Human Resources

Several times a day I hear people talking about failure in communications. Whether it is between individuals in a private conversation or between a supervisor and an employee or in a work group, there seems to be ample examples of this communication failure. And yet communications is at the heart of everything we do in life. As a leader or parent or spouse or friend, we all depend on the ability to communicate with each other in order to live together. So why aren’t we doing it better?

We have definitely enhanced the human ability to share information. Technology continues to amaze me with what can be done in this arena. However, these improvements have not always enhanced our ability to communicate.

Perhaps I better explain what I mean by communicate so that I don’t violate my own premise. I’ll start by stating what I believe communication is not. It is not having information, and lots of it. It is not the written word or the spoken word. It is not sharing my perspective in isolation of others’ perspectives. While communication includes all of this, it is far more than any one of these aspects alone.

Communication involves my sharing a perspective and meaning that you receive and understand as I originally intended it. And, once I am satisfied that you have received and understood my perspective and meaning, I am now ready to receive your perspective and meaning in a manner that I understand it as you intended it. This may appear to be very simple at first glance. However, my experience is that achieving communication, that understanding as intended, is the most difficult aspect of being human.

Recently I was in a conversation with someone who said something like the following. “I don’t understand why they didn’t do what they were told. I have told them at least five times what was expected. Are they so dense that they don’t get it or do they just not care? I don’t know how much more communication I need to provide.”

During the conversation with this person I learned that the so called communication was all done by e-mail with no person to person interaction. Almost instantly I had significant insight as to why there was no communication in this interaction of e-mails. One person was sending information to another, assuming or expecting the other person to understand the information and, therefore, the meaning of the information. The person receiving the message completed the task based on his or her understanding of that message. However, when the person sending the message saw the outcome of the task, it in no way represented the message as intended. So the person sent another message with the same results. This went on three more times until the person sending the message just gave up and took care of the task.

Nowhere in this exchange of information or e-mails was there ever an opportunity or attempt to check for understanding until the task was completed. At no time in the exchange did the person receiving the message ever attempt to check if his or her understanding of the message was as it was intended. As a result, there was a failure in the communication.

My conversation with this individual reminded me of one of my favorite statement, of which I do not know the source. “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” I first ran across this statement early in my professional career as a counselor and trainer. It has always meant so much to me and sits on my desk today.

To really communicate requires hard work. It demands that we suspend our own agendas, become aware of our own filters, and know and recognize our own hot spots so that we can listen fully for the meaning that the other person intends. It requires us to check out our assumptions and inferences to see if we are correct or not. And it requires us to be clear and succinct when sending our own meaning.

It really is no surprise to me that we have so little communication, thus leading to difficulties and conflicts. I am more surprised when I experience real communication, the kind that says; you got it. You really understand me and now I want to understand you.

As you exchange information with others in the next few weeks, become keenly aware of your intent and how that intent is received or not. Become aware of the intent of others and work hard at achieving the message as it is intended. Then pay close attention to what happens when you are able to understand the intent of others and they maybe understand your intent.

Until next time, enjoy your communicating and not just sending information.

Uncategorized

During a recent workshop on handling difficult conversations, a participant made a statement that really stirred my passion. We were discussing some tools and strategies that can be used to help people obtain a better outcome when we are caught in the middle of a very difficult conversation. The participant said something about it still is dependent on the person wanting to improve the communication. In order for the difficult situation to turnout well for both parties, both parties must first want it to be better.

I know the workshop participants thought I was over-reacting, but this statement really is true from my experience and is at the crux of a lot of misunderstanding and conflict. In far too many situations, I have experienced at least one party who doesn’t really want to work things out for the betterment of both parties. And sometimes this is the case with both parties involved. So my immediate reaction was to reinforce this statement and proceed to explore what happens when one of the parties doesn’t want to work through the difficult situation or conversation.

