The Art of Communication

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The art of communication is the language of leadership. Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership.

James C Humes, author and former presidential speechwriter

Communication is, indeed, an art. And the good news is, no matter whether you think you are an excellent, average or poor communicator, an appreciation of the diverse communication styles and preferences of others, will help you become a more flexible and effective communicator.

In this article, I share some insights on communication I’ve gleaned after more than 30 years in the professional communication business as a marketer, speech writer, editor, author, publisher and public relations specialist. I’ll also give you some techniques and tips on how you can be become more persuasive and influential in your business world and personal life.

Insight 1: Communication affects the quality of your relationships

As human beings, communication is the basis of all interactions and essential to forming relationships. If you want to cultivate business relationships based on trust, the responsiveness, authenticity and transparency of your communication is fundamental to achieving this outcome.

Insight 2: You are your brand and by extension, you create your reputation

You have a business brand and a personal brand; however, with the rise of the internet and social media, the line between these two is now blurred.

Think what you say on your personal Facebook page doesn’t impact your business brand? It’s now common place to Google someone before making a decision to do business with or hire them. Search results don’t just reveal where people are active on business platforms.

While you may think you are projecting a particular business brand image on LinkedIn for example, it’s possible others have a very different view of your brand based on the opinions they have formed by what they have observed you communicate across the broad spectrum of online platforms.

You can’t buy your reputation, it must be earned. While your reputation is built over time, it is fragile and easily damaged. Perception being reality, your reputation, quite simply, is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

You can help shape this perception by becoming a more effective communicator and projecting a consistent brand image across platforms. Decide how you want to be perceived, then communicate and be that, always.

Insight 3: You’re communicating even when you think you’re not

Communication is not just about talking—your non-verbal language communicates more than your verbal message. In the 1970s, psychology professor Albert Mehrabian put forward a theory which suggested that around 55 per cent of the impact of communication comes from body language, 35 per cent from tonality and other vocalisations, and up to 10 per cent from actual content, the words used.

Every phone call you don’t return, every email you don’t respond to is sending a message. The person expecting the phone call or email is probably wondering why there’s a lack of communication: Are they too busy? Am I not important enough? Am I not on their priority list? If your website indicates your business prides itself on customer service but you don’t return phone calls or don’t respond to emails for a week, there could be a mismatch between a person’s expectations of customer service and the perceived standard of customer service you provide. You are always communicating, even when you think you’re not.

Insight 4: The effectiveness of communication is the response that it gets

The response our communication gets is feedback on how effective it is. Knowing this is empowering because we can choose to change our communication based on this feedback in order to elicit a different response.

Types of communication

There are three components that make up face-to-face communication. These are:

1. Verbal language – the words we use
2. Paralanguage – vocalisations that accompany our words such as tonality, volume, pitch, speed and pauses
3. Body language – for example, eye contact, facial expressions, posture, gestures and personal space

In business, we can spend most our time refining our key message—the words we want to convey—but not give enough attention to our paralanguage and body language.  Based on professor Mehrabian’s model, with up to 90 per cent of the impact coming from non-verbal communication, perhaps it’s time to consider a more holistic approach to your delivery.

One of the most effective (and simplest) things you can apply right now to become a more effective communicator is use what is known as “command tonality” rather than “questioning tonality”. I first learned the power of command tonality when I did my teacher training many years ago. It requires a downward inflection at the end of a statement. It is a more powerful way of delivering a message. Questionning tonality, on the other hand, has an upward inflection at the end of a statement as though a question is being asked. