Communicating Better
What I read: The Six Keys to Positive Communication by Julien C. Mirivel in Behavioral Scientist. Published April 27, 2021.
We all try to communicate well. At least most of us don’t intentionally communicate with others badly. But despite our best intentions most of us can probably be more effective in how we express our thoughts, feelings, or pass on information to another person.
My own shortcomings in this realm are sometimes (1) letting my passions overtake calm discourse, (2) speaking too rapidly, and (3) not listening to someone adequately because I’m so anxious to make my next point. I’ve been pretty good about working on these things, but it’s definitely an ongoing work in progress.
When Mirivel’s article crossed my eyeballs, I assumed it might be a good chance to learn something new about communicating optimally. Mirivel grabbed me from the start, especially framing his suggestions as “ethical.” I like ethical.
… I have spent my whole career researching and sharing what I know about effective ethical communication. Some questions that have animated my work include: What communication behaviors exemplify our best potential as humans? What are some small actions that will help us interact more effectively? What communication behaviors have a butterfly effect?
Mirivel, a professor of applied communication and a founding scholar in the emerging field of positive communication, shares with his readers “six concrete behaviors that you can enact in your life today to improve your communication.” The concept of positive communication was alluring.
While it’s not a long article, let me summarize in my own words his six behaviors that allow for effective communication. Then I’ll add a bit of commentary about them.
Extend a heartfelt greeting to the other person(s) with whom you want to communicate.
Keep your questions as open-ended as possible rather than worded to solicit a specific bit of information or viewpoint.
Compliment the people you’re communicating with because we all respond better when we feel appreciated, valued, and acknowledged.
Be transparent and disclose as honestly and vulnerably as you can to engender trust and buy-in.
Offer encouragement as a sign of affection or support.
Truly listen to hear the entirety of what the other person is saying.
I will leave it to the article itself to dive a bit deeper into each of the six points I just summarized, but here is what struck me as I read the article.
Nearly every day I attend countless meetings, send dozens of emails, talk a lot on the phone, and chat for hours through texting or a messaging application. This applies to my weekday professional day job as well as my community and personal work. Occasionally someone reaches out to me with what I would call a “cold opening.” By that I mean, they get directly to the message without any greeting of any kind.
When this happens in person or during a phone call or video conference, some semblance of warm greeting seems to organically happen. As stark contrast when done by text, messaging app, or email those warmer greeting niceties seem far less common and it makes those exchanges more utilitarian and less human. It affects how I respond and interact.
This also seems to happen a lot on social media, a set of platforms on which many of us communicate more than any other way. Think of a comment you have seen on a post that lands with a negative, harsh thud because the commenter charges in with a counter argument, casting aside any gentler introduction or greeting and perhaps displaying some snark or abrasiveness.
Sorry, you’re wrong. Anyone who thinks that must not be very well educated on the matter. Get a clue.
Anyone who spends any significant time on social media has seen such comments. That person could just as easily have said this to much better effect.
Hello. I’m not a frequent commenter on your posts, so let me say thank you for generating this discussion. I humbly disagree with your assertion although I can appreciate your perspective. I don’t doubt that you are informed on the topic, but I hope you’ll consider my stance.
I respond much better to the latter approach. My guess is you would too. No one likes to be yelled at, scolded, or experience the online equivalent.
I learned the open-ended question strategy in many of the corporate management trainings I have participated in over the years. Coaches, therapists, medical practitioners, and others are trained to utilize open-ended questions to draw out more complete information from the person with whom they are conversing.
My favorite open-ended question is one I have used in my corporate work, nonprofit work, discussions I’ve led, and various other conversations.
Tell me about yourself and why this topic/point is so important to you?
You would be surprised how useful that one question is. It can be massaged and adapted to a wide variety of situations and it always disarms someone if they are initially approaching me in an antagonistic or aggressive manner. Everyone likes to talk about themselves. Everyone. It’s human nature. If you follow that up with asking why something is important to them rather than leading with a counter argument, it goes a long way.
Much as people like to talk about themselves, we all like to be complimented or acknowledged for something we do or about our character. I recently received this unsolicited message after attending a conference and providing feedback to the organizer. It definitely made me “feel heard.”
Thanks for all the feedback at ____. I work on two conferences. We are currently putting together an online track for one and if it goes well the other will be doing the same. You were heard.
Simple. Kind. It makes me want to attend this person’s conferences in the future. It just took a few generous lines sent in a message.
Over the years it’s become known in most circles in which I navigate that I’m fairly transparent. I try to be forthcoming about my strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, certainties and those things I still question. I find by disclosing that about me which is not perfect or certain it establishes my vulnerability and creates a more pure connection. This might happen one-on-one or in a group setting. I’ve yet to encounter a situation which such disclosures don’t help the overall situation.
Tell someone something they might otherwise consider private or not self-flattering and it does seem to deepen the relationship with the other person.
The advice to give encouragement seems like such a no brainer to me, but I guess it’s not the default approach for everyone. I try to give encouragement to my teammates, friends, collaborators, even to random strangers I meet. It feels like the kind, decent thing to do anyway.
The last point about deep listening may be the most important of the six suggestions. When I took coaching and management trainings it was typically referred to as active listening. One must actively participate as a listener, not passively take in what the other person is saying while busily constructing the next comment or retort.
This is not easy! In our fast-paced world our exchanges try to keep pace and to stop and listen seems counterintuitive. Active and deep listening is how you really get to know the other person and best understand what it is they are trying to convey.
A trick I use is to mentally say to myself “take a beat” to build in a pause before I jump in with my next statement or rudely cut them off midway through theirs. So often we don’t like blank space in our conversations. I find blank space adds value. It ensures everyone gets to have their say. It gives people a chance to gather their thoughts before speaking.
I’ll conclude with how Mirivel wraps up his article because I could not say it any better.
I believe that if you practice positive communication, it’s going to help you grow as a professional and as a person, create high-quality relationships at work and at home, and lead more effectively. When you take these small actions, you’re beginning a butterfly effect. You’re starting to change the script on your interactions, which affects the relationships that you care about, the groups you work in, and the communities you belong to. And if we do this together, we will co-create a better society for ourselves and our children.
Have a nice day.