The difficulty in many of these situations is that the individual who does not want to work to make things better is not even aware that this is the case. Many times these individuals will state emphatically that they are trying to work things out. However, their behavior is clearly headed in the other direction. In these cases, the individual has confused the spoken desire to work things out with the unspoken intent to get the outcome to be what they want it to be. In these situations the individual wants to have more tools to manipulate or convince the other party that the solution to the difficulty is what the person manipulating the situation really wants.

I find the work of Roger Schwartz to be very useful in these situations. In his book, The Skilled Facilitator, Dr. Schwartz describes two models that explain what is happening. The first model is the Unilateral Control Model and the second is the Mutual Learning Model. In the Unilateral Control Model the person is operating under the values and assumptions that the outcome is to achieve their goal or “to win” because this person really knows what’s best for everyone. A person operating under this model really believes that he or she is right and that she or he knows what is best in this situation. Therefore, the behavior demonstrated is to do whatever is needed to control the situation, with whatever tools are at their disposal, in order to win.  However, the consequences of this model include mistrust, misunderstanding, and defensiveness. And again many people operate out of this model without their being aware of it.

On the other hand, operating out of the Mutual Learning Model means the individual starts with the values that people make free and informed choices based on shared and valid information. An individual operating out of this model believes he or she has some of the needed information and the others involved have additional needed information.  Through the sharing of information and different ideas, everyone has the opportunity to learn more. Thus, the parties involved in a difficult situation may end up changing their perspectives, leading to new and fresh outcomes. Consequences of operating out of this model are increased understanding and trust with the reduced need for defensiveness.

So when the workshop participant stated “you really have to want to work things out”, he was describing the difference in operating from a Unilateral Control perspective versus a Mutual Learning perspective. And learning the tools and strategies from the workshop is only as good as your perspective. If you just want to get better at winning, then learning the tools will help you win; but at what costs? You will still experience distrust, misunderstanding, and conflict. You will not reduce your involvement in difficult situations. In fact, you will probably increase your involvement in difficult situations or conversations.

If your desire is to reduce your involvement in difficult situations, first checking out your perspective and becoming aware of your intent is critical. Then you can use the tools and strategies of the workshop to help you be better at building trust, increasing understanding and reducing conflict. When your perspective is congruent with the tools and strategies, you have a far better chance of achieving the desired outcome of reducing your involvement in difficult situations or conversations.

So the next time you find yourself in a difficult situation or conversation, do a quick assessment of your perspective and decide your intent. Make certain you are acting out of the right perspective as you interact with others.

Until next time, hopefully you find your involvement in difficult situations decreasing and, when being involved in a difficult situation is a must, be certain you want to handle it from the right perspective.

Uncategorized

What constitutes effective leadership? When I explore this question I quickly get overwhelmed with the literature on the topic. There are plenty of authors and resources on the topic of leadership.

Constant in a lot of what I read is the role that self-awareness plays in effective leadership. Being aware of ones strengths, weaknesses, style, personality, preferences, etc., has a significant impact on how leaders behave and interact with others. Being self-aware, a leader can consciously influence the situation and the potential climate of the group. On the other hand, not being self-aware could lead to unwanted or undesirable consequences.

Over the years, I have observed or experienced leaders who have demonstrated self-awareness and leaders who have demonstrated their lack of self-awareness. When I think of self-aware leaders, I am reminded of experiences when the leader may have known what was needed to accomplish a task, but chose to work with the group and draw out the expertise within the group members. I recall another time working on a task with a group when the group really did not have the needed expertise and the very knowledgeable leader knew when to step in and provide that expertise. Then once the group or team was on track, the leader stepped back and let the group own the task.

On the flip side, I can recall being a part of a group where the leader needed to demonstrate to others that the leader was the person with the expertise. I recall how the members of the group, including me, felt about being involved in the group. I remember wondering why the leader didn’t just complete the task and not take up the valuable time of the other group members. While this leader verbalized the desire for group involvement, the leader, due to lack of self-awareness, did not know how or when to step back and engage the expertise of the other group members.

