Category Archives: communication

Credentials and Credibility

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

Who do you trust?  Why? 

Margo and I were friends.  So when she recommended Christine as a life coach, I trusted enough to make the call.  I had no idea what a life coach was; “CPCC” was meaningless to me.  But after the intake call, her credibility and expertise were well-established, and she has been my coach ever since.  That was 2005.

I spent $900 and a weekend on Zoom last month for Ozan Varol’s Moonshot Academy.  I trusted in the value of the experience based on my interaction with Ozan’s Inner Circle to date—for two days I would give and receive peer coaching in a creative and challenging environment.  And bonus, I met Andrew, Kes, and Nicole.  Each of us aims to learn, share, expand our horizons, and do more good, hallelujah!

Kes’s last blog post goaded me to differentiate between credentials and credibility—my own and others’ alike.  Do I deserve your trust in clinic just by virtue of my MD?  What about when I speak and write on communication and leadership?  Why should you trust me?  Why should I trust you?

What are credentials?  My list includes education, work/life experience, recommendations/references, and body of work (eg peer reviewed publications). 

What establishes credibility?  My list: Attitude (humility, honesty, curiosity, reciprocity); consistency and integrity; purpose; quality of relationships (and thus references).  Christine’s credentials are solid.  Like any good professional she expands her expertise with continuous study.  But her credibility stems from her honesty and integrity—who she is.  It’s why I refer patients and friends.  Their feedback glows, and Christine’s credibility expands.

So perhaps credentials are superficial—what we’ve done, what’s immediately visible…  And credibility is deep—who we are, what we’re about.  I know which is more important to me.

Energy, Pheromones, and Grief

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NaBloPoMo 2020 —  Today’s Lesson

Whoa Nellie, this week kinda crushed me.  Thank goodness for weekends—time to slow down, take a breath, and recharge.

I have a theory about Zoom fatigue; wondering if it resonates with anyone?  Maybe someone has some physical evidence to share?  It’s about quantum energy and our olfactory senses.

I actually really love Zoom.  After years of running webinars, I’m used to inhabiting a little box next to a PowerPoint, and I love seeing family, friends and colleagues from all across the country and around the world, all at the same time.  And all the better if we’re learning or communing around core values and shared goals!  With good internet we get real time visual and audio cues, and even see bits of each other’s natural habitats.  So what’s missing feels less concrete, harder to describe.

A couple friends and I posit that it’s something around energy.  A resonance ensues when people gather, negotiated in the quantum space, intangible yet palpable.  In harmonic physical presence we find ourselves synergistically lifted, nourished, and bonded.  I think pheromones must also play a role.  We fancy ourselves so evolved, but our primitive brains still drive us, or at least have a hand on the wheel.  When we cannot connect by vibe and smell, I bet we lose more than we know—and it hurts.

I have no evidence for these claims, and it doesn’t really matter if I’m right.  I think we’re all feeling the disconnect more intensely now, eight months into an indefinite and now worsening pandemic. It helps to acknowledge the sadness, the grief.  

I understand why so many plan to gather for the holidays.  Maybe it’s an impossible balance.  I wonder what we’ll regret most in the end?

Keeping In Touch

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

How have you maintained and nurtured your ties this year? 

As the days get shorter and colder, I feel the annual personal regression set in.  In 2020, this carries new and important implications.  The busier I get, the more I value quiet and solitude.  But my soul sings in connection—broad, frequent, and deep.

Since March I count at least six new, recurring engagements with friends and family, occurring over phone, Zoom, and snail mail.  They have all held me up and calmed me down through tumult.  And they all occurred organically—all of us seeking comfort, connection, and meaning through the chaos and morass.  All signs point to these as my social and emotional beacons through the coming winter.  What will your beacons be?

At work, this year has tested our teams.  Even the most resilient ones have strained under the stress of complex and prolonged uncertainty.  Though we returned to work in June, we are still not together like before.  We’ve had to find new ways to stay connected, including weekly video calls and now the possibility of daily, one-song, video dance parties.  I see more clearly now where I can connect more regularly one on one, and how individuals may need me to show up in different ways.  I would have told you for many years now that I understand this concept; today I feel at least one step closer to living it for real.

Relationships are already hard.  Cultivating and sustaining healthy ones in the midst of crisis, in an increasingly Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world, takes extra attention and effort.  I must constantly attune and retune. 

Every encounter is an opportunity to try; it makes me better, and I’m grateful.