What’s Keeping You from Really Connecting with Your Team and What to Do About It

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Team Building Through Connecting

Although an often misused buzzword, connecting with others is one of the most critical leadership skills. If you are not connecting with your team and they are not connecting with each other you have trouble. Maybe not immediately, but very soon. Without connecting then communication, collaboration, and execution become significantly harder, if not impossible.

What is connecting? Simply put, it is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.

Why Are You Connecting?

So why is connecting and increasing our influence important? Influence is the precursor to success with people.

Jay Hall of the consulting firm Telometrics studied the performance of 16000 executives and found a direct correlation between achievement and the ability to care for and communicate with other people. In other words, caring and communicating translate to influence and leadership which translates to success.

Benefits of Connecting with Your Team

Increasing Influence

As we mentioned above, a primary advantage of connecting is building influence. We all influence; some big and some small, some positively and some negatively. Where we win with people is developing our influence to be greater and greater and always positive.

Strengthening Trust

When we reach the level of connecting with others they learn to trust us more. And we learn to trust them. Trust is the foundation for any group of people to be able to work together effectively and productively. Not fear. Fear has short-lived results and disastrous long-term results. Trust builds.

Meeting a Basic Human Need

Believe it or not everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, desires to connect with others. Introverts, extroverts – doesn’t matter.

Personal Accomplishment

According to a Harvard Business Review article, “The number one criteria for advancement and promotion is the ability to communicate effectively”

Why Aren’t You Connecting?

Bosses and leaders have trouble connecting because they don’t lay the groundwork. But why don’t they lay that groundwork? While the answers may vary, generally I believe it falls into one or more of these reasons:

You Don’t Care

This is the biggest barrier. If you don’t care, you can’t connect. And frankly, if you don’t care there may be nothing that can help you. To be blunt about it, if you don’t care you have no business being a leader or a manager. Quit. Now.

Or look inside yourself and realize you really do care and the reason must be somewhere else.

[tweetthis]If you don’t care you have no business being a leader or a manager. Quit. Now.[/tweetthis]

You Worry About Changes in the Relationship

When someone has or moves into a position of official leadership there is a concern that there must be some kind of invisible wall there that separates us from them. The wall is our protector because if we actually care for and connect with our team then we risk emotional impact when they leave – no matter the reason they left.

Fear of Vulnerability

Leaders need to show vulnerability if they want to connect with their team. They have to know you are a real person and that you can empathize with what they are feeling because you are or have felt it yourself. However, some equate vulnerability with being weak and think that showing weakness opens you up to attack or challenge. It goes back to the us vs them mindset.

Trust Issues

If you basically believe that everyone is lazy at heart, if they automatically try to get away with doing as little as possible, and will take advantage of you the first chance they get then certainly do not trust them. If you do not trust them, connecting with them does not seem like something you want to do. And it’s definitely something they don’t want to do because if you don’t trust them they don’t trust you.

Self-Esteem

If you don’t like yourself, it’s hard to like anyone else. As I researched this, I ran across several forums where people were talking about their inability to connect with others. The biggest reason for it was that they just didn’t like other people. Most of them also expressed that they didn’t like themselves very much either. It runs from the inside out.

You Don’t Know How

Many just do not know how to connect with others. They are terrible at “small-talk”, are uncomfortable with revealing questions, and are simply not sure where start.

Connecting 101

So let’s work with that last one on the list of reasons: you don’t know how. It’s somewhat understandable. To people who are task-oriented connecting with others just seems like fluff and they never bothered to learn. Others have varying levels of social awkwardness and even social anxiety that make it difficult.

But connecting IS a learnable, very learnable, skill. It starts with just a few simple techniques.

Start with Common Ground

This should be the first technique you try because it is easy and you can do it right now. Find something that you have in common with the other person. What seems to be small-talk about significant others, children, activities, and so on are actually very important topics for finding common ground with others. Remember, too, that common ground is ALWAYS personal. Just working in the same place is not usually a good connecting point.

