the dining room table with me doing some teaching and he had never done that before, I don’t even ever remember that, so maybe without me realizing it he got the subtle messages that there’s something about the way she was teaching that made me feel really good and that’s a new insight for me today.

Jim Rembach:    Well, to me it just kind of rung pretty heavy. And I think that for me there’s a couple things with that the our fast leader legion can actually really connect with and maybe take forward from an advice perspective and that is to give examples, show examples, reveal examples to others where you’re trying to make that deeper connection. Oftentimes, I talk about from an influencer rapport building perspective that sometimes you’re not the best source to deliver, sometimes you need to let somebody else do that and I think if we did that more often we probably have even less conflict and greater levels of conversational intelligence because, ‘hey this ain’t coming from me’ this is coming from somebody else, even though that it’s something that I’m trying to impact or effect. 

Judith Glaser:    Well, now you’re triggering something else which is really amazing. I am seeing insights I haven’t seen before through our conversation, I’m grateful for that. Here’s what you just said and where it fits in to the story that I have for conversational intelligence. The first major project I did with a client that actually went on for 28 years if you can believe it, is that I designed the program called “Star Skills.” It’s in the introduction of my book if anybody wants more details about it, in the book Conversational Intelligence. But what it was, was I deconstructed the conversations that doing great in [inaudible 21:03] sales people had with their customers who were physicians and Boehringer was rated at that time as the lowest of all the pharmaceutical company, there were 40 companies they were rated 39 or 40 meaning doctors just didn’t want to be with reps, and my job was to deconstruct their conversations with their doctors and see what they were doing to activate the wrong feelings, and I and I realized and I came up with the fact that they were frightened because their market share was low and they started to do a lot of telling.

The reps would push harder, so it’s push energy, telling energy and as a result of it, they were turning and closing down the physicians. And that was part of my study, if push doesn’t work, what would pull look like? And I got into exploring and I came up with 5 different skills that if I put them together in a model and enabled the reps to use these they would be able to change the interaction dynamic with doctors and if so it should, if all the science is right that I was studying, it would build a better relationship and they would end up becoming a hire rated person to visit. In 8 months they went from 39 to 1, 2 or 3 in the eyes of doctors, eight months alone by shifting. 

The reason why I’m sharing this to your story is that I realized that I had to create a model that took telling out of the picture completely. It just wasn’t even there, so they couldn’t use that as a story but what I injected into this model was dramatizing your message which is what you are just talking about with me and that is using either stories, metaphors, pictures, ways to illustrate a message that doesn’t feel like you’re telling them what to do. So what we thought them, the doctor said the reps to do is to use alternatives to telling and to bring in ways to dramatize their message in stories, metaphors, examples, sometimes they have a model  with them of what was going on in the body that physical 3-D model, whatever it was it was engaging the physician in a way that they can then share the stories, talk about implications, find out more about how it works in the doctor’s practice, so it changed the whole flow to what I call in level 3 conversations, to share and discover mode of interaction versus the persuading which is what they were doing or the telling which is very transactional. So the reps learn to move people into this higher level of engagement and they felt the different chemical shift, they felt rapport ad they started to buy the product. 

Jim Rembach:    Well to me the, even the more interesting point was that it happened so quickly, in eight months?

Judith Glaser:    Yes. And I still can’t believe it. And the reason why, is they tracked it because they were, they put a lot of money and effort into this new work and this new approach and they wanted to get a quick read on whether it was helping or not. Because it was a big risk for everybody, it took away the traditional features and benefits which people sometimes still use, and they said that, “Let’s use benefits instead of features.” It did away with features and benefits, it wasn’t even about that at all, that’s product orientation, this was about relationship and how they could help the doctor in their lives. It happened so quickly that Boehringer, the team was asked to be speakers at a big event in Maryland that year and I said, “What are you going to talk about?  And he said, “We’ll I’m going to talk about our work.” And I said, “Terry Dockins, you’re going to talk about our work in front of all your competitors and tell them what we’re doing, that’s like opening up the secret sauce to your competitors, why would you do that?” He said, “You know what, you and I, what you’re doing is going to continue to grow and grow and grow so much that it’s okay if they know about it, we’re still going to find something else that we are going to add to what we’re doing and we’re just going to be there and do it and we’re going to do it great.”

Jim Rembach:    Wow! That was good coaching on that global mind-set that you were talking about earlier. Now if you start mentioning advice and the stories that you’ve told, I know we can spend three shows talking about the advice, but if you were to have one thing stand out as a piece of advice that you would give to our fast leader legion, what would it be?

