I attended a wonderful networking opportunity a few weeks ago. The room was full of professional communicators and other people enjoying their beverages and talking. The cacophony was deafening. To understand one another, we had to stand closer and enunciate. Such proximity made networking a bit more challenging, since we were limited to conversing with one tight circle of people and then another. As individuals, we had to pay close attention to one another and concentrate.
Our work environments are filled with the buzz of ongoing conversations. As children we learn to block out or minimize the background noise going on around us, so that we can concentrate on the tasks in front of us. While this skill helps us not get inundated with the competing messages of the world around us, the skill also means leaders and teachers must use specific strategies to break through to our audiences.
In complicated situations in which you need to know the listener has heard and understood what you are saying, some professions have come up with careful strategies, which can help. The main objective is to create a feedback loop.
Rather than letting your conversations float away, you want to establish reciprocal responses to establish the connection between you and your listener. A feedback loop entails occurrences which either inhibit systems or amplify them. Amplify your interactions with the following suggestions:
- Repetition. Teachers and pilots both utilize this technique to double check that others have heard them. During flights a pilot and co-pilot will repeat back to one another what the other person said to verbally demonstrate what they heard. Failure to do so results in plane crashes. Teachers also ask students to repeat back what was said. Now it would generally be rude to explicitly ask the other person what you said. But careful questions can bring out a response to indicate their level of understanding and interest: “What do you think about the situation?” or “What is your experience?” or “Could we revisit this conversation over coffee?”
- Record. Speech is ephemeral and fleeting. People can remember what they have been told, but repetition makes the details of the conversation stick. After meeting someone or discussing some important business decision, be sure to write down what was discussed. If you want the other participants in the conversation to confirm your interpretation of what was said, then send them a copy of your notes. Sometimes, what you think you said and what was heard are not the same.
- Response. While you might not be able to ask your listener to repeat back to you and writing down notes might feel odd for the situation, another strong technique is to encourage your listener to do something after the conversation, such as a request for coffee or a response email. Their response to your call to action means they not only heard you, but agreed to your suggestions for a response.
Solid communication is not a one-way process but is instead a system. Carefully cultivating repetition and responses to your conversations will garner more effective and persuasive communication by amplifying your connections rather than closing them off. Instead of guessing whether or not your message is getting through, build in these methods to test your connections in the system.
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