Keep It Simple

Too many people want to make what they say seem important by making it complicated. Yet simpler is better. Sometimes, simpler can be harder to do. The mathematician Blaise Pascal once wrote to a friend, “I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short.“

People generally see through our attempts to cloud things with complexity. Remember that good connectors bring people clarity, bad communicators leave them confused.

Be An Encourager

Just like we all want to connect, we also want to be encouraged. No one rejects an encourager. And people willingly connect with an encourager. A caveat: be genuine with your encouragement or you will have the opposite effect.

Focus on the Other Person

Be interested. Listen carefully. Dale Carnegie in his flagship book How to Win Friends and Influence People puts it this way: “If you want to be a great conversationalist, be a good listener. If you want to be interesting, be interested.“

Disconnect

Put down your smartphone, stop tapping on your keyboard, and pay attention. We make better connections with people when we aren’t connected to anything else in the moment.

What’s the biggest challenge you have connecting with others? Can you think of someone who connected well with you? What did you learn from that?

Comment here or send our thoughts to me at psimkins (at) BoldlyLead.com.

Want to learn about caring for employees more? Get my eBook 15 Innovative Ways to Show Employees You Care and Not Break the Bank. It’s my gift to you.

Why Core Values Are the Foundation to Team Success

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Core Values Build the Team

Building a successful and productive team or organization takes time. You build it one block at a time. You want team members to know their roles and understand the expectations for behavior and performance. Yet that’s the goal not the beginning. Start off with that and you are building a house of cards.

If a new building is to be structurally sound, the first thing they do is establish the foundation. The higher the building, the deeper the foundation. Skimp on the foundation and everything else is weak and at-risk. Disasters results.

So, too, does building an organization require a strong, solid foundation. Skip establishing the foundation and eventually everything collapses; either because of a lack of guidance or because of behaviors that tear down trust. You must have a strong foundation. You lay that foundation with core values.

What Are Core Values?

Core Values are the characteristics and qualities an organization, a team, or an individual defines as being at the heart of what they are about and how they will conduct themselves. They are the principles that determine who you are and what you are about above all else. It is the soul of the organization. Your core values are unshakable – no matter what you will always reflect these values in everything you do.

Yet core values can also outline behaviors you expect with the members of an organization. For years, one of Google’s core values was “don’t be evil”. Infusionsoft, a popular sales and marketing software company, lists one of their core values as “We do the right thing”. For many other organizations, they are simply one or two word statements such as Integrity, Honesty, Communication, Employee focused.

[tweetthis]Your core values are unshakable – reflect them in everything you do.[/tweetthis]

Why Are Core Values So Critical?

Establish Non-Negotiables

Determining your core values make it clear to employees, to customers, and to yourself what you will never compromise. When you establish a core value of integrity you are saying that no matter what else happens you are trustworthy, dependable, have strong morals, and people can count on you to do what you say you will do. Core values say you would rather the company go under than violate them. If you are not willing to die for it, then it’s not a core value.

Foundation for Mission and Methods

Interestingly enough, I have found that when core values are in place first then writing those dreaded mission statements become easier. Determining the methods by which the team accomplishes its mission and goals becomes clearer. One leads to the other.

Outlines Expected Behaviors

As a result, when your values are set in stone and your mission and methods are established from that, it ends up describing the behaviors you expect everyone to exhibit. If honesty is expected and modeled, you tend to get honesty. If employee-focused is expected and modeled from the top it floods down to every department, every manager, and every team.

A Must-Have for Empowerment

For that reason, you cannot have real empowerment with having values in place. Or, more accurately, you cannot expect consistent performance in empowered employees without core values. If make a profit is emphasized but core values of honesty and integrity are not established, then the empowered employee feels free to do whatever they feel is necessary to make a profit, including cheating customers. Values create the guidelines within which empowered employees operate.

Attract the People You Want

In my mentor John C. Maxwell’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership he talks about The Law of Magnetism. This law states that who you attract is not based on what you want, it’s based on what you are. Who you are is who you attract. By developing your core values, you proclaim for everyone who you are, what you stand for, and what is really important to you. As a result, you will attract people who share those values.

