After a priest moved to a new parish he approached his superior one afternoon to ask, “Would you mind if I smoked while praying?” and was, not surprisingly, turned down.

Yet how one makes a request has a huge impact on whether it will be  granted. For example, the priest might have said, “Would you mind if I pray while I am smoking?”

Setting the context with your initial comments is akin to dressing in the fashion that the people you are going to be around will approve or even admire, while still being true to yourself.

Why?

Because people like people who are like them.  Like all animals, we are most comfortable with those who act and look right – like us.  In fact, the more you look familiar to me, the earlier in the conversation I will literally hear your words, absorb their meaning and be more able to accept them, and you.

The more you look and act different than me, the more my peripheral vision narrows initially.  Further my skin temperature goes down and my heart beat goes up in anticipation of the face of the unfamiliar.

That is because the primitive triune part of our brains has not changed. We are forever hardwired to respond to new, unfamiliar situations with the “fight or flight” syndrome.  Our vital signs literally shut down when we are first around a person, setting or situation that is radically different, unfamiliar thus initially potentially dangerous, until we have decided how we feel about our situation.

You can pull people closer, and bring out their better side so they can see and appreciate yours. In fact, this is probably the most meaningful gift you can give someone else, other than the present of your warm presence.

Continuously praise others’ specific actions you admire, however small they may seem to you. People eventually warm up to your evident warmth. Authentically praise to inspire happier, high-performing behavior in others and yourself.

1. Praise  them directly. Whatever you praise you want to flourish. The more specific your words, the more memorable your message.  Describe the actual act in as much rich detail so you honor the person in acknowledging how vividly it affected you.

2. Even more powerfully, compliment the person to one or more people who are very important to them.  My client, the CFO of a Berlin-based maker of wireless portal equipment named Punjabi, has had a rugged and quite successful third year of operation where everyone has worked long hours.

Instead of handing out the ten top team awards in the traditional way, at a company event, the CEO took the time to find a significant group related to each of the winners.  For those winners the groups included a place of worship, a rugby club, a college alumnae organization and an antique car association.

With the permission of these organizations, the CEO arranged to give the award and an eight-minute speech, describing both the winner’s accomplishments at Punjabi and a specific incident where the winner exemplified the heroic character of a true team player.  Thus each (surprised) winner got to bask in the spotlight in front of valued people in her or his non-world world.

The CEO’s greater effort also put his company in a genuinely positive light in many new places.  Although it did not appear that any of the people who saw their friends receive the award were immediate, potential customers of Punjabi, they were sufficiently inspired to stir some positive word-of-mouth buzz about the awards ceremonies.

A month after these ceremonies a feature writer for the equivalent of the “lifestyle” section of the main Berlin paper heard the story through a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who was a rugby player with her husband.  Not one to be interested in business stories, she was nevertheless touched by the way the ceremonies had rippled out to surround the winners’ lives.

She tracked down the CEO and interviewed him, thus affording him another chance to speak glowingly about specific examples of his winners’ dedication and ingenuity.  As he praised each person, the glow of the values he admired reflected back on him and his company.  The reporter also interviewed the winners and several of the people at the organizations where the awards events occurred and then wrote a human interest story that appeared, with photos, in a Sunday edition.

The article generated several glowing letters to the editor by people who witnessed the ceremonies, the winners and others who were also moved by the story. Mr. John Sunui, vice president of sales for Singapore-based construction management company happened to read some of the letters in the paper while eating his breakfast in a hotel while in Berlin on business.

Sunui emailed the reporter to request a copy of the original article that the reporter emailed back the next day and he received when he returned to Singapore.

That December holiday in Singapore — and 14 other countries where Sunui’s company has offices, both the office director and one person in each office who has done an outstanding job at their work, as voted by their co-workers, will be happily surprised when they walk in the door at some place that is special to them to be greeted by a company representative who will give them a present and tell a story about another side of the winner that their friends in that organization may not know about.

How can you give a lasting and perhaps the most widely-known gift that ten people you admire can receive?   For each person think of the specific incident where that person has exemplified the quality that you most admire or cherish.  Re-play the situation in your mind so you can describe it in all its story-building, touching detail.

Practice saying the story, then notice how you now feel about the person. Begin with the specific details before you end with the general statement that summarizes your admiration.  That way, you make the story, and the person, more vividly memorable to others who read or hear it.

Next step: for each person envision what group to which they are affiliated (family, religious organization, hobby or other interest or professional group, etc.) would be most significant for that person if you were to praise them among the members. You have several ways to pass along your praise about the person you love or admire.

Call, email or write to someone in that person’s valued affinity group and share your story of praise.  Or you may, like the people in the story above, ask for permission to confer a gift on the person at a gathering of their group.  In advertising this method is called a “third party endorsement.”

For example, when customers praise a product in an advertisement they are providing a credible third party endorsement.  Because we are all instinctive voyeurs, naturally interested in the stories of each other’s lives we are more drawn to third party endorsements than to advertisements.  Further, when we hear a positive story about someone, told by another person we find it more credible and compelling than if the person was to “boast” about it in telling it himself.

Here are other ways to offer heartfelt, long-lasting third party endorsement gifts to those you hold dear:

• Donate money or another gift to a charity or cause in which that person is active, and ask that your story about them be included in any acknowledgement of the gift.

• Seek out places that person frequent and see if you might buy a needed piece of equipment or repair one in that person’s name.

In our Sausalito church, for example, you can pay for a hymnal and dedicate it with a related phrase, to someone you love. So every Sunday, someone at my church opens up a hymnal with this hand calligraphic message on the inside front, dedicated to my mother who loves piano music, “To Lestelle whose piano playing washes away the dust of everyday life.”

• On an object that person might uses frequently (coffee mug, bath towel, key holder) imprint or monogram a positive nickname or one phrase characterization of the “hero’s” action.

To my English rugby-playing friend, Richard, we’re giving a glass beer stein with these words etched on the bottom, “Great giver of bone-crushing hugs.”

• Make a large, colorful postcard on which you write a description of the positive incident involving your hero, then ask your colleagues who agree to join in signing it before sending it to that person’s home.  Give a gift to the person’s partner in work or personal life, as an acknowledgement of your admiration.

