Influential Communication

Communication is the most underrated of skills and the one that makes the biggest difference in outcomes.  Creating open dialogue to share ideas, gain understanding and shared goals is essential for successful businesses and organisations alike.

Understanding our way of communicating and the impact we have is the largest obstacle or biggest boost to our success depending on the skill we bring to conversations.  This takes in both verbal and non-verbal communication.   The Mehrabian Model suggests that body language is 55% of our communication, 38% our tone of voice, and a mere 7% the words we use.   Thus, the adage that “our behaviour speaks louder than our words”.

There are many models to help us understand our own style of communication and the ways we engage and influence others.   Those that I work with regularly include DiSC, HBDI and emotional intelligence tools such as the Emotional Capital Report and GENOS.   The more we understand our own style of communicating (ties to our thinking and behavioural preferences), the more equipped we can be to adjust and interact more affectively with others. 

Influencing others requires us to have self-awareness and to have the capability of ‘reading’ others.  Taking the time to see things through a different lens to understand what is driving the other person allows us to ‘adapt’ and ‘flex’ to create an open environment for that person to feel valued and heard, and consider our message.  Our aim in communication is to be CLEAR and specific, so we don’t cause confusion or cross wires.  All too often conflict in work teams comes about from a miscommunication. 

Useful to know that we judge ourselves on the intent of our communication and others on how they behave or respond to our communication!

Communication is the foundation of effective leadership, delegation of tasks, engaging and involving others, getting buy-in and inspiring others.   To be effective in communication I often lean into Stephen Covey’s “Seek to understand before being understood” and to Professor Jane Dutton’s concept of High Quality Conversations.  She offers high quality conversations as 2-way communication that energises both parties and shares a path forward with a win/win objective.  Her four pathways to HQC’s are; Mutually Respectful Interactions, Task Enabling, Trust and ‘Fun/safe”. 

Being curious as a coach has been extremely beneficial in my working with teams and leaders to help with learning and development needs and will be for you too in Mid-Year performance conversations. 

I’ve found it valuable to ask 2-3 questions that help others feel comfortable, share their strengths and dislikes and understand what success looks like for them.   Open ended questions create the best environment and for the follow up questions I find the TEDS acronym valuable.

• Tell me more about ….

• Explain how that looks or feels …

• Describe how that….

• Share more about …….

Give them time to share their wins, what they are proud of, and what they hope to achieve.

In my experience the more we allow others to share before we step in with our views the more influential, we can be.  From many years in sales roles, I Iearned that to influence others we need to know what they need from us.  We have so much information on our products and services we could speak for a week without hitting the mark!

 First understand what the other person has to offer about the situation at hand, then expand on that before choosing your influential path to follow. 

Next post we’ll look at Building Resilience and Avoiding Overwhelm.

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Mid-Year Performance Conversations coming up?

Performance appraisals can be harrowing for leaders and team members alike.  Kreating New Collaborations would like to invite you to reach out and learn about small bite Lunch’N’Learn, or Morning Boost  opportunities.  Set your team up for success learning delivered virtually or in person. 

Learning Bites include:

• Effective Feedback – using our BICK model to drive 2-way focused interactions

• Setting Goals – setting goals that motivate, reward outcomes and energise

• Succession Planning -  identifying future leaders and setting them up for success and growth

• Influential Communication – influence outcome by gaining buy-in and enthusiasm to create accountability and best outcomes

• Building Resilience and Avoiding Overwhelm – helping teams keep energised, focused and in control

• The power of emotional and social intelligence to create positive workplaces