Pioneers Club Podcast #8: The Art of Communication – How to Be Clear & Intentional In Your Conversations
Time to listen: 19:18
Time to read: 17:00
Introduction
Monika This is the Pioneers Club podcast.
Patrick The community podcast for driven entrepreneurs and leaders.
Monika Here you can connect with like minded people, create a sense of belonging, and gain more agency in your daily life.
Hi, my name is Monika and I’m your host. I help entrepreneurs and leaders with big ideas go from feeling overwhelmed, scared and confused to being clear-headed, confident and focused as they go after their goals. I’m a mental and systemic coach and primarily focus on topics such as resilience, agency, confidence, high performance and goal pursuit, helping my clients thrive in the business with more ease.
Patrick And I’m your co-host, Patrick. I’m an entrepreneur in the fast paced media industry, and I help people tell stories. As a producer and production manager, I work with a global network of partners to create engaging content, combining media and technology to create value and impact.
I went or live through the topics of our podcast, just like you and I will try to ask the questions you might have.
This week’s focus: Clear & Intentional Communication
Patrick So welcome back, everyone. This week, we’re changing our perspective a bit, and we’re talking about something that’s extremely important. Everyone knows about it. The topic is communication.
But we thought we might take a bit of a different approach. The past few episodes we’ve been talking about things like self-doubt, comparing, paradigm shifts. And we thought that this all might be a result of us being exposed to communication. And now we’re shifting and talking about us communicating with others.
What’s it like? How do I send clear messages, knowing that we’ve talked all about these topics like self-doubt and comparison before, and now we’re talking about still sending a clear message. Just knowing I could cause that in others, but also without taking too much responsibility when sending out messages. Why is it so important to clearly communicate with others?
Monika Yeah. So just listening to you already right now, I had to chuckle because it obviously made it clear how complicated it is. Communication is something that we all are exposed to, but also engaged in all day long. And there is this communication that we have within ourselves, so with ourselves, but also with others. There’s non-verbal communication and verbal communication. There are these moments where we think that we don’t communicate, but also non-communication is a form of communication. Just think about when someone doesn’t reply to your email. It does send a message actually by them not replying as well, right? And you might interpret whatever you want into this. So it is a very complex topic.
And thinking back also to our event, it was so clear that everyone was saying the more they continue on their journey and, as well as experts selling their expertise, offering their knowledge. Still, communication is one of the most important skills because they are just constantly in exchange with other stakeholders, with potential partners, potential clients, potential team members. And all of this comes down to how clearly can you communicate in different situations with different people.
Why it’s tricky to communicate clearly & the four sides of every message
Patrick But why is it so hard then to clearly communicate? I mean, obviously, we’re communicating all the time, like you said, but what’s the trials and tribulations of sending a clear message to someone?
Monika We need to take a little bit of a step back in order to really explore this. And I want, for the sake of this conversation now, I want to focus more on the verbal communication and not on the nonverbal communication.
But traditionally, we would talk about three elements that are part of every communication. So you have the sender, the person who is communicating something. Then you have the message, the information, the sentence, whatever it is that the sender is communicating. And then you have the receiver, the person who is actually hearing and receiving this message.
Well, we are used to having a very simplified and linear picture of that, which makes it a little bit non realistic. Because in reality we all work with a lot of interpretations, contexts in which we misunderstand/understand things differently. So it’s not that easy.
You have to think about with every message, you actually can interpret it in four different ways. Let’s go through it maybe with an example.
Patrick A presentation for someone, for a client, for instance, and then you present that presentation to them. You present that information, and the initial feedback from your client is, “Well, I’m not really sure about that. I need a little bit more on that.” And you’re not really sure what they mean by “I need more”. So I’m always a bit confused what that feedback means.
Monika That’s a great example, and we all know that situation, right? Where you are presenting something, that you have probably even put in a lot of effort and energy and that you are an expert on, maybe even, so it makes perfect sense for you. And then you have someone else listening to it, waiting until the very end to then tell you, I’m not so sure about it. This doesn’t really make sense to me. I need more on that.
So with the four sides, you could actually listen in four different ways to what is communicated here.
On the one hand, you can just look at the factual information that is being sent. I need more. Okay. What is this more? This would require, then a little bit more of a question towards the person who said that again. What do you mean by more? Do you need more information? Do you need more time to process it? What do you mean? But that’s it, actually. It’s just the very bare factual information that is being presented. Most of the time, though, this is not the only thing that we hear.