• Create a banner or poster, with a celebratory sentence and an enlarged and flattering image of the hero and hang it in a prominent place (wall or door of the person’s office, home or event). Find a place the person frequents (dry cleaner, golf club) and offer the business manager at that site your credit card number with a set dollar limit. Ask the manager to pay the next bill of your hero, fax you a copy of the bill, and hand the manager a gift card with your inscription on it to be given to the hero at their next visit.  You’ll create your own variation of this method, I’ll bet.

Two years ago I learned that Janice, a skilled meeting planner who had hired me to speak at her association several times over the years, and who was exceptionally gracious and generous with me, had contracted leukemia. I learned this from her assistant who called to confirm some details regarding my next presentation at their annual meeting.

On a long plane flight back from another speaking engagement, I looked out the window, thinking of Janice, and conjured up this idea for a third party endorsement of the Hawaiian-born meeting planner which would reflect one of her most passionate interests, gardening. I called the association’s executive director to share my idea and he immediately agreed.

Two months later, just after I was introduced to speak at that association’s convention’s opening breakfast, I moved to the center of the raised stage, signaling the 500 attendees to also rise from their seats as the board president caught the elbow of our surprised meeting planner, Jana, who at the bottom of the stage steps, still focused on making sure the room lighting would be alright for my speech.

He guided her up the steps as I stepped back to the side of the stage and the first person in the audience, roving mike in his hand told a vignette of how Jana had guided him at the beginning of his career.  As Jana reached the center of the stage, in front of the people she had served for 14 years, eight other people in various parts of the room lifted their mike and told their brief story about her.

Then a tenor saxaphone player stepped out from the side of the stage to serenade Janice with a fragment of her favorite Kenny G song as the screen on the stage was filled with purple words on an emerald green (her favorite colors) background, “Jana is a special flower” followed by a swift changing set of images of Janice in several situations.

As the song ended, on cue, all 500 people pulled from out of their pockets and purses the fragrant Hawaiian-grown white flowers, the gardenias, tuber roses and pikaki and held them aloft towards Jana.  The board president handed Jana a bouquet of the flowers and asked Jana to speak, which she did, briefly, through her tears.

Even several of the hotel waiters were standing still, crying by then.  My speech had, of course, been moved to the luncheon so people could drop by Jana’s table to say their warm greetings through the ensuing breakfast.

Odd things can happen when hanging out with those who don’t act right, like you. I got unexpected insights when, with two friends, I walked through the Steins Collection of paintings by Matissse, Picasso and other avant-garde painters in bohemian Paris.

In most every gallery room one friend would sit on the bench in the middle of the gallery, then casually look down. I didn’t understand at first. He was deep in thought, I surmised at first. Yet actually he was closely observing the shoes people were wearing, and there was a wild variety in this art-loving crowd.

Following his eyes I saw footwear as diverse as laced up-to-mid-thigh, purple velvet boots to topless sandals. They must have been glued to the soles of the woman’s feet.

Otherwise I might not have noticed that one doesn’t see many shoes in these paintings. Faces appear more often.  Yet, when looking at a Picasso, my friend was immediately reminded of  shoes he’d seen just before we’d entered the museum.

Meanwhile my other friend would describe the emotions he saw in faces in the paintings, and on people around us, commenting on their possible personalities. As you probably anticipated by now, what my friends saw  — and did not see  –  depended on the lens through which they viewed the world. One friend is a shoe designer, visiting from Milan. The other is a trial lawyer who is accustomed to sizing up clients, judges, witnesses and potential jurors. Sharing that experience through their eyes was a considerably richer, more multi-faceted experience. In fact, when we continued our lively conversation over coffee in the adjacent café, two pediatricians at a nearby table, in town for conference, joined in the conversation.

Discover Lessons for Not Living a Narrow Life

Forget passive entertainment and learning. Would you like to live a more adventuresome life where you:

• Stumble across new ideas that dovetail with the life you want to lead yet didn’t realize it until you experienced “scenes” you want to repeat?

• Attract serendipitous opportunities?

• Have meaningful conversations with acquaintances that sometimes become friends?

• Create your own fun with others?

Here are some lessons I’m slow in learning yet that have made life more fascinating

1.  Overcome Attention Blindness

We tend to see life through the lens of our work and life experiences.  That means we miss a lot. “As long as we focus on the object we know, we will miss the new one we need to see,” says Cathy Davidson, author of Now You See it.

2.  See How Differences Can Spur Fresh Insights and Innovation

One fun way to overcome that blindness is to share new experiences with individuals quite different than you in work, life experience, temperament and values.  The color commentary you share as you see that art exhibit together, or prototype a new product or collectively plan an event or place can broaden the landscape you see in the moment and for the rest of your lives.

3.  Speak to the Glue of Greater  Adventure or Accomplishment

Even better, if you share a sweet a spot of mutual interest in the activity you and your colleagues may nudge each other into staying connected and even co-creating something new.  That sweet spot can be strong glue for your group. As The Difference author, Scott E. Page, and Group Genius author Keith Sawyer both discovered, a small, diverse group can collectively innovate better than a team of of individuals with more similarities than differences.   If  my two friends and I had realized that we  were all fascinated by design and human behavior we could have discussed that upfront, before entering the museum and perhaps had an even more meaningful time – explicitly speaking  to those share sweet spots of mutual interest.  We do now when we seek out new experiences to share.

4.  Retrieve an Atrophied Part of Your Character

When engaged in conversation with individuals who do not know you, as we did in the museum café, you can express ideas that close friends might dispute or even not hear because they do not expect them from you.  YAs Melinda Blau explained in Consequential Strangers, this gives you the opportunity  to deepen a facet of your character or explore a latent interest when in lively conversation with people who have no preconceived expectations of you.

5. Seek Out Those From Whom You May Learn the Most

The kind of individual from whom you can learn the most is also an ideal kind of dinner guest or committee member or teammate. That person is T-shaped, as Collaboration author Morten Hansen somewhat antiseptically describes this priceless trait for our increasingly complex yet connected world. Such individuals have both a deep mastery of a topic (the vertical line of a “T”) and an open, curious mind — they enjoy learning from others (the horizontal line of the “T”). I am presuming they also tend to have a flexible rather than a fixed mindset.