Start with the Core

Therefore, like a bodybuilder starts by developing their core to strengthen their whole body, you start with core values to strengthen the organization. You define qualities that are necessary for consistent and strong performance. You make clear the standards that are non-negotiable in everything the organization does.

In fact, they should be in front of everyone’s faces, displayed for the whole world to see. It holds employees accountable, it holds you accountable, and it sets expectations for customers.

Three Steps to Establish Core Values

Brainstorm a list of values, qualities, and character traits you would want your organization to reflect at all times. Write them all down. Don’t evaluate them, just write them down. If you already have a team in place, do this together. You may come up with a huge list and that’s okay.
Now that you have the list, we can evaluate. Look at each item and first ask yourself, “Am I willing for the organization to die rather than violate this?” If the answer is no, it is not a core value. Strike it off. If you are honest with yourself on each one you should find your list pared down significantly when you are done.
Next to each one, on a scale of one to 10 rate your organization on how well it is displaying those values. Rate yourself and ask each team member to rate themselves as well. That accomplishes one of two things: it helps identify areas that need work or it causes you to question how important that value really is to you.

Can you identify the core values of your organization easily? How well are they followed? How do you make sure you attract the right people now? Drop me a line at psimkins@BoldlyLead.com.

If you are finding it difficult to establish your core values, contact me and let me help.

Management vs Leadership – How Can You Tell the Difference?

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Showing Leadership and Practicing Management

Managers are tough. Managers make the hard decisions. It’s important that a manager be detached and impersonal at all times. They schedule and supervise processes and the human resources allocated to perform tasks. They make the machine work.

That’s what I got from most of the management training I received. Admittedly I put my own little twist on it as I interpreted it but it’s the way it felt.

And it felt wrong. If you have had any management training, perhaps that’s the way it felt to you to.

I then had an opportunity to attend a course on leadership at a large company. Strangely, the title was different but the content was the same.

Leadership is NOT Management

As I studied more about leadership it occurred to me: the biggest challenge we have in creating leaders out of managers is that they don’t know the difference.

[tweetthis]The big challenge creating leaders from managers is few know the difference. #leadership[/tweetthis]

Simple Leadership

Actually the leadership versus management conundrum breaks down into a pretty simple form. There are a lot of little nuances that go with it but the essence drives most of that. Based on my experiences and my research, here is what I found defines the difference.

♣ Management is About Process

It’s about the systems in place. Procedures matter, the end result matters. Resources matter. People are one of the resources you use to get the job done.

♥ Leadership is About People

A leader focuses on not just the team as a group but on the individuals within in. He knows that for the team to excel individual members have to be able to perform at their best.

♣ Management is Doing Things Right

The rules matter. Gotta have the rules. And you must follow the rules to the letter. They are there for a reason. Implementation is the key.

♥ Leadership is Doing the Right Thing

Values matter. What is best here? If what we are doing is not serving our purpose and taking care of our people, then let’s do something else. Strategy is the key.

[tweetthis]Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things. -Peter Drucker[/tweetthis]

♣ Management Directs

The manager is ready to give instructions based on HIS knowledge and experience. “This is what we are going to do and this is how we do it.” The emphasis is on GIT STUFF DONE regardless.

♥ Leadership Guides

The leader provides the vision, the goal, and the expectations. She equips and empowers her people to us their knowledge and experience to accomplish the task at hand.

♣ Management Evaluates

A manager is constantly looking at counting the value of what she is getting. There has to be a number on it. What’s the ROI? How can I measure your actual contribution to our results?

♥ Leadership Adds Value

A leader looks at how he can make things a little better. How do I move our team forward? What can I do to help my employees become a little better today than yesterday?

♣ Management is Bottom Line Focused

What really matters to the manager is a profit was made, or all the goals were met or exceeded. The numbers were made because after all that is what we are all about; nothing else. What have you done for me lately and how has it saved or made me money?

