So you made some New Year’s resolutions, did you? Excellent. Let’s put them aside for right now and talk about something you can do right now that’ll be really useful in both your personal and professional life – improving your communication skills. Consider the following scenarios:
The Case of the Busy Waitress
I was in a local restaurant the other day having lunch with a couple of friends. The waitress was in a bit of a rush and I thought to myself, “Maybe you should ask her to repeat the order back to be sure she’s got it right.” Off she went and I hoped for the best. The order came and not only did she not get the placement of the items right, but what she brought out was all wrong.
Hey…HEY! Are You Hearing Me?
Yesterday, I visited the local store of a well-known mobile carrier. I was trying to order new service and the person taking my order seemed to be preoccupied with something other than taking my order.
As we went through the process, I had to constantly correct him as he entered information on his order sheet. I left feeling like I needed a commission on the sale myself. Once back at my office, I realized I must have missed a few corrections because the service didn’t work and could not be activated properly because the info the mobile carrier’s systems was all wrong.
But That’s Not What I Wanted
Sometime back I did some work with a large media company. They were revamping their digital platforms and hired a consultant to come in and advise them. The consultant created a strategy document and left them to make it happen. By the time they’d called me in, they were out of money and the firm they’d hired to implement the first consultant’s strategy were long gone. Their biggest complaint? They didn’t get what they asked for.
Massive #FAIL
Most recently, we also have the example of the terrorist attack on Northwest Flight 253. Another massive failure in communication, as I discussed in another blog post.
If you’re thinking that all of these stories have their #FAIL foundation rooted in poor communication skills, give yourself 3 atta-boy’s or atta-girl’s. You’re absolutely right. Failure to communicate effectively is responsible for more divorces, more project failures, more business and personal financial losses, than can be accurately measured.
What’s in Your Toolkit?
Your communication skills toolkit should include tools for both speaking and listening, but in my opinion (yup – I have a few of those, for sure) I think listening is far more important than speaking.
As a CEO I used to work for once told me, “You can’t listen with your mouth”. My buddy Eric Brown (@ericdbrown) wrote a great blog post targeted to CIOs and says if there’s a trait you can improve in 2010, it should be to listen more effectively. Well said, Eric.
So if communicating more effectively isn’t on your 2010 resolution list, why not add it now and put it right at the top. You’ll be glad you did (and so will everyone you deal with).
Suggested Reading
Some references worthy of a peek (and there are many, many more):
How to Speak How to Listen – Mortimer J. Adler. Adler’s position in this classic is that listening well is the component of verbal communication that is the most difficult to learn and teach, and hence the most lacking.
Messages: The Communication Skills Book – Matthew McKay. Billed as a “classic, best-selling communication skills” book, there’s overall advice and info here for developing effective communication skills.
The Art of Talking So That People Will Listen: Getting Through to Family, Friends & Business Associates – Paul Swets. On oldie, but a goodie, one of the classics dealing with communication and people skills.
Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customer’s Brain – Patrick Renvoise & Christophe Morin. I’m really getting into the science of neuromarketing and I’m reading this now. The authors share “…highly effective techniques to build and deliver powerful, unique, and memorable messages that will have major, lasting impact on any audience.” I like it, so far.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article Gene.
Tracie and I had something similar happen this evening – we were at a store just trying to check out. We were trying to buy a gift card that required the teller to enter a value and then swipe the card. She was busy talking to her friend in the next lane and couldn’t quite get the fact that we wanted a $25 value on the card.
Took the teller 4 tries to get the correct card value to us…and 4 trips by the manager to void the previous card.
A little bit of listening would have caused a lot less grief for the teller, the manager and us.
Oh..and thanks a ton for pointing readers over to my article.
You’re welcome. There are countless stories like yours and mine. Maybe that’s the business venture for us, Eric – teaching communication skills to people in caves!
{ 2 trackbacks }