The importance of self-awareness in leadership development is really highlighted by the work of Daniel Goleman. Goleman states; “Emotional intelligence- the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively- consists of four fundamental capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills.” Also James Kouzes and Barry Posner, co-authors of The Leadership Challenge, reinforce the importance of self-awareness. Their research indicates that self-awareness and self-management are absolutely essential to authentic leadership.

These two authors, Kouzes and Posner, caution organizations about hiring the most talented and the brightest individual when they do not possess first the personal and social skills needed to be an effective leader. And the first step to obtaining these personal and social skills is self-awareness; the essence of effective leadership.

If you want to be an effective leader, study and learn about your best leadership tool; yourself. Reflect upon the impact your interactions have on others. Listen to the feedback others offer on your behavior and style. Ask for candid feedback on your leadership. Take every opportunity to conduct assessments of your personality and style through the use of valid instruments. Working to understand and develop yourself will pay huge dividends when you are put into that leadership role.

Until next time, make the best of every opportunity to become self-aware.

Uncategorized

“I did everything they told me to do and I did it well, but I still was asked to leave.” I heard this statement recently from an individual commenting about the past few years of work. This person was in a leadership role that had significant impact on others in an organization. And it is not the first time I have heard statements like this one.

So how can a person be doing the work asked of them and be doing it well and still lose their job? There must have been something beyond doing the work that was more of an issue for this leader; more than knowing how to do the “work” and being able to perform the “work” well. As I continued to interact with this individual, it became apparent there was a real misunderstanding of the “work” of this leadership role, resulting in a disconnection with the supervisor.

From the leader’s perspective the work was to get more production from his/her employees. To the leader this meant she/he needed to know the business of the organization better than all the other employees and be able to tell them what was needed to improve productivity. This meant being very knowledgeable and very directive, as any outstanding leader would be. It meant perceiving the role of the leader as the authority with the final say. It meant being “above “ the “subordinates”, requiring compliance to organizational policy and procedures, even if it meant the that the leader did not have to comply. After all, the leader had now joined the level of the organization in which he/she was no longer subject to the same expectations of the rest of the employees. The leader was now in a class at a higher level than the others.

This is an attitude that I see all too often in working with leaders and organizations. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting that all leaders demonstrate this attitude or have this perspective of leadership. I interact with many leaders from a variety of organizations and settings who understand that the attitude one demonstrates as a leader has a significant impact on the behavior of others. In fact, these leaders get it and understand that emotional intelligence (defined by Daniel Goleman as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills) is more important than being the most knowledgeable about the business or exhibiting the best technical skills. This is pointed out in a Harvard Business Review article by Goleman (What Makes a Leader?, November-December 1998) where he states; “I have found, however, that the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence.” This does not mean these leaders don’t need knowledge of the organizational business and skills to be productive, because they do. It does mean that their effectiveness as a leader will be better determined by their level of emotional intelligence.

As I interacted more with the individual who made the opening statement, it became clearer to me that the attitude of the leader really does make the difference and this attitude has a whole lot to do with their level of emotional intelligence. This individual, while doing all the right things and using all the suggestions offered by his/her supervisor, was doing them with an attitude that said, “I’m really better than you because I’m your leader and I know best.” This individual was not aware of her/his attitude and could not demonstrate a level of empathy or relate in a way that indicated he/she understood. This is why she/he could do the right things and do them very well and still not be seen by others as an effective leader. This is why others were not ready to follow and work hard enhancing the productivity of the organization. This person’s attitude got in the way.

As you think about your role of a leader, reflect upon your own attitude. Are you aware of how you come across to others? Do you care about their life or work situation? Can you regulate your own desires and behaviors and communicate in a way to build effective working relationships?

Until next time, ask yourself. Is it time for an attitude check-up?