We are used to hearing with the appeal side of the message. I need more. Or this means you want me to give you more. You should have received more. Or something like this where people feel that there is an appeal and imperative behind that message, without it having been said explicitly.
Then you have the third message, the self revelation. What does the person who says this sentence tell me about themselves by saying that? It seems a little bit twisted, but actually you can think about it in this way: This person who says, I’m not so sure about that, I need more. What does this communicate to you about them? Think, if we are less confident or maybe less sure that we have presented in a good way, we will hear maybe self revelation-wise, “Oh, they are telling me that they have heard many other offers that are even better.” So you hear that these are a lot of hypotheses that we are not oftentimes then checking, but there is a lot of self regulation that is often, always communicated as well with every message that we receive.
And then the fourth aspect is the relationship side. What does this tell me about the relationship that the sender and the receiver have, so you and I, have by you communicating this?
The tricky thing is there’s a lot of interpretation happening which we don’t clearly see as that. Oftentimes we are so quick in communication and in interpreting these things that we don’t really stop to recognize that we are going way beyond what we know or what we can observe about the situation, and that we are going into our own models, our own theories, about what the person might be meaning.
And this is where it becomes then really tricky because then it gets emotionalized in a whole new color and a whole new way.
How to better tailor your communication to your audience
Patrick So, knowing that. That every message has these four sides to it and obviously knowing that my audience could listen to it in a different way, how does that help me to speak to different people?
Because if we’re talking about audience, we’re talking about clients, we’re talking about all different clients that are coming to me. And I’m not I’m not always sure what kind of person that I’m talking to, what what’s their background, how they’re interpreting it. But I need to specifically sort of tailor my message, like my sales pitch. I need to also tailor my message to them so they can receive it and they exactly hear what I want to say. How does knowing that help me?
Monika Well, the first thing that you actually might want to do is to WAIT. And I don’t mean to wait and let time pass, but what I mean with WAIT is an acronym. Why am I talking? Asking yourself this question and taking a little step back in order to reflect what actually is your intention in talking in this situation, is something that a lot of people don’t do before starting to talk. Because they’re just, I don’t know, maybe they are confused themselves or they think that everything is so clear when it really is not. So this is something that you can always do.
Patrick Is it a little bit like think before talking?
Monika It is, actually, very simple that. But I like the acronym Why Am I Talking? Because this Why makes it so obvious that there is going to be an effect and outcome, an impact that you want to create. And with this WAIT then, you can be very clear on how you actually want to frame something.
And then it becomes about knowing your audience and listening maybe to how they might interpret other things or how they react. But if you have known someone for a certain amount of time and you know that they are very eager to always jump to conclusions and want to act and want to help, you know, that they are probably listening more to the appeal side of messages.
So you might simply frame something in a very clear way by telling them, “Listen, this is not an appeal. I’m just brainstorming here.”
How to be more clear & intentional in difficult communications
Patrick Alright, now, having talked about the WAIT acronym and the four sides of a message, sender, receiver and that you cannot not communicate… I think we should also talk about having difficult conversations. Because especially when you’re an entrepreneur and let’s just assume we’re growing and growing and growing and then we’re at a point that we have employees that we need to talk to.
And these conversations are not always the ones that we want to do, but it’s the ones that we have to do. So, knowing all of that now, how does this help in difficult situations? What can I do then if I have those difficult conversations with my employees or with my stakeholders in general?
Monika So difficult conversations are probably… make up for 50% of my coaching sessions. How do I behave? How do I stay confident? And how do I clearly communicate and bring my needs, my wants, my intentions across?
Difficult conversations will come up again and again. And I think it’s this idea maybe that once we know how to handle them, they won’t be difficult anymore. We can just realistically say this is not true. Difficult conversations are just part of it.
But the thing is here again, it’s so important to know exactly why you are communicating, what you want and then to have tools and maybe strategies which you can use. And there are so many communication tools. This is just a misconception that we all need to know intuitively how to communicate something. There are so many good tools and and frameworks of how to really approach a conversation.
Non-violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg is one of the most helpful tools that I have learned and that I teach my clients as well in how to actually engage in and stay in a constructive conversation with someone when it comes to handling topics that are critical, conflict situations, or even situations where you really have to tell someone to not do something in a certain way, that you are not satisfied, that you are frustrated, that you are angry. All of these heightened emotions that you would think could sabotage a constructive conversation.
In reality, if you use non-violent communication as well, they could be something that brings you closer to the other, because we all can agree that we know what it feels like to be frustrated and angry. And then, using them in the right way, you can frame your messages so that you shift the conversation in a constructive way.
