“The single biggest problem within communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw
Often, when we don’t know what we don’t know, we don’t know what else we can do to be more effective in our communication.
Here are 3 tips for those inflection point conversations, those moments that really matter.
Keep your attention out – turn off your self talk and inner dialogue. This will help turn off your assumptions, judgements or your own need for validation. The best way to achieve genuine communication is if you really do put yourselves in their shoes and see things from their world. Keep challenging yourself to filter the communication impartially and not through your world view. If you find your mind wandering, snap back to this moment in time by being curious to what they are saying and what it may mean to them.
What you can do: Challenge yourself to find something out about them that you didn’t know before.
Interrupt the flow – if your instincts are telling you to. It’s usual during or after a high stakes conversation to experience that uneasy or incomplete feeling that we often don’t pursue. When you walk away with questions in your mind about the conversation, then it means you missed something.
What you can do: Challenge yourself to pause more to let the information sink in before you respond, checking for any incongruence. Then follow the pause with a question before you move on.
Align your focus and actions. What’s your physiology doing? Are you truly focused on them? Trust and rapport can be hard to build, and it can be destroyed in a second of glancing away, looking at your watch, checking your emails or being incongruent with what you’re saying and what your body language is doing. Are you matching their energy and movement? It pays to keep your focus up and on them – you won’t miss any potential clues or cues about real thoughts or feelings.
What you can do: Challenge yourself to read them more accurately – why are they looking like that or standing that way. What are they thinking or feeling right now? (You can only do this however if you don’t have a screen between you!)
Have a go approaching communication differently – when you move away from your needs in the conversation, you can gain far more insight into what’s really going on out there.