A gentle warning here. Even when we see ourselves  — and our colleagues in front of us — as open and curious people we don’t act right around each other.

6. Hone Your Capacity to Thrive Around People Who Don’t Act Right – Like You

Since our assets spring from different outlooks, it behooves us to keep reminding each other:

• We do not see the same situation the same way

• “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” ~ Niels Bohr

•  We get to be learners and teachers for each other, and that means changing roles more often than we do in most situations, an uncomfortable behavioral shift for many of us.

• Some individuals are givers more than takers, others are the reverse. Yet to enjoy the next chapter of your life story with more disparate characters in it – the most likely path to greater adventure, you must become — and be in the company of — people who want more or less equal give and take over time.  Absent that factor power is not perceived to be equally shared that that inevitably creates conflict as the classic Tit for Tat game studies proved.

• More than leaders, diverse people, gathered around a common interest, must become deep listeners, committed – not to being right or in control but to sticking to a common conversational thread.

That’s a different discipline.

It takes practice and patience. I am not good at it yet am eager to keep learning.

What ways have you learned to see the world in fresh ways, through your experiences with others? I’d love to know.

Even Michael Skoler who leads Public Radio International’s interactive activities was surprised by the huge turnout for Ira Glass’ live version of his popular radio show, This American Life.

Wrote Gigaom’s Mathew Ingram, “More than 30,000 watched the first digital show at hundreds of theaters across the U.S. and Canada in the spring of 2008. The next year, 47,000 turned out. They came to be with other fans, experiencing something they all loved together.”

Hint: Host a road tour or gatherings where your online community members can meet face-to-face and collectively hear from their stars, their most valued members.  Unlike associations and civic clubs, many online communities haven’t provided an opportunity for in-person conversations and celebrations.

Conversely many of the traditional clubs aren’t maximizing their opportunity for members to socialize and to learn from members in other chapters – both online and in-person. As sister chapters and organizations get networked via the opportunity to see meet online and in-person, diverse ties deepen. Serendipitous friendships, breakthroughs and collaboration are more likely to happen.

What if, for example, Rotary International invited its members to create short video stories about their inspiring, first-hand experience in civic projects in their community and in other parts of the world? Next, what if Rotary, asked members to vote for their favorite video stories?

Then Rotary could host its own multi-city, simultaneous “film festival.” Invite members and their family and friends to gather locally in public auditoriums, homes and theatres to see and talk about those favorites.

Right afterwards it might host an online, vote-this-hour, People’s Choice contest so that worldwide audience could choose their Top Ten.

With Rotary’s squeaky clean, altruistic image, I’m thinking that many major companies would leap at the chance to underwrite the costs and/or provide the technical support to make this community-building dream come true.

Consider how instructive, heart-warming and member and media attracting that could be for a member-based organization with chapters.

Of course other diverse organizations with avid members, stories to tell and a strong sense of community could emulate their version of this approach.

Off the top of my head, those organizations  include the Westminister Kennel Club’s dog show, college and corporate alumnae organizations, Student Youth Tour Association in partnership with high schools, and the Cyclists’ Touring Club in the UK.

One of the smartest moves a company could make would be to launch and host an online community that becomes the most popular place for its kinds of customers to join, exchange ideas, co-create and otherwise collaborate.

To strengthen ties, understanding and value between members and between the company and members, that firm would, of course, host in-person events in formats that most serve that kind of community’s interests.  Those formats can be as varied as talent contests, mutual mentoring sessions, speed consulting, Pecha Kucha, Ignite or collectively viewing and voting on their favorite, member-created videos on the topics that brought them together.

A company-hosted online community that includes in-person events could be competition for some associations, accustomed to controlling the programs for their members, inviting “vendors” to pay to play yet often not giving them much of a say on how to participate for the greater good of members and vendors.

Have you heard of inventive ways that members of online communities are meeting in-person?

Do you belong to a club, association or other organization?  How could it bring members closer by enabling them to enjoy meeting both online and in face-to-face gatherings?

Want to to kick off your new year in a way that will spur growth, enable you to  savor time with others and create fresh meaning in your life? Try this ….

Create a Mutually-Reinforcing Group Ritual

For over a decade in Lake Oswego, Oregon, eight women, including my college friend Jane, get of bed to meet at the same corner at 6 am for their rigorous one hour walk. Husbands, children, bosses all know that it is going to happen and to not get in the way.  Sometimes they don’t even talk.

Over the years they’ve walk/talked about an embezzling business partner, son’s first girlfriend, unexpected job promotion and a sick, aging pet Labrador that must be put to sleep that day. Increasingly, over the years they’ve come to see this daily ritual as a stabilizing continuity in their lives. It took several years yet the rhythm of walking, looking around as they talk and the reliability of knowing they will meet each morning has enabled them to ease into increasing candor and caring for each other, and so can you with others.

When they ask for advice they know it will come from women who know them well and who will speak frankly. Contrary to the saying, “familiarity breeds contempt,” instead over time, in a safe group ritual, familiarity breeds acceptance and even reliance on each other.

Let us forget things and consider only relations. ~ Georges Braque

Getting in Action Together Eventually Brings Us Closer

My former husband is in two poker groups that have been meeting in each other’s homes for over 25 years. The players are mostly lawyers.  From upstairs I’d overhear snippets of conversation. In the early years, between poker hands, they’d mostly talk about their legal cases. Later one man got cancer, then another, one divorced, another became a judge. Over time there’s more conversation between hands. Some now fish together. Others share vacations and settled arguments between each other. They’ve been at each other’s birthday parties and attended funerals of three of their fellow players.

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.  ~ Lily Tomlin

It’s Never Too Late to Start Your Small Tribe

Group members can nudge each other in supportive ways. Some of the benefits I’ve enjoyed over the years in the two small groups to which I belong include:

• Seeing how wrong I was about first impressions, after getting to know someone better, especially what really matter to them and why they got upset or happy.