♥ Leadership is Growth Focused

The leader is concerned with more than accomplishment of the task but also where we are going in the future. She thinks about how she can better equip her team to meet the challenges, how she can build them up to accomplish even greater things. She is not just about now but about the future and moving forward to it.

♣ Management Says “Go!”

Quoting from John Maxwell in his book Developing the Leader Within You, “a boss (manager) drives his workers. He depends on authority, utilizes fear if necessary. He fixes the blame.” The manager is content to stand on the sideline watching everything and judging whether it meets his standards.

♥ Leadership Says “Let’s Go!”

Again from John Maxwell, “the leader coaches, he depends on goodwill, he inspires enthusiasm.” The leader rolls up his sleeves and pitches in to help when it is needed and encourage when it is not.

[tweetthis]A manager says “Go” and a leader says “Let’s Go!” -John Maxwell[/tweetthis]

♣ Management is About Control

The manager has to call all the shots. It’s important to her that things are done HER way because it’s the way she learned and therefore must be the right way. Got a better idea? Keep it to yourself. No time, not interested. The problem with control is that it is often an illusion. In the face of outward control and the inability to show initiative, the employee will instead rely on passive-aggressive behaviors and silent sabotage. The sense of control starts to fade, causing panic on the part of the manager who then takes over even more to re-establish their control.

♥ Leadership is About Trust

The leader makes sure that expectations are clear, that people are equipped, and sets his people loose to accomplish their tasks and meet the goals. He depends on his employees to work with the best interest of the organization in mind. To foster that, he works hard to make sure his employees trust him. He builds relationships with each employee, he connects with them. The leader only promises what he can deliver. Consistently he is honest. He shows integrity in both word and deed. The leader knows that mutual trust is essential to team accomplishment.

Some of Both is Good

Now the idea here isn’t to say that management is bad and leadership is good. It’s tempting to do so and many experts today do exactly that. We seem to have moved from the extreme of pure management to the other extreme of pure leadership.

And yet somewhere in between is where the sweet spot is. When the leader gathers the right people in the right place and he equips them with the skillsets and tools they need. When he sets expectations and empowers them to do what is necessary to meet the goal within expected behaviors, then he needs also to have processes in place that at least provide a good starting point for getting things done.

All the leadership in the world doesn’t matter if things aren’t getting better. We still need to get things done and management helps keep that a critical element.

Be the Manager and the Leader

Now there are people who are good managers – they are good at the process – but they are not very good at focusing on their people. But the best managers not only have to be good with process but they also have to be the good leaders. They have to be good with their people. So go beyond the process and focus on the people that your work with. Focus on connecting with your people and that’s what makes the difference.

The real benefit of being both the leader and the manager is that when you get good at the leadership you find that you spend less time having to manage. Think about the long hours you spend doing “management” things. Think of the frustration. Now think about having more clarity, more peace of mind, more confidence in your team, and more time. That’s the promise of the strong leader.

The Leadership of Theodore Roosevelt

There is story from many years ago that one of the things that made President Theodore Roosevelt so well liked was the fact that he connected with everybody; his valet, the white house servants, everybody. He knew all of them by name. Roosevelt knew about their histories and he took the time to talk with them and connect with every one of them. He spent more time being a leader and less time being a manager. As a result, all his staff loved him and were willing to work with him and go the extra measure for him.

So develop a genuine interest in and focus on others in your group. Connect with them, communicate with them, and be consistent and you are going to find that the rest of it is going to fall in place for you.

What’s the greatest challenge you face being both a manager and a leader? If you are a leader but not a manager, how does that challenge you? Share your thoughts in the comments or email me at psimkins@BoldlyLead.com

What is something you can do today to add value to an employee? Not all of them once, just pick one. Find a way to add value to them today and then come tell me about it. If that’s challenging to you, drop me a note and let’s see how I can help you.

Why Your Communication is Failing and How to See Through the Clouds

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Communication Suffers Storm Damage

Despite our best efforts, sometimes communication just doesn’t get through.

