Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast #127 Transformational communication with Andrew Horn
"All meaningful connection starts in the same way, with a meaningful conversation"
Andrew and I delve into the world of purposeful, open conversation and the transformative role it can have in the way we communicate.
We delve into his early experience volunteering with young people with disabilities, which led him to establish Dreams for Kids in 2009, enriching lives through sports. This journey, coupled with personal challenges like social anxiety and racial discrimination, fuelled his growth and adoption of Gestalt communication principles focusing on presence and authenticity.
We explore the current global epidemic of loneliness and how to embrace social anxiety successfully for connection and more meaningful communication. Creating value based communities and building genuine connection through self reflection, intentionality and coming from a place of curiosity is key to enabling this transformation.
Understanding these concepts can help us unlock purpose and counter bias and ingrained stereotypes. We focus on Andrew’s initiative to redefine masculinity - modern masculinity - and create a more balanced, open dialogue on emotions and the necessity for purpose and deeper work to create conditions where people can thrive. Constructive communication must detail agreements and define how they are practiced within an organisation.
Andrew generously shares his experience and methodologies to foster deeper connections through meaningful conversations and reflection. By utilising resources for relational leadership and community-building activities, we can build intimacy and genuine connections within our teams, communities and families.
The main insights you'll get from this episode are :
- Human communication, connection and purpose are everything: purpose is a commitment to the service of something greater than the self (as distinct from a calling, which is a unique lived experience used to serve the greater good).
- Based on the gestalt communication three pillars of awareness (authenticity, curiosity and presence), we must listen to our emotions and feelings - we can only expect other people to be themselves if we are ourselves.
- Healing = feeling, not suppressing our ‘broken’ or ‘incorrect’ parts and hiding them from others; being objective about authenticity means we can be ourselves wherever we are and whoever we are with.
- Social anxiety is a healthy response to life - anxiety often remains, but our response to it can change. We don’t control our first thought, but we do control our second.
- IICAN five-part framework for mastering (social) anxiety in high-pressure environments with a practical system to engineer a constructive response and social flow (flow state with people):
· Intentionality (intentional, conscious response to how do I want to be, what do I want to achieve)
· Introspection (quality of conversation determined more by context than content, consciously welcome our emotions, cognitive emotive loop)
· Curiosity (hyperawareness of self-consciousness giving way to being conscious about others, what do I want to know in the world)
· Authenticity (earn trust by telling the truth, objectivity with positive intent)
· Now (constructive existence in the present moment, understanding, listening)
- Flow triggers require equal levels of skill and difficulty, full presence, and intrinsic motivation as opposed to external factors outside our control, which give rise to TAR (tension in the body; anxiety in the mind; resistance).
- Challenge is part of leadership but there is always a way to respond with integrity: social communities/teams/cultures create a shared language to overcome reactivity and embrace responsibility for the common good.
- Constructive communication must detail agreements and define how they are practiced within an organisation, e.g. no gossip, values, constraints and exclusivity.
- Junto (named after Benjamin Franklin’s secret society) is a men’s leadership community to create dialogue and flow in socially taboo subjects and practice emotional enquiry.
- Authenticity is an emergent and cathartic way of communicating and it is culturally valuable for men to have a safe space - if we are unwilling to feel our feelings, they will ultimately run the show.
- Identity is the foundational motivator of behaviour and habit formation and very much (socially) conditioned - the quest is to help men ask big questions and have deep conversations.
- Where possible, we should aim to be catalysts for meaningful conversations - people crave depth and intimacy but don’t know how to do it; a leader should ask questions and create space for people to talk.
Find out more about Andrew and his work here :
https://www.itsandrewhorn.com/