Uncategorized

The other day I met a friend I have not seen for a number of years. When I asked how things were going, my friend began down this long path of uncertainty, confusion, insecurity, and frustration. And that was just at work. As I listened and interacted with my friend, it seemed these feelings were stimulated by a number of situations starting with the poor economy and leading to a lack of direction from the organizational and community leadership. After my friend left, and while driving some distance, I had some time to reflect upon this conversation.

Since I am not certain I can personally address the economy, I settled in on something that has been a concern for many years in my professional life, leadership development and its impact on groups and organizations. In this time of uncertainty, which by the way seems to have been my entire career, leadership plays a critical role in how members of the group or the organization view the current reality and the potential for the future. When I think about the leaders I have known over the years, both at work and in the community, I realize the leaders that I have admired and wanted to follow have had a certain quality to their leadership style. I also believe that these leaders were the ones who were the most effective in providing direction and security that the followers needed at the time. I will also freely admit that others may have not appreciated these leaders as much as I did and do.

The one factor that I believe to be the single most influential factor about these leaders is that they were first and foremost human beings trying to do the best job they knew how without creating any more damage or pain to others than was necessary. And when they did create that damage or pain, because it was needed or unintentionally, it was done with compassion and humility. It seemed to me that they were always focused on the other person and their needs instead of what was expected of them as a leader. As I write this I’m reminded of the old saying by John C. Maxwell; “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

This is also consistent with Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence. In his work Goleman talks about how the most effective leaders are usually not the most intelligent or the most knowledgeable or skilled in their field. Instead effective leader are emotionally intelligent. These leaders are self-aware and understand the importance of feelings when dealing with others.  These leaders, while not ruled by their feelings, know how to utilize their feelings to connect with others and to better understand how others are feeling. These leaders demonstrate the value of the relationship in the group and the organization. They are human first and demonstrate that they care.

On the other hand, ineffective leaders are unaware of their feelings and view feelings as being soft. As a result, sometimes these leaders let their emotions control them and react with a variety of destructive behaviors; such as anger or shaming or blaming or passive aggression or micro-managing or completely ignoring others. Hopefully, these ineffective leaders are not the norm. However, they do exist and when they provide leadership it results in resentment and the creation of a toxic environment within the group or the organization. When asked about these leaders, their followers describe them with a variety of descriptions, but few, if any, that would describe a positive human being.

Again, as I think about my conversation with my friend, I wonder what role today’s leaders of organizations and groups play in this perception of confusion and uncertainty. I wonder if leaders today are performing their role based on what they think others expect of them or if they are aware of the feelings of others. I wonder if leaders today are aware of their own feelings and how to tune into those feelings to build connections with their followers.  I wonder if leaders today know that the most important action they can demonstrate is that as a human being they care.

Until next time, think about the leaders in your life and what you can do to influence the development of future effective leaders.

Uncategorized

While working on leadership development for a group I came across an interesting issue. Listening to the expectations and desired outcomes of the participants, I’m reminded of a statement that I hear and read about all the time; effective leaders know who they are, which includes their beliefs, values, and what makes them tick.

An area that has been overlooked in leadership development in the past is that of emotional intelligence. However, recent investigation in this arena indicates that effective leaders are individuals who not only know how they feel, but they are capable of capitalizing on those feelings. They utilize their emotions and the understanding of others’ emotions to build a more harmonious workplace and create a stronger sense of team.

Research in the field of leadership and management indicate that many leaders and managers in the past believed that paying attention to emotions, their own as well as the emotions of others, would create a situation where they could not make the “hard decisions.” The leader or manager who showed any sign of emotion was seen as soft and would be taken advantage of by their employees or followers. To be successful was to be tough and hard-nosed. To be tough and hard-nosed, the leader had to deny or repress their own feelings while ignoring the feelings of others.

Today, due to a host of world changes, leadership and management are seen very differently. For instance, we now know that when individuals are emotionally upset, they find it hard to remember things, pay attention to details, learn new skills and knowledge, or make decisions clearly. With this knowledge we should be identifying leaders who are capable of recognizing and understanding others emotions and building more productive work environments through this knowledge.

