Review

Austin Caffrey, Independent Psychologist

For me there are a number of valuable and personally important aspects of participating in a seminar such as this, one is that it allows me to take time out. I’m not getting paid for it, I’m not having to make sure things go well, or measure effectiveness – this is something for me, something I want to do. Secondly, I figured that as this seminar was focused on Charisma, it would mean I would get to meet some new and really interesting people, not just the typical business seminar where the agenda is a selling or networking opportunity, each conversation embraced by a perfunctory exchange of business cards. In this instance, I was right. Not only were participants from a broad range of occupations such as sales, accounting, IT, coaching, and healers, but also working for large organizations, small enterprises, some entrepreneurs and others entirely independent. Even more diverse was the range of interests, values, plans, goals and dreams that people had, some of which, not least my own, I had a chance to explore during the two days.

I think it was at the first break for tea that I was asked why I was on this workshop. I can’t recall exactly how I answered the question. I don’t think I answered it well. Naturally enough, I had considered why I would attend before I signed up and I was clear about that - it was because what I currently do involves working with both individual and groups, large and small, and I wanted to work on how well what I said was heard. I am pretty sure that my explanation was along these lines, although that was not the full story.

Now that I have had some time to reflect, the truth is that at the time I wasn’t sure I had any concrete sense of what charisma was, in fact, I wasn’t sure I was even comfortable with the word either as a description of others, let alone the possibility of applying it to me. On the other hand, I did have a sense of how important presence and gravitas were when communicating with others. During my travels and career in international banking I had met many business leaders, not least the various Chairmen, Chief Executives, Presidents and Senior Executives of the very global organizations that I worked for. As a senior executive myself I got to know some of these leaders personally as well as in their professional capacity. I was able to observe first hand that those who could convey their conviction and spirit really seemed to be able to communicate well, be it one-to-one, to a boardroom of directors, or to an entire conference of company employees. What’s more, recently I have seen the impact this sense of presence and gravitas has in colleagues and clients on the various programmes we run (as part of my new line of work as a psychologist working with organizations). Don’t get me wrong, I can and do communicate quite well and effectively using a ready wit, combined with intelligence, knowledge and enthusiasm – at least that’s what I’m told! However, I recognise there is more and that additional something was what I was on this seminar to explore.

So what did I actually explore on the seminar? Well, I won’t go into details of the activities themselves as I am sure they will be outlined elsewhere. In any case, in order to keep an open mind, and perhaps a bit more excitement in the uncertainty of not knowing what to expect, it is important not to anticipate too much, at least that’s part of the impact for me. Without going into details I can however, talk about what the activities meant to me. To start with I hadn’t seen or done these activities before, which is good because I have been on a lot of management and psychology training seminars over the years and something novel is always of interest. What’s more, exploring concepts and behaviours underlying charisma meant interacting with other participants that I didn’t know in ways that occasionally pushed me outside of my comfort zone, and, to be honest I quite like to do that as it’s often a place from which I learn the most. In addition, I came to learn a lot more about my own behaviours, or more accurately the internal causes of my behaviours, for example, the values that drive me, the beliefs that motivate me, the intellectual scientific me that always questions and sometimes doesn’t know when to stop. So, even though I feel that I am only starting the journey, the seminar has already opened the possibility of connecting with these internal guidance systems and using them more effectively. They are my own resources after all and if I can use them to develop a better sense of balance in what I do, a more inspirational vision of what I want to do and a more dynamic driving force to do it. That feels exciting.

There is something else worth mentioning, and that is about the approach that Nikki Own adopts, an approach that, for me, added a vitally important perspective.

Early on it was made clear that we were not going to be offered a toolkit of things ‘to do’ in order to appear charismatic. So often, the ‘what to do’ is what is looked for and, naturally enough, typically offered at seminars. Obviously, that’s perfectly appropriate if the topic is about ‘doing’ something. Whereas what I really got from Nikki was that personal attributes, such as charisma, are exactly that ‘personal’ – they come from how we are and not just from what we do, they come from our ‘being’ a certain way, more than merely behaving a certain way. If we can find ways to inspire ourselves into developing this awareness and sense of ‘being’ before we engage in ‘doing’ then it can make all the difference, in fact, it does make all the difference.

Now when I think of all the people I admire, my heroes if you like, I realise that most of them are not renowned or famous, rather their charismatic impact on me is about who they are, the values they hold to, the attitudes they have and what they inspire in me. What they do is important, but it is the potential that they convey that fundamentally makes the difference to the possibilities we can achieve.

That sounds so grand, and I don’t intent it to be, instead I am considering the next major step on my journey. That is, to pay less attention to identifying with what I do and more with who I am in terms of my values, beliefs and personal qualities.