Calm in the Storm

We had a little storm down here recently called Hurricane Irma. You may have heard of it.

Since our area tends to be full of “transplants” – people who have moved here from other states – for many of them it was their first encounter with a large storm. As you may guess, there was a lot of panic.

To their credit, the Oviedo Mayor, Dominic Persampiere, and the Emergency Operations Chief, Lars White, did an excellent job of using social media and other channels both before and after the storm. Information about shelters, services available, electricity restoration, etc. As I often recommend to leaders, they over-communicated; often the same message multiple times.

Yet still some people kept asking questions about what was already answered multiple times. What gives?

Obviously for some, the communication wasn’t working. It was not really the fault of the communicator in this instance; there were just too many barriers in the way.

Successful Communication

For successful communication, there has to be a meaningful message, an intent sender, and an open receiver. Any one of those three can end up creating a barrier to communication rather than lending itself to success.

Some of the Most Common Barriers to Communication are:

Emotions that Get in the Way

Emotional content is an important part of communicating effectively. Without that, the true meaning of our message is often missed. Where it goes wrong is when the emotions get away from either the sender or receiver. What happened with the storm communication was that the receivers were so full of strong and urgent emotions, it was very hard for the message to get through. It was missed again and again. The sense of the unknown, the panic, the worry, and the fear overwhelmed people. When someone is overwhelmed, it is difficult to send or receive a message successfully. Address the emotions before you address the message.

Undeclared or Unreasonable Expectations

We almost always enter conversations with ideas in our head about what we want to happen or what should happen. Those notions affect our understanding and our responses. We might have the presupposition that the other person will be rude to us because they work for the government and so we enter the conversation expecting rudeness and ready to react to rudeness. We close ourselves off to meaningful conversation because our mind has already given us the answer; we therefore don’t need to hear what the other person has to say. We react to what we expect instead of responding to what we hear. It’s a good practice to set expectations when you begin the conversation rather than allowing the audience to rely on their own.

[tweetthis]Often we react to what we expect instead of responding to what we hear. [/tweetthis]

Using Jargon

This includes using industry slang, abbreviations, acronyms, and words and phrases other people cannot legitimately be expected to know. Let’s throw in using Internet slang and acronyms like LOL, OTOH, IMHO, and so forth. They have their place and it’s not in meaningful conversations or communications. Clear communication requires a shared pool of meaning; in other words everyone has to understand the basics for understanding to occur.

The Absence of Nonverbal Communication

The thing about social media, teleconferences, email, and many of the other ways we communicate today is that we can’t see the other person. If we can’t see the speaker, we can’t rely on gestures, head motions, eyes, mouth movements, and other body language that adds meaning. If we can’t see the audience, we can’t modify our delivery based on how we see people reacting. A UCLA study indicated that 55% of meaning is determined by what people see. So think about that; over half the meaning is lost in a text message or email or social media post. If in person isn’t possible, ask questions to derive feedback and confirm meaning.

Inherent Prejudices

Let’s face it, there will be people where you just don’t like their looks. Hate their politics. Consider their religion to be evil. Have disdain for where they are from. Find the way they talk funny. Or just have something you dislike that you can’t put your finger on. Any of that creates in you a mindset from the beginning of the conversation that closes you off to understanding or to speaking to them in a clear, respectful manner. We all have prejudices, we need the emotional maturity to see past them for communication to occur.

[tweetthis]We all have prejudices, we need the emotional maturity to see past them to communicate.[/tweetthis]

Different Culture

Values and beliefs often come from our ethnic background or simply the environment in which we live. As a native Floridian, my concept of cold is quite different from someone from Wisconsin. So if I say “Gee, it’s real cold out!” I’m thinking it’s below 70 degrees. The person from Wisconsin is thinking around 10 degrees with a 15 degree wind chill factor. When I travelled to Hong Kong to lead workshops, I had to understand the cultural differences and adjust what I say and how I say it to keep the meaning the same.

