I am sure you will agree that great communication reaches beyond knowledge into the domain of wisdom, understanding, and emotional competence. It is not merely a feat that comes from appropriate use of words, congruent body language, and skillful use of tone of voice. All this can help you to get through to others but great communication springs from the heart.
In essence, the quality of your communication with others depends mainly on the quality of your hopes, dreams, thoughts, and attitude.
Your communication is powered by who you are at your deepest level, and the way you think of yourself and others.
The way you craft your life and develop the ability to love, accept, and empathize is really the essence of your gift. It will influence your communication more than any other fact.
Want to be a great communicator? Work hard on yourself. The more work you do on yourself, the better will be your responses to others and the more positive will be their response to you.
Although the potential for great communication is something that lies deep within us, we can also improve the caliber of each encounter by using a few practical techniques.
So, if you have to talk to your teenager about her boyfriend’s reputation, or persuade your boss to hire another person, or confront your spouse about an affair, bring your innate sincerity and wisdom with you, but I am also going to give you 5 steps you must take to enrich every encounter and be great in communication.
GOAL
When you have an important meeting don’t just drift into it without thought of the outcome. Carry a list of clear goals for the meeting. Know with blinding clarity the outcome that you want. Visualize yourself at the end of the meeting with your goals achieved.
This type of goal is an outcome goal. Achieving an outcome goal does not depend on you alone. It depends on the other person or persons involved. But there is another type of goal that you should adopt. This is a performance goal. You can have more than one performance goals. These are goals which will govern your behavior during the meeting.
Suppose you are going to an important meeting with a rich client. Your outcome goal maybe to sell him $3 million dollars worth of equipment, but your performance goals could be something like, “I’m going to listen more ardently and talk less” I’m going to breathe deeply during the meeting and remain really relaxed. I’m going to make eye contact whenever I am speaking”
So the point is that you go to your meeting with 2 types of goals.
RAPPORT
Before starting an important conversation or attending a meeting or embarking on an important session of negotiation, it is important to build rapport with your counterpart.
Rapport is when you identify with someone and feel their feelings and think their thoughts, and be so in sync with them that they feel close to you and begin to like you.
You can create rapport by emphasizing what you have in common with the person. Maybe you both lived in Chicago at one time, and if so, mention it. It’s great that you have something in common and highlighting it might bring you closer, or maybe you both visited Berlin last year. Whatever common ground you can find seize it and bring it into the game.Try to find out what you have in common in any area of your life or experiences and spotlight that.
Apart from uncovering commonality you can also create commonality and so enhance rapport. You can do this by tactfully emphasizing the ways in which you are alike. You can even become a little bit more like the person you want to influence right on the spot. For example notice use of hands or posture and try to match that and see if this creates more confidence and trust.
The simple truth is that when someone perceives that you are like them in demeanor, state or experience, they will more quickly identify with you and like you, and you will be creating an emotional atmosphere with positive feelings.
Therefore a big part of your job before and during the encounter is to highlight any commonality that exists, and even create some more as long as it is done with sincerity and sensitivity.
EARS
Use your ears. Listen more than you talk. Regard listening as an act that you engage in with enthusiasm, not just a time when you are waiting to talk. Listen opportunistically, listen earnestly, listen diligently, listen to what you don’t want to hear. Be the best listener you have ever met.
Here is a way to achieve this by using your E.A.R.S
E – Explore. Explore the topic with phrases like,” Tell me more”. “Really?” “How do you mean?” Explore until you get a good understanding of what the other person knows. Listen and explore and uncover things that you may not want to hear.
A – Acknowledge and express appreciation; “That’s great, I understand”
R –Respond, don’t react. When you are being blamed, criticized or attacked, remember to remain calm, breathe in through your nose and suspend immediate reaction. Respond in a way that will best further your agenda because an immediate counter attack will never do the trick. Take a moment to think when the pressure rises. Put some space between the attack and your response and you will more likely serve your cause.
S – Silence – Use silence well. Silence is a huge part of communication. Certain impressions are conveyed in silence which are not expressed in words and you don’t want to miss these.
Don’t just disengage when nothing is being said. Think about the information, and give the appearance of a person who is really involved and thinking about something important. Try to use silence to get the message that may be hiding behind the spoken words. This is the prime time in communication. Time to use your brain to process information and feelings.
Value silence. And while you savor the silence, use the time to build rapport. Create similarity. Plan to use a similar tone of voice, similar words or phrases, and adopt comparable postures or gestures to create a sense of being in sync. Silence offers you the opportunity to notice, simply notice.
AFFABILITY
To be affable means that during your encounter or conversation you are going to be as agreeable, gracious, and nice as you can be.
There is no advantage for you to adopt a hostile attitude in any conversation. If you want to be great in communication, hostility and hatred must be banned.
Learn to control your spirit. Remember that the person who is slow to anger is better than the mighty.
Hostility and anger will only hurt your cause, they will hurt your physiology. So approach each encounter with a cordial and understanding spirit, even if your opinions are at the opposite end of the spectrum and the other person is totally obnoxious.
You can adopt calmness and self-control as one of your performance goals: “I will remain in total control of my emotions. I will be really understanding and aim to win over hostility with understanding and wisdom.”
TIMING
Before starting a session of communication, set a time limit and monitor how you are doing as time passes. Do not go on and on. The session will lose its impact. In sweet communication less is more.
So to help you become great in communication, remember the acronym G.R.E.A.T and bear these 5 points in mind.