A leader who is able to recognize their own emotions is better able to relate to the emotional level of others. A leader, who knows when he or she is upset or anxious or fearful, can relate better to others who are upset, anxious, or fearful. This helps the leader be able to handle disagreements so that they don’t escalate into full blown conflicts. The leader, who knows and recognizes their own emotions, can build better rapport with employees or followers. This rapport leads to better teamwork and productivity.

Leaders were once thought to be very dominating in their group or organization. And this domination was maintained by being “hard” and “non-emotional.” Not showing any emotion was seen as strength. Thus, leaders had to deny their own feelings and ignore the feelings of others.

Today leadership is more about the art of persuasion and working together with others for a common goal. Today leaders must be able to hear and understand grievances. Leaders must be able to function in a diverse workplace, helping others recognize and value the contributions of all members of the group or environment. To make this happen leaders and managers must work at knowing who they are, what they value, and how they feel about the world around them.  Knowing yourself has never been more necessary to leadership development today than ever before.

The next time someone wants to be an effective leader, make certain their development starts by learning about who they are, what they believe, and how they feel about that. Until next time, stay tuned into your emotions and use them to impact the situation.

Uncategorized

As I follow the news, and especially the political segment, I hear a lot of talk about being transparent. I know people want organizations and leaders to be transparent in their dealings with the public. When I ask people what this means to them, they mention being open and honest about the information and their actions. As I reflect upon the concept of transparency, I wonder if it doesn’t mean something more than just being open and honest about information and actions.

When I look up the definition in the dictionary, I read several meanings. Those that I think are relevant to the kind of situation mentioned above include; free from pretense or deceit: easily detected or seen through, obvious: readily understood. When I think about these definitions I believe just being open and honest may not be enough to be transparent. I can think of times when I have shared information and that information was not readily understood. I decided to explore this more.

I turned to my favorite author on groups and facilitation; Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator. In this resource Dr. Schwarz writes in detail about how being transparent helps a facilitator to be more effective in her or his work. In this realm it is more about intent and not just about sharing information. In fact, Dr. Schwarz has a ground rule that describes it best: Explain Your Reasoning and Intent. Not only does an effective facilitator share information to help others understand, the facilitator also shares the reasoning and intent behind the information.

Why is it necessary to share the reasoning and intent to be transparent? If this is not done, the people with whom you are working or interacting may have the information, but lack the understanding as to how or why you said or acted in a certain way. By sharing why you said something or acted in a certain way, you are making it easier for the others to understand your intent or purpose. If you do not share the intent, you may be leaving it up to others to decide why you acted in the manner or said what you said. If you do not share your reasoning, the process for how you arrived at your statement or action, you are leaving the others to determine their own conclusions.

For a facilitator to be transparent, it becomes necessary to share the reasoning and the intent which underlies any statements or actions. Without this information others may make assumptions or inferences about the facilitator’s statements or actions. And, if these assumptions and inferences are not checked out, they may result in miscommunications at best and distrust and conflict at worst.

It seems that communicating with others is difficult enough. Therefore, anything that can enhance the possibility of people understanding the message or the action should be something that we all want to development. Reflect upon the last time you had difficulty communicating with another person. Would sharing your intent or purpose for saying or doing something have helped? Would telling the other person how you arrived at the statement or action have helped with understanding?

Until next time, consider adding your intent and reasoning to your message or behavior and see how it helps with your being perceived as more transparent.

Uncategorized

There is a leadership vacancy in the state/country. We have a leadership void. We have a lack of leadership in our community. There seems to be a huge gap in leadership in our organizations. These comments, and comments like these, are being made by people in many different arenas. I hear these kinds of statements at a lot of meetings these days. When I review professional development needs assessments, I see statistics and comments that say the number one or number two need of our group is leadership development.

However, when I reflect on these statements, I don’t see many leadership positions going unfilled and I don’t see any decrease in the number of opportunities for leadership. There seem to be individuals in those leadership positions. So what is going on? While there is a perceived and expressed lack of leadership, there doesn’t seem to be any lack of people to fill the leadership positions. Then what do people mean by these comments?