Judith Glaser:    This is what I’ve learned, I’m taking 50 years of my life and putting it into a couple of big thoughts that for me continue to be big thoughts. It’s not as much about what we say, although that is so important, there’s a core here about how we listen that opens up the space for people to show up differently with each other. And that if you imagine that were not just receptacles of knowledge but we’re growing as we engage, listening is so important and so if people would like to experiment who were listening to take the concept which is embedded in conversational intelligence which is listening to connect not judge or reject and just experiment with that one phrase, when we listen to judge reject we don’t really hear the other person, we knock their thought out and we go back to putting our thoughts on the table without realizing it.

Jim Rembach:    I think that’s great advice. Definitely having that more active and deeper level of listening is something that I think we all could use some additional training on, so thanks for sharing that. Now I know we talked about so many things that you’re doing with your non-profit work, your for-profit work, you’re trying to impact the world, your grandkids there’s so many things that are essentially on your plate, but if you’re talk about one thing that’s really exciting you, what would it be?

Judith Glaser:    I’m going to say this if I can in a short way. When I was starting out doing all this work, and I grew up in a family that was confusing to me, I had a teacher just like my dad did who took me under her wing, she actually gave me a Fellowship to study human behaviour and development. She made me part of a research fellowship project where we did work with a, let’s call it a talking typewriter, it was a machine that was developed by GE and we used it to help kids learn how to read and write using their own stories and pictures, and we followed them for 10 years it was transformational their IQs raise, their EQs raised, everything like that. So, I  guess what stuck with me most about that and what I hope people can take away from this is, for a while before I met my professor people told me I was crazy doing the work I was doing thinking about conversations, thinking about energy, I had people that said to me, “That’s ridiculous! Where did you get that idea?” those phrases that closed me down so much that I was frightened to share this work. Here I sit 50 years later because of the people that coached me, who believe you me, who said it’s not crazy keep going it’s different, it’s interesting and pushed me to stay in and believed in me and help me trust my instincts, because so much of who we become  we have to trust our own instincts in taking new steps out of the conventional wisdom that we know into what’s new and different and disruptive so that we can bring our unique talent to the world, our unique voice to the world. And I want people to remember that, that’s what shapes our lives, that’s what shapes humanity and it’s not hard, it maybe starts with the listen to connect part but it shapes our life around interacting in a different way that enables each person to bring their unique DNA to life, and I guess that’s my passion that’s where I am, that’s what I still believe in. If I find other people that are living in this space and want to experiment with it, it gets me so excited because I think the world will change with this framework being a foundation for how people engage with each other.

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast Leader Legion wishes you the very best. Alright here we go fast leader listeners it’s time for the—Hump day Hoedown. Okay, Judith, the Hump Day hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask several questions and your job is to give us a robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Judith Glaser are you ready the Hoedown?

Judith Glaser:    I guess so. Never done this before but let me see what I can do.

Jim Rembach:    Alright! So what do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today? 

Judith Glaser:    I don’t get enough sleep. (Laugh)

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Judith Glaser:    Stop talking and listen. 

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Judith Glaser:    Ice cream is wonderful to have at night.

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Judith Glaser:    My fancy fountain pens. (Laugh)

Jim Rembach:    (Laugh) What is one book that you would recommend to our listeners, besides one of yours, and we’re going to put links to those in your show notes page. What would be one that you would recommend? Don’t have to be a business book.

Judith Glaser:    Well I don’t read anything besides business books. The “Talent Code” by Dan Coyle.

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Fast Leader listeners you can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to Fastleader.net/Judith Glaser. Okay, Judith this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you are given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you have been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything you can only choose one, so what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Judith Glaser:    Candor and caring are two words that are like twins, they belong in our life, and they belong especially as leaders in the way we interact with people. When leaders show up, when human being show up with condor and caring we activate the part of our brain that is willing to trust the engagement, ourselves, our instincts, everything, it’s like a magic elixir that I would love people to experiment with around the world. You don’t have to do more than just be in that space of condor and caring with others and your world changes, it’s like opening a new door to your life.

Jim Rembach:    Judith Glaser, it was an honour to spend time with you today, can you please share with the fast leader listeners how they can connect with you.

Judith Glaser:     I have a website called conversationalintelligence.com people can check in with me there, contact me if they like. I have another website creatingwe.com and both include lots of stories and articles and tools and videos and things that can help people understand conversational intelligence and if people have a chance to pick up the book, it is like a bible for those who are trying to experiment with their life and bring out the best that they have to offer the world, so both and all.

Jim Rembach:    Judith Glaser, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom. The fast leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the Hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the fast leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe if you haven’t already, head on over the Fastleader.net, so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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