MindShare: Evolution

When last we left me (MindShare: Beginnings), I was graduating from college and determining the person I wanted to be in my new world. My “social” world for the last four years had been buried in study while raising my 5-year-old son (now 8), and before that, eleven years in the Army as an interrogator. Now at 34, I was preparing to start my new life and enter the corporate world.

Seems simple, joyous in fact, and it was. But I felt a responsibility to myself to set a moral standard for how I would use the unique skillset I developed in my military profession. I had studied, taught and lived human assessment, interpersonal interaction and communication—it was a core part of me.

I wondered if I would be caught up in a “dog-eat-dog” culture, and what a normal civilian life would be. The real question finally became obvious: “What am I going to do with all I have learned about human beings?”

My job, my intuition for eleven years, had been to operate with an informational advantage, to understand body language and translate that into communication, to understand and guide resistance—to understand you better than you understand what I am doing.

There was only one answer—transparency. I would be transparent and inclusive in all interpersonal communication and interaction. And I gave this a name that is ingrained in my core being to this day—“Straight Up.”

How did this work? I can tell you my initial foray into Straight Up was interesting, effective, but limited. I found I could be the best, achieve success and feel good about my interactions.  The limitation was connection, or lack thereof. Complete and total Straight Up can remove the spice from the table of life, reduce the potential for interaction and growth with others. It can be too direct to allow and facilitate growth. Straight Up set my moral boundary: truth without agenda. But truth alone did not create connection.

I had become Straight Up, operating and interacting with everyone on a level playing field. But I knew there was more. I wanted more. The evolution of Straight Up would be the evolution of me, of mind share. How to evolve my original concept of “mind share,” which was essentially me getting into your head, into a new greater concept—“MindShare”—moving to a place where two people are getting into each other’s heads, toward a deeper relationship on an intuitive and visceral level, becoming intimate without intimacy?

My real “awakening” was learned—taught to me—as a life lesson. In my role as a senior interrogation instructor, I had the opportunity to teach and lead, grade and evaluate both new recruits and seasoned interrogators. I had to give many evaluations and, in some cases, remove instructors or flunk students. The job of delivering “difficult news” fell on me frequently, and I earned the nickname Iceman. This was because I had an uncanny ability to deliver a Straight Up message that, in many cases, was career-altering. Iceman seemed good at the time, but then I got my real lesson.

My first position after college was managing an IT department. There was a young woman—I will call her Allison, not her real name—who had graduated and started at the same organization one year before me.  While Allison and I were truly equal in business experience and technical expertise, I got the manager position due to my previous military and life experience. I would say we coexisted well in our roles and developed a relationship of mutual respect.

After a year or so, the business took a severe downturn and layoffs came. Unfortunately, Allison was one of those designated to be laid off and I, as her manager, had to deliver the news.

Layoffs and firings are painful, but they must be done. And here is the Iceman to do the job.

Allison came into my office, we began talking, and I delivered the message. I remember this very vividly. Allison broke down and began to cry. Nothing new; I had experienced this before from soldiers. But something was different. I had not expected this from her. I viewed her as a very strong, independent woman who would not be overly fazed by this hurdle.

What was different was that Allison allowed herself to become completely vulnerable, to open herself up to me. She shared numerous things that were going on in her life, not with a desire to change the outcome, but merely to talk. At that moment, I realized the amount of trust we had developed along with our respect.

I was moved.

What an awakening. I thought I was par excellence in people assessment. How could I have missed this? I could and did understand all aspects of a person’s communication, down to attributing psychological motivation. But here, a new variable presented itself as overwhelming.

I had always focused on respect between two people. That had been my encompassing definition of trust, but typically I was seeking an outcome; I had an agenda. Now my eyes were opened—wide. Allison’s vulnerability did not stem merely from respect. It came from the trust that had developed from our mutual respect.

And something else had changed. The motivation had shifted to Allison.

The outcome had been determined, the agenda completed. Our interaction was now the focal point—the outcome. She allowed herself to become vulnerable from a base of trust created by our mutual respect. She allowed me in.

This is the exact point where mind share became MindShare; when I realized that Straight Up for my future required vulnerability. I cannot manufacture trust in another, but I can allow myself to be vulnerable. I can offer trust and allow trust and vulnerability to open the door of connection—deep MindShare connection. I hope I always knew and intuitively demonstrated these things, but for the evolution of MindShare, they had to become my focus.

While I emphasize vulnerability because it was my newfound learning, that is primarily because vulnerability in myself was a foreign concept to me. What was never foreign, and cannot be lost in this metamorphosis, is respect. It has and always will be the basis for my human interactions.

Respect is my starting point, fundamental. Without respect, there can be no MindShare. It is the foundation upon which trust and vulnerability can grow; trust initiating vulnerability, vulnerability deepening trust, together creating connection.

But where to begin?

I needed to move from “just the facts” to connection, from infiltration to integration—me with you and you with me on an as intimate a level as we can create. It may take two to tango, but one will request the dance, and that will be me.

My knowledge and my training can enable a communicative environment. But it will require my openness, my vulnerability, my invitation to trust, for another person to share that environment.

And once shared, the tango continues.  Sometimes it evolves into one of the most beautiful and elegant dances of life; other times, not so much.

MindShare is an ongoing evolution of human sharing, integration, communication; humans connecting.

The confluence of you with me, me with you and us with all.