Perhaps what people mean by “no leadership” or a “lack of leadership” is not that there are no people in leadership positions, but that the people in those positions are unprepared or ill prepared to be able to provide leadership. Perhaps leadership is less about position and more about working with and influencing others. Perhaps leadership is less about technical knowledge and more about understanding human dynamics.

As I reflect upon the vast array of leaders for whom I have worked, studied or observed, I conclude that just being a smart person in whatever field does not qualify that person to be a leader. While knowing one’s field of study or expertise is important, it doesn’t seem to be the key factor in being an effective leader. As recent research indicates emotional intelligence may actually be more important than being intelligent or being an expert in a technical field.

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence states;   “EI abilities rather than IQ or technical skills emerge as the ‘discriminating’ competency that best predicts who among a group of very smart people will lead most ably.” While being smart or very skilled in a technical field are important aspects to leadership, the critical issue that relates more to being an effective leader is one’s emotional intelligence.

And what makes up emotional intelligence? Goleman identifies a key set of these characteristics. They include the abilities; to motivate oneself and persist through frustrations, to control impulses and delay gratification, to regulate one’s moods and not let distress impact the ability to think, to empathize, and to hope. While these human aspects of leadership are not the elements of leadership we quickly identify, the research clearly identifies them as critical to the effectiveness of leadership.

When you think of effective leaders, do you immediately think of the smartest person or the person with the most skill in that area? Or do you think of the person who can get a group of people engaged around an issue or a vision of where the group needs to be headed? Do you think of the person who knows “the best solution” for a problem? Or do you think of the person who can bring people together to arrive at and own a solution to the problem? Do you think of the person who seems to be able to set aside his or her own needs to do what is best for the group or organization?

Again the research of Dr. James Kouzes and Dr. Barry Posner reinforces the human element of leadership. At least three of their Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership (model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, encourage the heart) speak directly to the human element and emotional intelligence.

So if we have a leadership crisis, it may be because we are not developing our leaders to understand the human aspect of leading and not because we lack people for the leadership positions. The next time you hear someone say we lack leadership, ask them to describe what they mean by the statement.

Until next time, ask yourself what it would take to prepare future leaders to understand and utilize the human element.

Uncategorized

For many years now I have felt that I live a very blessed and privileged life. And when I attended a recent presentation on “power and privilege” I learned far more about the privileges I have than I am even aware that I have. The presentation was about power, privilege, oppression, dominant groups, and subordinate groups. During the presentation we were asked to look at several aspects of are being and how that impacts our lives today.

A few examples of the aspects we examined included age, race, biological sex, gender identity, gender perception, class, educational level, religion/spirituality, ability, marital status, organizational position, and many more. When I examine these aspects it is very clear to me that there is a dominant group and a subordinate group. In almost every aspect I am in the dominant group. Therefore, it is no wonder I feel blessed and privileged. I am.

Much of the discussion was around how to become aware of the power and privilege we have and, as a member of the dominant group, make certain we are trying to integrate all members of our society. As one participant said, we can’t afford to waste or underutilize the rich human resources that exist all around us in everyone.

As a member of that dominant group, it not always easy to be aware of how I use my privilege and power to live the life I am very accustom to living. It is not always easy to understand the concerns of the subordinate group. Even if I am aware and want to change things for the better, it is not always easy to address the dominance issue. If I start to question the status quo and do it too much or too strongly, I can quickly become looked upon by the dominant group as something may be wrong with me. I can even become marginalized and ineffective within the dominant group.

If being a part of the dominant group leads to oppression, then being aware of my standing requires me to address the oppression. I can no long stay at the individual level when I am a part of the dominant group and pretend that it doesn’t impact me. I need to become aware of my status and address the oppression. The challenge is to work within the dominant group within being ostracized.