•  Discovering, first-hand how the same experience in the group can be seen and felt so differently by each person and recognizing that this happens all the time.

•  Realizing that I learn more about myself from what I react against than from what I am attracted to.

• Recognizing that everyone has hot buttons that hold them back, no matter how confident and calm they appear; and it’s possible to create mutual support in mitigating their power over us.

• Learning how often we discount how much we can accomplish with our best talents; and concrete insights from those who know us well can be a guide to better using them.

• Gaining the rare opportunity to get candid, caring, confidential advice at crucial points in my life.

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

What Helps a Group Feel Closer?

1. Share One Thing in Common

That shared interest provides a safe place to start getting to know each other better. Jane’s walking group lived nearby, are all women and mothers. The poker groups were lawyers and, with one grand exception, all men. For the richest adventure and learning, then seek diverse individuals with backgrounds different than yours.

2. Make it a Priority to Meet Regularly

Group glue begins as we prove to each other that getting together is important and nothing proves that more than turning up.

3. Do Some Things the Same Way Every Time You Meet

Familiarity fosters trust. Jane’s walking group always walks the same route. The poker group host always provides the snacks and drinks.

4. Get in Motion Together

From the beat of our hearts to our gestures and rate of speaking, we literally get more in sync with each other when we are in motion together. That’s why people often agree on things more easily while walking down the hall to the meeting than while sitting in it.  Consequently walking is more powerfully connecting than eating or playing a card game together yet any kind of shared motion builds closeness.

5. Affirm Your Appreciation of the Group

Set aside a time for each person to share what’s been most helpful about the group. Consider sharing this appreciation as an ongoing, private group diary in a google doc or an ongoing email to which each person adds something at regular intervals. Research show that the more actions taken on behalf of a belief the more deeply a person feels about it, speaks about it and will defend it.

“Those who regularly come into contact with people having diverse interests and viewpoints are more likely to come up with innovative ideas.” ~ Steven Johnson

Launch Your Year Off on an Up Note by Starting a Small Group

1. It is often easier on others in a group if best friends are not part of it. Instead consider including people who, while they share the group’s common interest, are only slightly acquainted. That way the group can begin as Consequential Strangers.

2. Seven members is the best small group size for individuals to get close, according to some research.

3. As you explore the idea of starting a group, consider inviting individuals to get together for some activity such as a meal, walk or attending an event.

4. If they seem to enjoy each other you might then ask them later, one at a time, if they’d like to get together again as a group. If they would (and this is the brave part) ask if they’d like to meet regularly for awhile and collectively get to know each other better.

5. If they do, in fact, share your interest then ask them to discuss how often and what regular time works best and how long they’d like to experiment with the get-togethers.

6. Be clear that, although you started the group, you do not seek to lead it. Instead you hope everyone can participate in co-creating the group. That might include agreeing on:

•  The common interest that gets you started.

•  Some simple ground rules such as confidentiality regarding what’s discussed in the group.

•  A mutual support goal and/or specific ways each member would like to be supported. If you do it will probably change within six months as the group evolves.

•  How you might include motion in the way you meet, such as walking and/or eating around a table together.

“Let’s just keep asking ourselves this question: ‘Is what I’m about to do strengthening the web of connections, or is it weakening it?’” ~ Margaret Wheatley

Hint: Your group does not have to have to be productive. It may simply be. It can take its own course, evolving with the samemembers, meeting in much the same way at regular times. In so doing, you may become close-knit and a vital and meaningful part of each other’s lives. That will be something to celebrate this time next year.

Also consider creating mutual support with these variations:

1. Mutual Mentoring

Partner with another person or form a small group where each person has something to teach the other(s). Agree on the way to mentor each other. For example, in a two-person mutual mentoring arrangement I have, we spend one session focused on my learning and the next session on his learning.

In my mutual mentoring group, we round robin the five-person discussion in a two-part format in each meeting: First each person briefly gives one tip related to their expertise, then one member gives a ten minute briefing on their expertise as it relates to the group’s interest in it, followed by an hour of Q and A.

2. Accountability Buddies

For your top goal for 2011, pick one person who shares that desire – or a different yet specific goal and get specific about:

•  The small steps along the way to accomplish each person’s goal.

•  How you will stay accountable to each other for taking those steps, such as daily by phone.

• What temptations or obligations might get in the way and what you will do to overcome them.

• How you will celebrate together when you each accomplish your goal.

3.  Mutually-Managed Project Team

This follows the same approach as the small group except that it is formed to accomplish one specific task that reflects a sweet spot of strong shared interest by all members. Consequently, each member brings a specific talent to the group that is needed to accomplish the task, all members agree on who is to take the lead on what parts of the project and on a few rules of engagement regarding how they will work together.

Such mutually-managed project teams will grow in popularity for work and for personal and social interests so you may become sought-after as you gain experience in participating in them.

“Because I helped to wind the clock, I come to hear it strike.” ~William Butler Yeats

Here’s to a nourishing new year in spite of and because of the increasing complexity, uncertainty and connectedness of our world.  I look forward to continuing to learn with and from so many of you as I have this past years. Also consider joining in on our Twitter conversation: @KareAnderson

There’s a Relationship Revolution bubbling up and you’ve probably seen signs of it.

Rain or shine, for over a decade, my college friend Jane Burns has been walking the same route in Lake Oswego every morning at 7:00 am with the same hardy group of women. Neighbors yet strangers at first, the habit has bound them together.

Inevitably when the same people meet regularly they get in sync in mysterious ways; they talk in shorthand and know what each other are saying, even when they choose silence to covey it.

Every Wednesday after work, also for more than a decade, my friend Paul Geffner joins other men on the public basketball court next to the park and the tiny city hall in Sausalito. Watching the rag tag look of them when I’m on my regular walkabout with friends, it would be hard to guess what the men do for work or how much money they make yet it’s clear by the verbal jabs that they are thoroughly enjoying themselves. I know from conversations with Paul that the players have included two sushi chefs, an animator from Pixar and a stay-at-home Dad.

Walls fall with familiarity.

