Chapter 1

Looking at the Finer Points of Great Communication

In This Chapter

Communicating with your whole self

Seeking clarity at all times

Treating other people with respect

Dealing with awkward situations

You're always communicating. Whether you're dozing by the fireplace on a chilly winter night, praising your children for their successes at school or admonishing an employee for showing up late for work - you're continuously sending out messages through your words, voice and body.

Sometimes your communications are crystal clear, such as when your eyes are sparkling, your mouth is in a full-blown smile and you're holding your arms out wide ready to embrace a returning loved one. But at other times you can convey an unintended message, such as appearing sad, angry or despondent when in fact you're simply considering how to respond to a challenging situation. As a result, taking a level of control about how and what you communicate is vitally important in your personal and business lives.

In this chapter you discover the fundamental points for communicating like a pro, which involve using more than just your mouth and the words you say. I guide you through preparing yourself mentally for conveying your messages clearly and connecting with others who have different points of view from yours. You also have a quick glance into the value of treating other people with respect and taking the time to listen to what someone else has to say before coming in with your opinion. In addition, I provide a series of steps for handling difficult situations.

Using Your Whole Body to Communicate

Great communicators aim to understand others before making themselves understood. They grasp not only what people are saying through their spoken words, but also recognise what others (and themselves) convey through body language, emotional responses and vocal quality.

If you take one message from this book (and I hope you find many, many more!), remember that conveying information involves all aspects of your personality, your mind, your eyes and ears as well as your mouth and facial expressions, and how you stand, gesture and move your entire body.

Getting into the right frame of mind

By getting into the right frame of mind I mean ensuring that you have a good attitude, and so let go of negative thoughts and beliefs that serve as barriers to accomplished communication. Ditch judgement and blame and think about how you want the conversation to proceed. (In Chapter 6 you find suggestions for checking your attitude.)

Negative thoughts and beliefs that may hamper communication include:

• Finding fault with the other person
• Disparaging other people's ideas
• Belittling individuals' beliefs
• Ridiculing someone else's point of view

Knowing what you want to achieve and being open to hearing what the other person has to say are the foundations for great communication. If the old saying 'energy follows thought' is true, whatever you focus on achieving in a conversation is what you can achieve.

When you approach communication free of murky thoughts, you can let your linguistic wizardry steer you towards free and open relationships.

Entering a dialogue with an optimistic focus heightens your chances of communicating successfully.

Putting your eyes and ears to work

The best communicators have a keen sense of observation, paying attention to what they see and hear, keeping their perception antennae tuned and registering what they observe. They gauge accurately their surroundings and people's behaviour, noting the mundane, the extraordinary and points in between.

Here are some suggestions for improving your observational skills:

• Make eye contact with people you see, whether you know them or not, and observe how they respond. If they look back at you, they're signalling that they noticed you and are observing in return. Be careful not to stare, however, because your interest may be misinterpreted by the other person.
• Watch for how people move their bodies. You can tell if people are willing and want to engage with you - or not - by the way they move in your direction or pull away. Observe whether people are lethargic or energetic. Listen for the words they use and the pitch, pace and tone of their voices. These telltale signs often reveal more about people than what they say about themselves.
• Open your peripheral vision and take in a panoramic view of your surroundings. Let your brain receive and release ordinary things, to avoid excess analysis.
• Eliminate distractions when you're at work or interacting with others. Putting away your electronic devices when you're with others enables you to notice what's going on around you and so engage in more effective communication.

Communicating with Clarity

Take a moment and consider just how often you communicate with people throughout your day and the importance of getting across your messages accurately:

• You write emails and use social media (the subject of Chapter 11).
• You speak on the phone.
• You compose formal letters.
• You participate in face-to-face meetings and debates with friends and colleagues.

Your cave-dwelling ancestors only had to grunt, smile and frown to make themselves understood! (Which reminds me, to discover ways of physically speaking more clearly, turn to Chapter 7.) Today, the expanding forms and nature of communication put the burden on you to be clear about what you want and then communicate in a candid way so that your aims are clearly understood.

Sending a clear message

If you've ever sat through a meeting, presentation or even a dinner-party conversation thinking, 'What's this person talking about?' or 'What's the message here?', you're not alone. Without exception, every one of my clients shares tales of sitting through confusing meetings and presentations that are time-wasting experiences.

To send a clear message you need a clear, concise idea of what you want to accomplish (as I describe in the later section 'Being clear about your goals, needs and preferences'). Although this 'core idea' is what you want your listener to remember, you then need to back it up with lucid suggestions and unambiguous, structured and logical recommendations that your listener can grasp. In addition, you have to persuade others to buy into your message. Getting people to invest personally in your idea requires a bit more thought.

The next time you're sending a message to your team, boss or any stakeholder, create a story that provides both a logical and an emotional rationale for people to come on-board. This approach is an essential way to gain buy-in, because you're ringing the bells of people who, like you, can benefit from your ideas and recommendations. People tend to buy on feelings and justify with facts, so by appealing to both their emotions and their intellect, you're onto a winner.

As you're planning your message, think about your audience and what the individuals care about most. Make sure that you include the type of information expected by the other person, which for some may be facts and hard data while others prefer subjective opinions and feelings . Crunch the numbers, gather your facts and analyse how your findings support the core idea. Ensure that you supply only the necessary information to avoid boring or confusing your listeners. By sending a clear, concise and well-substantiated message, you stand a good chance of having your ideas accepted and acted upon.

In Chapter 2 you can find lots of tips for sending clear messages.

Providing feedback

As part of making sure that you're understood at work, and in order to enhance people's growth and development and improve their performance at work or at home, provide them with feedback. Given correctly, feedback can improve morale, avoid dispiriting misunderstandings and reduce confusion around expectations and performance.

Appropriate feedback can help others improve the quality of their work and boost your interpersonal relationships with your employees.

You can provide two kinds of feedback:

• Positive feedback: To reinforce desired behaviour.
• Constructive feedback: To address areas that need improving.

Both forms of feedback are useful for improving and maintaining quality performance.

Providing positive feedback

The following steps and example statements are a guide for offering positive feedback:

1. Describe the positive behaviour. 'I thought you did a great job at the client meeting. You asked a lot of valuable, open-ended questions to understand the client's needs and concerns and expressed interest in the issues they're facing.'
2. Explain why the behaviour is positive. 'You treated the client with a lot of respect, and the way you built rapport through discovering similarities between you and them led to them opening up and offering us information we didn't have before. This added data can help us design a winning proposal.'
3. Thank and encourage the individual....