A Lack of Common Ground

Authentic and meaningful communication occurs when we have connection. Having common ground with someone gives us that connection. Once we have it conversations automatically become more meaningful, immediately require our attention. We are more apt to actually try to reach understanding and perhaps even work past other barriers that get in the way. Common ground should be the starting point for establishing any kind of rapport for communication. Look for ways to establish common ground.

An Uncaring Attitude

If you don’t care about the people with whom you are communicating it comes out in what you say and how you say it. Your audience will pick up on it sooner or later. Once they feel you don’t care about them, anything else you have to say doesn’t matter. As John Maxwell says, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!” If you are having trouble caring, truly caring, about your audience pause a moment and determine why. It may mean it’s the wrong audience. It may mean you are communicating for the wrong reasons. It may mean simply it’s not the right time. Stop the communication and re-group.

When have you found it difficult to connect with a speaker? What got in your way? Have you found it difficult to reach a group of people or an individual? How did you handle it?

Share your thoughts here or email me at psimkins@BoldlyLead.com

Subscribe now and you can get my FREE e-book 15 Innovative Ways to Show Employees You Care.

10 Ways Communication Becomes a Crippling Problem on Your Team

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What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

Do you really need to be sold on the importance of communication in the workplace (or anywhere for that matter)?

This is one of my areas of passion. My degree is in Organizational Communications and it included an intensive study of a real organization to observe and comment on its communication practices.

No matter the organization there were two things I see in common in regards to communication.

One is that we tend to think our organization is great at communication.
The other is that we think that until we discover it’s not. We discover it either through a Communications Audit or through trials we experience because communication breaks down.

And it will break down. Trying to stay lean and agile while also fostering growth inevitably leads to breakdowns in communication. We must know where the breakdown occurs and why in order to fix it.

Why Communication Breaks Down.

1.We Think Our Communication is Totally Clear

You, me, everyone of us approach any situation from our own personal point of view. When we are communicating with others, what comes out is not just words. It is also background and knowledge, experiences, and viewpoints. So we talk with words and phrases and sometimes even abbreviations and acronyms that make perfect sense to us but are meaningless to others.

“I don’t know why you don’t get it, I’m made it as clear as can be!”

Been there, done that. Probably you have too. I’ve been on the other side of that too.

Think about how to express the thoughts without the use of jargon. Also think about how your point of view translates to others.

2. Making Assumptions

Along the same lines as clarity is making assumptions.

We assume they understand.

Or that they have the same knowledge set we have.

We may even assume that the other person or people have a certain mindset. I know I have spoken before groups where I made the dangerous assumption that they would be antagonistic. The opposite turned out to be true.

Check your assumptions before initiating conversation. Better yet, ask questions that help clarify or eliminate assumptions you have made.

3. Taking Too Long to Communicate Our Message

You ever get directions from someone who over-explains? They just kind of ramble on and on; usually providing side stories and details and minutiae. It can be hard sometimes to remember or understand the main point of the communication.

Why do people over-explain?

Strangely, I couldn’t find a lot of scientific research on this. I’m sure it’s there, I just didn’t find it. However, I did find plenty of insight on some possible reasons.

Guilt

Anxiety

Feeling Misunderstood

Lying

Another strong reason is that many people feel uncomfortable with silence. So when there is a period of silence they feel they must fill the gap and so they talk even more. Good negotiators know this and often use it as a tactic – the rule is generally the last person to talk loses.

Become your own talented negotiator and seek for win-win communication. Be brief and to the point.

Then shut-up and let them ask for more. If they don’t, they are likely satisfied with the answer. If they do, you get the chance to provide more information for better understanding. Win-win.

4. Not Taking Long Enough

The flip side of taking too long is when we don’t give enough information. This can sometimes be a sign of deception but more often than not it is a sign of what I call “auto-complete”.

We sometimes get a thought process going in our heads that we then start putting in audible words. What happens is that the thoughts in our head complete and our mouth can’t keep up. The result of auto-complete is that the conclusion and sometimes entire thoughts get lost. We THINK we were complete and we were, but only in our minds.