Non-violent communication – a powerful communication strategy for difficult conversations
Patrick So maybe not everyone knows what non-violent communication is, what is the basics about it, and how does it work?
Monika Okay. Yes, that’s true. So non-violent communication is something that I have learned, or we have learned about, many years ago already, and that I have then picked up again and again because it’s just so powerful.
And the basis of this conversation or the basis of this philosophy is that we can meet each other when we talk about values and emotions, because we are all human and we understand that you and I have values. There is nothing aggressive about that.
Instead, it helps us by shifting this conversation from what we would usually maybe do when we communicate with someone in a critical situation to this nonviolent communication style by taking away the you-messages.
So this is something that is very well known in communication psychology. You-messages are probably the best way of how you could escalate a situation, let’s say it like this. People get very defensive if you use you-message. So, if I told you now, “You didn’t explain this in a good way, I need more information.”
Of course, most of us would get somehow defensive. Especially, okay, if this happens one time. But if this happens repeatedly, it somehow shows where people see their responsibility or the fault. Usually then people start talking about, But this is not my fault or this is their fault. And this all brings the conversation to a very non constructive point.
Instead, when you focus on talking about things that you can observe, so facts. For example, to give a feedback to a team member and they didn’t do a good job because you said that they need to give you data and they didn’t give you the data in the data sheet. So you would want to tell them, Listen, I actually really need that and I need you to do your job better.
Phrasing it in the way that non-violent communication style teaches would actually then lead you to start with pure observation. So something that we can both agree on that happened. And these are facts, like “When you don’t put in the data.” There it is. You didn’t put in the data. There is no judgment there as well. It’s just an observation.
“When you don’t put in the data, I…” then you shift the focus to the “I”. “I feel helpless or frustrated.” Whatever it is that you are feeling. So this also requires you to do a little bit of self-awareness exercises beforehand to prepare yourself for the conversation. But let’s go with “I feel helpless because I need…” And then you phrase your needs. So the value that you want to fulfill.
Patrick How do I find out this value or this need? Because maybe it’s not always that clear when I voice the message.
Monika Well, this really is a good question because this is something that I work on with my clients in the background then, in order to prepare my clients for critical conversations.
Sometimes the need is not that obvious because we have so many emotions mixed in with it. Or maybe also because there is not just one need or one value that we are trying to fulfill.
The important question, though, is to ask yourself, why is that important? Or if this question is not working for you, you could ask yourself: What will be different once this is fulfilled, once this is taken care of?
[For example] I would be able to feel calm because I would know that everything is already prepared. So you would get to this value step by step a little bit more.
But if you don’t know it very clearly, it’s already a good way to start with “because I need to feel calm”. So, if you go back to the non-violent communication style, you could really simply start with “When you don’t put in the data, I feel helpless because I need to feel calm and prepared in order to do a good job.” Period. That’s a good enough explanation. And it also shifts the focus from them, from the observation, to what you as the communicator need.
Then you will want to give them actionable, clear information on what you expect them to do differently and how they can do it. That’s it.
Shifting into a growth mindset to master your communication skill set
Patrick It sounds very interesting. I guess it’s not something you can change overnight. It’s not something that our audience can go out like. I’m completely different. I know this now. I can work it into every conversation. It’s more of a process.
It helps, though, to realize that all of these things are going on, are happening right now, when I’m listening, when I’m talking. How do I affect other people? How do they affect me? And I guess it’s something that you will just have to repeat and repeat and repeat.
Monika I think it’s a major shift to accept that communication, as naturally as we all do it, because we all do it, that it is a skill set.
This is something that if you haven’t polished it already intentionally, it is something that you will at some point want to investigate. Communication is one of the major tools that you use to create an impact.
Give yourself a little bit more of a growth mindset in this whole topic where you allow yourself to see, Okay, I have learned a certain way, but now it’s time to relearn. And this is not going to happen overnight. I will need a little bit of time to question that and shift.
And there are so many more helpful communication strategies. And, like, non-violent communication is just one of the tools and frameworks and things – there is a world to explore! And then it becomes also more fun if you empower yourself in this way.
Now it’s your turn!
Patrick If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your fellow entrepreneurs so they can listen too. Simply grab the link to this episode or the podcast and send it to them.
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Monika Also, don’t forget to connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram and let us know. What was one helpful thought or insight that you gained from this episode?
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So thanks for joining us.
Patrick See you in the next one.