Over time, repeated a ritual gets us in sync so we see each other more clearly:

1. Our regular gatherings become the place where we are most likely to tell the stories that are giving our lives cohesion and meaning.

2. The gatherings themselves become, over time, an increasingly central part of the narrative of those stories we tell.

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

Why start a closed group?

When you start a group you have the opportunity to change the role you play in the stories you tell and you live. Change your story and you can change the kind of adventure story want for your life now.

In this time-starved, often transient world nothing beats the comfort of a regular ritual of face-to-face contact, especially sharing time in motion together, for becoming extremely familiar with each other and increasingly mutually supportive. We women, for example, don’t have to be twisted sisters.

Yes, it’s helpful to have slight acquaintances, especially as we are making radical changes in our life or trying on parts of our personality long forgotten. But, with the moves, job and life changes and fewer formal affiliations we can feel alone when our friends are in different parts of our lives and we do not have a regular group that knows us well.

Because we have fewer threads of continuity in our lives it is well worth the time to create a small group, perhaps around a shared activity however daunting it might be to suggest such a thing to others. That may be why so many book groups have sprung up – not just to discuss what we’ve read but how we felt about the book – and our lives.

My friends Diane Lee and Tom Morrison are having great fun with a group of food lovers who dine in a different restaurant each month. A client told me that he has been part of group that has gone to movies together, then met afterwards to dine and talk about them.  They just changed to meeting in one person’s home, sharing sofas and chairs, watching Netflix-streamed movies on a big screen, then dining in, potluck style around a table to discuss them.

Sometimes the best way to start a group is to have a convivial, sharing gathering and see how people gel or not.  Two ways to consider revolve around food, with the holiday coming.

“I missed all the girlfriends I left behind and often thought about how a grown woman would ever make friends like that again,” she said. “When I started throwing this party, I realized food is one of the best ways to bring people together” said Cookie Swap author Julia Usher.

Consider co-hosting your modern version of the cookie exchange or a Sunday potluck. By the way, last December a male friend who’d been working long hours on his biotech start-up wanted to start a regular gathering of friends who were not related to his work. So he hosted a cookie exchange with his men friends, suggesting that each bring a favorite they remember their mother or other family member made and to come with cookies and a related memory to share.  All nine showed up.

As you think of whom you’d like to get to know better in a group setting, consider two things.

First, settle on a core belief or interest that all potential participants share – your sweet spot of mutual interest that can bind you together.  Second, seek a diverse mix of individuals – not more than seven as that seems to be the limit for becoming close as a group.

“Groups become more extreme and entrenched in their beliefs and polarized from others when members only exchange information that reinforces their views and filter out all else or never learn of alternatives. Thus they narrow their options, and magnify each other’s prejudices and misconceptions.” ~ Cass Sunstein

Your variety of backgrounds means both a richer experience together but also the increased potential for misunderstanding or even conflict at times.  Yet the opportunity to share and grow exponentially more – emotionally and intellectually – is often worth the effort.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”  ~ Carl Jung

If you  feel bold enough to recruit one likely member for a small group, then tell that person the core interest that you’d like all members to share. Ask for feedback and listen closely. That shared interest is the sweet spot and can be group glue. After you find your first person, agree on a total number and together agree on the third person to approach.  Involve all committed participants in choosing the next prospective member until you have reached your total number of members. Agree on a few rules of engagement on vital topics like confidentiality, format for meeting if any and let the rest evolve. You are more likely to build trust if you close the group at that number and focus on building the sense of “we” as you get to know and support each other over time.

One final thought: sharing experiences enables us to mirror each other’s emotions and thus feel greater empathy for each other. That not only brings us closer, evoking one of the most meaningful memories we can share, looking back on our lives, it positively affects the friends of our friend’s friends.

Our close-knit group’s mutual support ripple out in comforting ways we feel first hand and in ways we will never know.

As Marconi Iacoboni wrote, “Some of us cry when we watch sad movies or wince when we see athletes fall. This sense of shared experience is at the core of human experience. Because our brain has mirror neurons, we are capable of interpreting facial expressions of pain or joy, the first step towards feeling empathy, which causes an instinctively imitative response – the chameleon effect.

That ‘mirroring’ response enables two people to literally see they are more alike in that moment.  That similarity evokes familiarity and thus a feeling of comfort that can lead to mutual trust with others.”

Become an opportunity-maker for the member organization that most matters to you. Imagine that your association or special interest group kept innovating to create more value and meaning for members.

That’s what TED has done and we can too by taking three collaborative steps over time:

1. Offer a single major conference  – as most associations already do, of course. Involve the members in choosing topics, speakers and formats, base on core guidelines, chosen by member vote. Create a format that enables members to participate in reach a single – and singular goal.

2. Encourage the launch of local conferences yet don’t try to control them. Instead create ground rules for local leaders to succeed while maintaining the quality of the “brand.”

3. Co-brand a fresh version of your national conference with another respected organization on vital topic that matters to the members of both organizations. Allow the founders of your local conferences to co-sponsor that new conference by enabling their members to view it together in their area.

The team at the TED conference announced this third step today.  See how you could adapt these steps to the member group that most matters to you.

Step One

The national TED conference has grown increasingly popular throughout the past 22 years, with the biggest community of members becoming those who avidly watch the videos of speakers.

Step Two

Building on the strength of that largely online community, TED launched, just last April, local events dubbed TEDx. Rather, in true collaborative fashion, they announced guidelines for these local events and invited people to co-host, design and run them. In just one year local leaders stepped up and hosted over 600 such events around the globe.

Hint: To encourage local events, the guidelines start with the benefits for the local organizers and provides an easy-to-follow toolkit: “In the spirit of ‘Ideas Worth Spreading,’ TEDx is a program that enables schools, businesses, libraries or just groups of friends to enjoy a TED-like experience through events they themselves organize, design and host.

We’re supporting approved organizers by offering a free toolkit that includes detailed advice, the right to use recorded TEDTalks, promotion on our site, connection to other organizers, and a little piece of our brand in the form of the TEDx label.”