Part of the difficulty in all of this is we tend to meet people at the perceived group membership, which may not be very accurate. We tend to place individuals into the groups as they appear to us. We then interact with them at that perceived level. This may, at times, create difficult relationships. We may even find ourselves in conflicts and wonder how it happened.

For me the presentation was summarized by one quote offered by the presenter.

“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” – Anais Nin

So the challenge for me is to work harder at seeing things with a different lens than my dominant group. Can I actually make a difference in my dominant group with this new perspective?

Until next time, reflect upon your privileges by being in the dominant group and ask yourself how to challenge the oppression caused by it.

Uncategorized

Lately I have been noticing how difficult it has become to achieve effective communications. It may just be me, but I find the fast pace of the work environment has people speaking and e-mailing in abbreviated styles. This has caused me to reflect on some work that I have used over the years. The work was based on a book and a communications program by Sherod Miller and others. I believe the book was titled Connecting with Self and Others and the communications program was Working Together. The focus of these resources is to break down the communication process into “styles” that can help individuals understand the process better and be more effective at communicating.

What I have experienced is that many of my communications recently get started without creating much context. The conversations, face-to-face or telephone, and e-mails just jump right into the heart of the matter. I find myself struggling to figure out the context and what is being asked of me in response. I’m so focused on trying to understand what to say and what is really being asked that I can’t really listen or read for the true meaning. It leaves me feeling very unsatisfied with my communications.

The work of Sherod Miller and others really helps me understand what is needed in these types of communication situations. Their model breaks down communications into different styles and provides an explanation for why and when each style is needed. The first style they call “small talk”. Small talk is that attempt to connect with the other person and be social. The intent is to get people relaxed and build rapport. I find that in today’s fast paced work world this style is missing a lot, especially with e-mail. When this is missing, I find myself lost for the first few seconds of the conversation or in the written e-mail. While I’m still trying to connect with this person and put the conversation into perspective the other person has moved on and I’m losing out on some very important information.

Many times in these situations the other person has moved on to the second style of communication; “shop talk”. Shop talk is really just what you would think. It is that attempt to gather or give information that is needed to understand the situation. It is usually very matter-of-fact and business-like. However, if the other person does not engage in a few seconds of small talk, I miss some of the important and critical shop talk. As a result, once I have figured out who it is and made the connection to the situation, I have to ask the person to go back and repeat some of what they had just shared.

People may find this a little picky and that I should be more attentive to what is being said or read my e-mail more carefully and completely. However, I find that without some time for connecting and some basic context for the conversation, I’m less sure of myself and my responses. I find I don’t fully understand the nature of the situation and I don’t spend the needed time to get a good grasp of what I need to say or do next.

To be able to address this situation, I find that I rely a lot on another style of communication called “search talk”. This style is used to gain an overview of the situation and to search for what is needed in the situation. It involves asking a lot of open-ended questions to draw out from the other person what I need to know in order to make better responses.

Sometimes, and maybe too many times, I resort to “control talk”, where I end up being too directive too soon. Due to the time crunch, I end up telling, advising, delegating, or assigning before it is time to do that. This can sometimes cause the other person to shut down and not share some very critical information. Both parties in this situation leave unsatisfied with the conversation and disappointed with the outcome.

If the conversation goes really south, then I might find myself using a couple of not so helpful styles; “fight talk” and spite talk”. In these cases, the conversation begins to move very rapidly into a conflict and end up not being productive at all.

Unfortunately, the style I use less frequently than I probably should is “straight talk”. When I am aware of my own emotions and am conscious that this conversation is very important, I can better deal with what is happening and be direct, honest, and compassionate. I own my own feelings and express them with no intent to control the outcome. When these rare moments do occur, I find more satisfaction in my conversations and more understanding of what is needed to address the situation.

If you find yourself experiencing a lot of talking without much communication, perhaps you can discover how to influence your conversations to make them more meaningful and effective.

Until next time, pay closer attention to your conversation and become aware of what style might be needed at the time.

Uncategorized