Being Conscious and Intentional About the Means of Communication

The Constant Questions Underlying Every Good Communication. With every communication, you as a speaker should ask yourself, “What message will open my listener to my purpose and elicit the response I would like?” As the communication develops, another good question is, “How is my listener responding to my message?”

As a listener, you should try to ask yourself in every communication, “What is the speaker’s purpose and message?” As the communication unfolds, you might ask, “What response do I want to convey to the speaker?” Ideally, the messages exchanged are crystal clear, perfectly reflective of what the parties intended to communicate. To attain the ideal—a connected communication—words, silences, and nonverbal messages must be carefully crafted by the speaker and highly scrutinized by the listener to maintain connected communication.

Words. As a speaker, your first task is to choose your words very carefully. Use the words, the phrasing, and the intonation that will work for your communication purpose, not for your comfort, convenience, or ego.

As a listener, careful attention must be paid to the words used by the speaker. If the speaker is inarticulate, however, you’ll have to work through their words to perceive the message being communicated.

A former investment banking client of mine, for example, could never say anything clearly. When he gave me the assignment to sell his company, he grumbled something over the telephone like, “Well, I’m not really liking this situation. It’s my partner that is pushing for this. We’ll just stay in close contact and see what happens.” I had no idea I had the assignment until I talked to his chief financial officer immediately after. The reference to staying “in close contact” was tantamount to what most people would express as, “You’re hired and let’s get to work.” Over the course of my relationship with him, I learned to look for the message beneath or behind his words and got quite competent at it.

Silences. Your second task is to choose your silences carefully. As many have said, the silences in music are as important as the sounds. The same is true in connected communication.

If you are trying to persuade or inform the listener of something, slow your “pitch” down to a comfortable cadence so that your listener doesn’t feel like they are being pressured, has no opportunity to object, or has no voice.

If your purpose is to learn, then you won’t learn much if you aren’t being silent and listening. Silence can be a powerful “vacuum” of information. People are generally uncomfortable with silence and naturally want to fill it. Unfortunately, the silence often invites mundane chatter, but at other times, it inspires the sharing of very valuable information. 

Nonverbal Messages. Your third task is to choose your nonverbal messages carefully. In my experience, the nonverbal messages are as important as the verbal ones. Unfortunately, many of them are either unintended or undermine the verbal message. Pay close attention to your facial expressions, hand gestures, eye movement, and body posture. For instance, not looking someone in the eye will often completely undermine your sincerity. You may feel that staring at something in the distance is just a by-product of deliberate and intense thought, but your listener may feel you are being disingenuous. Conversely, staring right into their eyes as you deliver a promise is usually interpreted almost like a contractual seal.

Rehearse. Interestingly, at least with the verbal voice, listening to ourselves is one of the most neglected practices in communication. With the written voice, we usually listen to ourselves by editing what we write before we communicate our message. With our verbal voice, few of us rehearse and once it has been expressed, we usually don’t pay close attention to exactly how it sounded.

I have found it highly beneficial to record myself in practice communications. If I have an important telephone call to make, meeting to attend, or speech to deliver, I’ll do more than just jot an outline of what I’d like to convey. I’ll record my comments ahead of time and then listen carefully for ways that I can improve. Alternatively, I’ll rehearse what I want to say in front of someone whom I can trust for candid constructive criticism.

GROW and SELL Advisors, wholly-owned by Traversi & Co., LLC, is a premier sell-side M&A advisory firm – a boutique investment bank – serving the lower middle market.  Visit us here.

For a short video clip on this topic, click here.