Sales and Leadership Insights

Are You ACTUALLY Communicating?

George Bernard Shaw once famously said “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” I find this to be true even more now than ever before. With social media, email, texting, phone calls, video calls, videos, and more, we are saying more than ever before, and communicating less than ever before.

I find many people are listening to respond instead of listening to listen. How do I know? Because they respond to headlines without reading an article. They respond to pictures without understanding the context. And they respond to me with an answer to the first part of what I said, without listening to the totality of what I’ve said.

So what can we do about this failure to communicate? How can we communicate more often?

Start by saying less – – Watch your language. How many crutch words do you use, or words that have no meaning? Practice removing those words, and using fewer words, as it means people will tune you out less because they need to listen for less time than before.

Use the right words – Using words that are appropriate for who you are trying to communicate with mean they’ll understand what you said. The words I use to talk to my 6 year old is not how I talk to my 15 year old, and it’s sure not how I talk to my 75 year old father. The way you talk to your colleague is not how you talk to a prospect. Find the right words to use, and use them.

Review your work and edit more – Seldom do the right words come out of my mouth or my fingers the first time I speak or write. While I can’t take back what I said in real time, I can edit my writing. Some of my best work happens after I edit.

Add captions – On your photos and in your videos, add captions to add context and depth. Many of the platforms you’re using to do video conference have captioning built in, they just need to be turned on. Turn them on whenever possible.

Paraphrase what was said , and ask if you understood correctly – Active listening means you are tuned in and paying attention – and yet sometimes, you’ll still miss the meaning and not communicate with someone. Put what you heard in your own words, and ask if you heard things correctly.

Provide clear next steps – If all else fails, providing clear next steps can help people who skip all the way to the end understand what needs to be done, even if they don’t fully understand what you said.

Try a few of these, or all of these, the next time you really want to communicate with someone. Let me know what you find out, and if it improved your communication impact.

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Phil Gerbyshak is the brains and eyeglasses behind Happy AF. I promise to share my most helpful insights with you right here and make it worth your while.