In so doing, local communities bonded, learning together and created other local collaborations.  Imagine! In over 25 languages were spoken at these talks with opportunities for translation to spread the messages farther – and make speakers more well-known, thus spurring participation by great speakers.

Hint: the more popular your events become the more people you attract to donate their services.

This is the path to peace – and savoring your life with others. Diverse individuals meeting to learn and share best ideas with each other – and, in conversations during the event and afterwards, to find ways they can accomplish greater things together, than they can alone.

Step Three

Today the third step was announced. A new event is linking local groups to the mother ship of the national group – around a new topic area, yet connected to the underlying TED brand of innovation, new ideas – and solving a problem together.  Local groups will get to meet and share this new event live – with other local chapters around the world.  The announcement was that “On September 20, 2010, more than 150 of the world’s leading thinkers and doers will come together in New York for TEDxChange, convened by Melinda French Gates … and hosted by TED founder Chris Anderson.”

With such member loyalty, interest and clout accumulated by TED it can attract a big-time partner – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Also together they share a Sweet Spot of mutual interest – bringing bright minds together to address a big problem: how to improve health around the world.

Plus smart partners tie their collaboration to as many meaning goals and events as they credibly can.  For example, this conference is tied to the 10th anniversary of the famous Millennium Development Goals.

This is a three- stage template that you could use to grow the value and visibility of your profession association – and make it more meaningful for your members.

In fact any member-based club or special interest group could adapt it to their needs to grow its capacity to make powerful changes while imbuing its members with a sense of meaning in their participation.

Think what the Rotary Clubs have accomplished over 20 years with their single goal, bottom-up approach to wiping out polio.  Imagine local Rotary clubs have rallied around this single cause and have raised about $127.4 million for this cause – plus personally worked on projects to make it happen. That gives their lives meaning and builds extraordinary bonds between members and with those they selflessly serve. That dedication and progress towards a singular goal (key to great collaboration) attracted the Gates foundation as a partner.

Tip: When people bring out each other’s best talents in collaboration around a sweet spot of mutual interest they accomplish greater things together than they ever could on their own – and they savor the experience along the way.

To make your member-based organization a member-attracting tool for major change and a source of meaning in the life of your members what singular goal would you suggest they achieve?  For your organization, how would you adapt this three-step approach that has been wildly successful for TED?

Even though we know we are more likely to savor life and attract more opportunities to collaborate when we click with others, we often get in our own way – especially when we are distracted or worse.  Here are five concrete ways to connect with others.

1. Face the world as you want to be treated

We’ve all been startled by observing a passerby’s dour expression instantly transformed into a warm smile when someone they knew came into view. The fixed-face habit is increasingly common yet it limits one’s opportunities to make friends or just be treated well.

I envy those who naturally display an open face, yet, with practice, we all can. We don’t have to turn into grinning fools. Research shows, however, that even slightly elevated eyebrows cause the eyes to widen and – presto – one looks more open and less judgmental. Strangers unconsciously project onto such people the qualities they most admire in others, believe those people care – and act more generously towards them.

Unknowingly, as a journalist I came to have an intense facial expression, especially interviewing people I found fascinating (that’s my excuse anyway) until I interviewed an expert on Paul Ekman’s research on reading faces. He gently suggested that it would only take a couple of months of practice to “transform” my face into one with the open expression he was exhibiting in our interview.  It took me much longer – yet his advice comes to mind every time I see a dour or hardened face. That person probably does not understand the missed opportunities for friendship and more – just from this one simple habit.

2. Tour your body for vital signs

When you are literally uptight–rigid in any part of your body - others instinctively resist or even react against you. This phenomenon is akin to bouncing a hard rubber ball on a concrete surface as compared to a soft carpet. The ball bounces higher and faster against the hard surface than the soft one, of course, just as others react more against a body that is even inadvertently held tight against the world.

Whenever you are entering an unfamiliar or potentially volatile situation, loosen up physically. It will help you feel more at ease. Walk, stretch, and release tension from the places where you hold it in your body.

Probably –like many conscientious, hard-working people– you hold your shoulders higher and slightly more forward than is natural, with one of the tendons in your neck tightened up even more than the other. If someone can give you a quick three-minute shoulder and neck massage, you will relax – and look at ease.  Others will respond more warmly to you.

Here’s another quick way to feel and look comfortable. Take your “pointing” fingers and the ones adjacent to them and rub both sides of your face in small circles, beginning at the cheek bone, near the sides of your nose, continuing along that bone towards your ears, down to the jaw line and on toward the center of your chin.

3. We feel closer to happy people, especially when we are happy

Enjoy the bond-building boomerang effect that happens with contagious happiness (when you’re happy, you cause your friends to feel happier, and that makes their friends happier).  As the circles of friends around you feel happier their upbeat behavior will swing around back through those friends towards and around you, reinforcing your capacity to stay contented.

Plus those positive feelings that boomerang back to you in waves from others serve as an emotional cushion in your rocky times. I’m suggesting this as reinforcement for you to smile your way into a better way of feeling. When we feel down we close down and withdraw. This boomerang affect enables you and those you are around to open up to each other.

4. Worried? Don’t keep thinking about it. Act towards what makes you happier.

Women tend to worry more than men so it is especially important for us, when we start to feel anxious or depressed to mentally change the channel of thought to something – any small thing – that lightens our mood.

Consider this.  In any situation you only have three choices: 1. Change how you act, 2. Accept the situation, or 3. Leave.  The sooner you make a decision the less likely you deepen the rut in your memory of fixating on worrying rather than acting to change.

5. Meet new people to see fresh sides in yourself

Want to pull new people into your life?  Like to show an evolving new facet of yourself?  Get out of your orbit. Attend a lecture, sit at a lively café, join a civic, special interest or non-profit committee.   In short, put yourself in a place where you don’t know anyone well.

That’s when, “we are more free to experiment with ourselves, and less likely to have our new behaviors and roles reflected back to us by people who object, ‘But that’s not like you!,’”  says Melinda Blau, co-author of Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don’t Seem to Matter. . . But Really Do. She adds, “Strangers help us stretch beyond the relatively rigid boxes that the people who have known us the longest – our family and close friends – often put us into.”

