Engaging A Heart Superstar.
How to tailor your message to someone who leads with impact, first.
A Heart Superstar is someone who is motivated to help others.
Empathetic, they know the impact of someone being heard, and the positive impact it can make.
Motivated to help people succeed, they revel in seeing others shine. Excellent 1:1 communicators, you’ll always feel listened to and taken seriously.
At work, a Heart Superstar will gravitate to people to learn about their experiences to find ways to make it better.
Does this sound like anyone you know at work?
Because a Heart Superstar has great communication skills, they know everyone.
As a result, they’re a super connector, helping others see the dots between projects.
Why it’s useful to engage a Heart Superstar in your work.
You need other people to believe in your work, right?
To do that, it’s useful to have people on the ground who can promote your work, and speak to the positive impact it can make, when you’re not in the room.
Getting a Heart Superstar to rally around your ideas helps everyone understand why your work is so important; doing a lot of the marketing for you, and gives you feedback on how it's landing.
Adapting your communication to a Heart Superstar.
Start by clarifying how your initiative creates positive change.
For example, a Heart Superstar can hear you more if you talk about:
How what you’re saying will help people feel more included and engaged at work.
Positive impacts a group of people can experience.
How what you’re proposing reinforces individual agency and choice.
Engaging and empowering the group they serve.
They’ll switch off if you talk about:
Money.
Financial incentives.
Anything that implies harm to make more money.
Personal agenda over the needs of others.
The more you can show you’re including people, the better.
Specifically, highlighting how what you do includes, rather than excludes, a group. Being explicit with how what you’re proposing has a positive impact on others. Sharing real life stories.
Heart Superstars are attuned to ‘people over profit’ language, so by all means talk about money, just talk about it being an additional benefit vs the sole one.
Here’s a sample format.
If you were to outline how your initiative helps people feel more (insert positive adjective here), and avoid (insert negative adjective here) a Heart Superstar will more likely pay attention.
For example:
“This training will engage new managers, give them confidence to give feedback and reduce fears they have about doing it ‘wrong’.”
“The work we do today saves lives by capturing diseases earlier.”
“Imagine how much stress this product will take away from our customers when they feel more in control of their finances.”
You’re being sincere. You’re just leading with the people impact first and numbers last.
If you manage a Heart Superstar, remember this.
The irony is that a Heart Superstar gets the least amount of recognition. It can be hard for a Heart Superstar to quantify and communicate their impact, when they’re more interested in helping others.
If you manage a Heart Superstar, help them grow their influence (and confidence) by quantifying their work. Because so much of what they do is instinctive, they’ll rarely stop to reflect on what specifically shifted the dial.
Recognising Heart Superstars adds up.
In one study, 67% of people said praise or commendation by their manager was a bigger motivator than any other financial or non-financial recognition.
In another, companies that scored in the top 20% for a “recognition rich culture” had a 31% lower voluntary turnover rate.
Taking the time to document their impact is not only a good practice, it’s great for retention, too.
Here are examples of how simple it can be.
“Because you went to great effort to make sure everyone felt included, 20 team members were highly engaged in today's training.”
“When you personally acknowledged everyone's questions, you helped create a psychologically safe environment, the #1 predictor of performance at work.”
“Reviewing 300 of the last customer enquiries, I can see what resolved their complaint was your tireless focus on making sure you attended to their concerns, leading to a 5% increase in customer satisfaction.”
The more numbers you can include, the better, as this gives them data to show the impact of what they do to others.
Take a moment to write down their recent impact, using the AIL Framework (achievement, impact, learning). What did they achieve? What was the impact? What did you learn or notice about them, as a result? How did others benefit?
If you’re a Heart Superstar who wants to grow your influence.
To help more people respect the impact of the work you do, pepper your statements with numbers. That way, they’ll be able to place your instinct next to real world data.
For example, instead of, “I feel this would be a good idea”, try, “90% of leaders tell us they don’t have time to delegate. I’ve seen it for myself and I know the positive impact this training could make.”
By showing how you came to a conclusion using a credible source, approach or framework, you’re able to quantify why your perspective matches what you instinctively already know.
As a result, people will pay more attention and take you more seriously.
Watch out: a Heart Superstar is a candidate for burnout.
Because they care deeply about the experiences of others, they can put others' priorities before their own. As a manager, support your Heart Superstar by making it clear how saying ‘yes’ to their own priorities helps impact more people.
Because a Heart Superstar is deeply attuned to others' experiences, they can also internalise someone else's frustration or disappointment when it’s not theirs to own. A Heart Superstar might also double guess out loud, in public, meaning other people might doubt their competence.
Work closely with them to help them figure out when to process in public and when to do it with you behind the scenes. Then, work with them to remind themselves that they can’t control other people nor are other people's bad moods theirs to project manage or parent.
Recap: communicating with a Heart Superstar.
If you’re collaborating with a Heart Superstar, outline how your work includes a group, rather than excludes it.
If you’re reporting to a Heart Superstar, show the impact of the work and positive action the people you serve have been able to make (pro tip: include a real-life case study).
If you are a Heart Superstar, remind yourself that not taking on others peoples feelings is not letting people down. It’s helping yourself help more people, by managing your own energy. And don’t forget to add a number or statistic when you share your ideas, to help everyone see the fuller picture behind what you do instinctively.
Did you know we run this workshop at workplaces?
You get to identify your communication style, and tips on how to communicate differently to get people to pay attention.
The workshop also includes the online course, so you can watch short videos to refresh your memory on how to capture people's attention before sharing your ideas.
Download an info pack to share with your boss/Learning & Development representative.