If you have a tendency towards this one way to combat is to ask your audience to confirm their understanding. More specifically, ask where they got lost. That allows you to go back and complete out loud what you completed in your head.

5. Rapid Growth

When an organization experiences a high rate of growth in a short period of time, often effective communication channels become the victim. Usually they weren’t communicating that well to begin with but when you are small it doesn’t seem to matter as much. As growth occurs and more people are thrown in the mix, the lack of designed communication systems becomes glaringly obvious. Conflict abounds, productivity slows, sales get lost, and chaos ensues.

The best fix for this is prevention. At the first signs of growth, be intentional about implementing formal communication systems. I’m not talking about a phone system, I’m talking about making sure there are practices in place to ensure that information is getting shared with the right people. Have a plan yet also be prepared to modify it often.

If you wait until it actually becomes a problem, then you end up having to bring in someone like me to help you repair it. Like everything else, fixing is more expensive than prevention.

6. Emotions

Our communication needs – in fact it must have – emotional content. Emotions provide meaning and emphasis to what would otherwise be just words.

The danger of emotions is when we let them get away from us. Either we are so passionate about our message that we get over-excited or more commonly we allow someone else’s words to emotionally charge us.

Actor and Martial Artist Bruce Lee addressed this while instructing a young student in the movie Enter the Dragon. He tells the student to perform a kick and then criticizes his lack of emotional content. When the student, upset at the criticism, tries again, Bruce chides him that emotional content and anger are not the same thing.

We need emotion to create connection. The wrong emotion or too much emotion prevents connection.

If you are the speaker, make sure your emotion matches the meaning. If you are the listener, try to keep yourself from reacting emotionally at least until you are sure the message is complete. Carefully consider the point before you emotionally react to it.

7. Ego

People who need power will use information as a power source. The purpose of poor communication or a lack of communication is intentional then in order to keep it to themselves. He who has more information than others holds the power is the belief.

There is also a certain ego boost in being the one “in the know”. Obviously, you are revered if you know more than everyone else, right? Right?!

Ken Blanchard says that when people get caught up in their ego it erodes their effectiveness. The combination of false pride and self-doubt gives a person a distorted image of themselves. The result is a very self-centered and self-driven world where you are simply a tool to reach their purpose.

To communicate with the ego-driven person, focus on providing facts. Offer solutions, Give alternatives. Offer cooperation or invite participation. Avoid anything that would seem like a personal attack or assigning blame. Give appropriate compliments. That will help keep the ego-driven person from reacting emotionally.

If you are on the receiving end of communication from the ego, focus on the facts of what they are saying. Ask questions. Don’t allow the strong emotional content to overwhelm you. Try to get specific action items and make sure they are fully understood.

8. Insecurity

Similar to ego, when a person harbors insecurities they tend to communicate less. Either they are not sure of themselves, not sure of the message, or both. Not sharing the message is highly preferable to sharing the message and risk the threat of being criticized or reprimanded.

Reinforce that you value them and the information they have. Ask for their opinion and more importantly thank them for sharing the information. The idea here is to make sharing information more rewarding than the perceived threat.

9. Inconsistent Message

We can be as guilty of this as well as be the victim of this. This is especially a critical point for leaders. Your message must be consistent.

Want buy in to your vision? Communicate it consistently and constantly.

Looking to encourage the team to a performance goal? Measure and report it consistently.

That means you need to be sure of what that message is. If you don’t know, neither will they. This is primarily where this becomes a problem. When a leader is not really sure of what the vision is or where the goal should be, it’s tough to communicate that consistently.

Make sure of your message and then be intentional about it’s communication. Have a plan.

10. No Common Ground

For your message to reach an audience, they have to be able to understand how it relates to what they already know. This is the common ground.

Common ground is personal. Find elements of the message they can relate to. If you are communicating a sales goal, relate it to how it affects the organization AND how it impacts them directly.