This may be the surest way to turn the page for the next chapter of your life to be the kind of adventure story you now want. Even within one hour you can learn specific ways to stand out in your work or life.

I met my high school boyfriend when I was upset and swung open my locker door so fast I banged him on the head as he was leaning into his locker. Not everyone can take such a first encounter in stride let alone retort with a grin, “If this is how you treat strangers how do handle enemies?” This unflappable humor made us instant friends and helps in his work now as an ER doctor.

I met one of my closest girlfriends at a fundraiser dinner when a big donor at our table made a snide comment to us about a homely woman at the adjacent table. My soon-to-be-friend responded warmly to him, acting as if he meant his insult as a compliment about that lady. In so doing she warmed us up towards her and deflected him from continuing that line of “humor.”

“The best time to make friends is before you need them.” ~Ethel Barrymore

Here are six ways we draw people to us:

1.  When someone is snide or otherwise rude, thoughtless or difficult in front of others, rather than acting affronted, interpret their words or actions as if they meant well.  That way that person has the opportunity to self-correct and save face rather than feel cornered by your correcting him so he escalates his negative behavior.

2.   Use self-deprecating humor that highlights an admirable trait in her – especially one that matters to her, at the expense of your own related trait.  In so doing she flourishes around you.  When others like how they feel when around you they will like you.

Some  effortlessly make friends with all kinds of people. For the rest of us it helps to understand how they draw people to them. Having just a few close friendships is especially vital in this increasingly connected yet more transient world.

Thankfully even apparently small behaviors can make a huge difference in our ability to make friends.

“In my friend, I find a second self.” ~Isabel Norton

3.   College students living in the center of dorms tend to have more friends than those at the end of the halls. Those in center offices have more relationships with colleagues than those who work in the corners of buildings.  Those who sit side-by-side in just one meeting will feel more comfortable with each other later than with others in the meeting yet will not usually know why.

This so-called Proximity Effect is discussed in Rom and Ori Brafman’s new book Click. When you want to get to know someone, find a way to sit or stand next to them in some situation – the more times the better.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too?” ~ C.S. Lewis

While it’s obvious that people like people who are like them the extent of this so-called Similarity Effect is considerably deeper than I would have thought. For example, in a study cited in Click, if a woman asked me for a donation, she would have double the chance of getting me to give if she was wearing a nametag with my name on it.

That’s why bonding happens when people first meet and ask those innocuous yet safe questions about where they live, work, went to school or grew up. Once you find a shared interest – the deeper the better – explore it further. I’m drawn, for example, to other avid readers.

“Probably no man ever had a friend that he did not dislike a little.” ~E.W. Howe

To connect with someone, here’s the warning – we are wired to respond sooner, longer and more intensely to the negative rather than the positive things someone else does. It’s our primitive brain wiring to survive – Fight or Flight Syndrome.

Yet when we are physically close to someone when seems much different than us then we are likely to feel, not more positive, but more negative towards that person than if she was further away. That’s why, for example, that students in racially mixed high schools are more likely to be racist.

People like people who are like them and people like people who like them.

Here’s why that’s important, especially when you first meet or re-meet someone. Focus on finding the things about that person that are most like you and that you like:

A. Speak first about those traits you share.

B. Speak next about what you honestly respect or like about that person.

Keep those feelings and thoughts top-of-mind so that you feel, act and speak to that side of the person. That’s relationship glue-building. If you start to get irritated about something don’t focus on the feeling.  Instead turn your mind to one of their positive traits.

There’s a double benefit for you in practicing this. Your capacity to befriend those who are not like you enables you to:

A. Lead a richer, more varied life where you may have diverese adventures and work and social opportunities.

B. You will be able to recognize and express more facets of your temperament and use your talents in more varied ways.

“Friends are relatives you make for yourself.”  ~Eustache Deschamps

5. Those who make friends most easily are what psychologist Mark Snyder has dubbed “high self-monitors.” The Brafmans call them social chameleons. When done consciously, followers of NLP call this mirroring and matching. Without effort or an attempt to manipulate however chameleons instinctively bring out the facet of their personality that is most like the person they are with.

As Rita Carter suggests in Multiplicity, we have many people inside of us. Some people bring out our worst sides and we dislike them for that effect.

“Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

These chameleons bring out the best side on more kind of people. Sometimes that makes them adept instigators of projects, or facilitators of teams with diverse personalities.  They may become the glue that sticks the group together. See how much of a self-monitor you are.

The downside is in deepening friendships as high self-monitors may not demonstrate how they feel but rather what they feel is wanted by others. As with any strength there’s a flip side. The good news is that, in understanding both the strength and the disadvantage of such chameleon behavior, we recognize the value of it in the beginning to create the familiarity that builds trust.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.” ~Anäis Nin

6. I love to design and arrange furniture and glass lighting yet have difficulty with even minor computer problems. One of my dearest friends is a gadget geek who helps me with computer fixes and advises me about if and when to buy the shiny new thing. And I thoroughly enjoyed creating Danish/Italian-style sofas, chairs and a dining table for the home he just bought.

Those who keenly aware of their talents are more likely to see the benefits in befriending individuals with different ones because such relationships enable them to accomplish greater things for each other – or together. This is the Complementarity Effect. Sure we can find most anything online yet we can’t be an expert at everything. Having friends who have different talents and interests makes life easier and more enjoyable.

“If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone.  A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.”  ~Samuel Johnson

We have to go out of our way to keep such friendships strong because we have different top interests and ways of thinking, talking or doing things.  Yet research shows that we tend to take  for granted that which comes easily to us and to value that which we work at maintaining.

Here’s to cultivating and keeping ever-deepening relationships to savor life together.

“It takes a long time to grow an old friend.”  ~John Leonard

After the Lakers’ stinging defeat to the Suns what stuck in my mind was the image of Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher staying behind in the locker room after teammates had left to hash over what happened. The intense conversation was their singular focus. That’s a sure sign of a strong partnership. How do they happen?

1. True partnership won’t happen without mutual respect and respect is rarely gained without earning it from each other:

“It started at a tournament in Long Beach over the summer,” Bryant said. “We were playing together over the summer, working long hours, and as the season went on, we didn’t play much, so we had to go in to work early and play a lot of one-on-one.”

“Fisher, a stumpy 6-foot-1 guard…would not back down to Bryant, who headed one of the gifted preps-to-pros classes of the 1990s. They clawed each other on court, commiserated off it and ultimately coalesced into an enduring tandem, the Lakers’ Lone Ranger and Tonto.”

2. Mutual trust rises sharply after partners experienced sticking together through a tough situation.  That trust is reinforced the more times partners demonstrate it for each other:

“ We’ve gone through different facets of life together,” Bryant said. “He’s always been a standup guy, a friend who is more like a brother.”

“When you’ve lived through fire together, the comfort level is there, before and after games, on the bus, text messages and whatever,” Derek Fisher said of Kobe Bryant.

3. Agree on a single and singular goal that reflects the sweet spot of mutual benefit. (You don’t have to be on a sports team to become higher-performing by agreeing on – not a bunch of “wants” – but one top goal):

“We’re constantly thinking about what this team needs in order to win a championship,” says Derek Fisher.

4. Bring out the better side in your partner:

“Most teammates thought Bryant was arrogant, aloof, out of touch with reality. Fisher believed he was just young and misunderstood.”5. An affectionate nickname is a sign of a cemented partnership:

“In a league currently obsessed with mega free agents contemplating coexistence with another outsize ego, seldom has there been a pro basketball partnership like Bryant and Fisher’s — the highly credentialed and often contentious superstar and his special vocational friend, the man Bryant affectionately calls Fish.”

6. Never let up on growing and on proving your worth to your partners and for yourself:

• Fisher said of Bryant, “As we’ve both aged, I think he respected the things I had to do to stay at a high level.”

• Coach Phil Jackson “thought Bryant’s appreciation of Fisher grew exponentially in 2000-1, when Fisher missed 62 games but returned for the playoffs and made 51 percent of his 3-pointers while averaging 13.4 points.”

• ‘He’s been giving him the ball ever since,’ Jackson said, while noting that Fisher, as the quasi point guard in the triangle offense, had enough currency not to reciprocate when he thought the ball should go elsewhere.”

7. Good partners go out of their way to support each other in their enlightened self-interest. Great partners go out of their way to support each other:

• In their eight years together, Michael Jordan, so appreciated John Paxson as the Bulls’ spot-up jump shooter that “he made a personal appeal to ownership in 1991 when Paxson was in danger of being dropped.”

• “Two years later, Paxson repaid the debt, sealed the trust, when his 3-pointer from the left wing against the Suns nailed down the first of Jordan’s two three-peats. ‘The consummate pro,’ Jordan called him that night.”

8. After an important experience together, debrief first with your partner or team about what happened and how you’ll do better next time, then go out and face the larger world. The military and the FBI call such debriefings hot washs:

“Long after their Lakers teammates departed the locker room, Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher lingered in the adjacent trainer’s area, visible through a plate glass window and in no apparent hurry to explain a stinging playoff defeat to reporters before they had seethed over it with each other. Their post-game meeting, according to Fisher, was just getting started.”

See also:

Make Wiser Choices, Stronger Friendships

The Art of Being Business Partners and Friends

… and others’ ideas on some angle of Moving From Me to We.

“’There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded,” Dr. Laura Cousin Klein told Gale Berkowitz.  ”When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something.”

It turns out that the oft-quoted “Flight or Flight” response to a stressful situation applies more to men than women. Also, women under stress are more able to read other’s facial expressions and men are less accurate in reading emotions in another’s face.

In threatening or otherwise stressful situations with others men and women also react differently, according to studies yet two of the findings cited seem to be somewhat contradictory:

1. Men initiate connection. Women accept offers to connect.

Men are more willing to expose themselves to the risk of making an overture; yet women are more likely to reciprocate an overture once it’s made.

2. Men Withdraw. Women reach out.

“Men get  antisocial under pressure, but women tend to react in the opposite way: they ‘tend and befriend.’” (The article has a link from “anti-social”, when describing men, to an article on the behavior of psychopaths. This seems sexist or at least not relevant).

The article seems to focus on the first responses to threats or other stress when around others rather than on what unfolds at first and over time – toward connecting and collaborating or not.

Without any research to back me up, I agree with Sahar: “Women instinctively tend to be more social perhaps due to the need for support; men like to be more independent.  Under pressure, we first follow those instincts.”  

Men are more likely – in general – to propose action and press for quick response and women – in general – are more likely to support the group in finding a path towards agreement on what to do together.

Men will focus on getting it done – and place a priority on being respected and productive. Women will spend more effort on helping people feeling comfortable with each other; they perform better when they feel liked and appreciated –and they worry more. Both sexes act worse when others do not appear to be acting fairly through this tense time.

What’s your experience in attempting to connect and collaborate in stressful situations where both women and men are involved?

By the way, in other studies, psychologist Mara Mather found that “acute stress increases sex differences in risk seeking.” Women become more moderate in their habits and avoid risks. Men are more likely to gamble, drink, have unsafe sex or take other risks.

There are exceptions of course.

To reduce your stress and savor your work more cultivate a satisfying work relationship with a partner – female or male.

Emulate a valuable partner by adopting the traits that the Gallup organization found to be most helpful, described in The Power of 2: “If you want to have great partnerships, be a great partner.

Get beyond yourself. Give up the notion that you are well-rounded, and stop expecting your colleagues to be universally proficient. Incorporate someone else’s motivations into your view of the accomplishment. Loosen up. Put aside your competitive nature, your prepackaged view of how the thing should be done, and your desire not to be inconvenienced with the imperfections of a fellow human being.

Focus more on what you do for the partnership than what you get from it. Demonstrate trust in more people, and see if they don’t surprise you with their trustworthiness. Be slower to anger and quicker to forgive. And along the way, communicate continuously.”

“You know your work partnership is truly unselfish if you feel genuine satisfaction at each other’s success, if you and your partner will risk a lot for each other, and if your collaborator is like a brother or sister’ to you.” ~ Rodd Wagner and Gale Muller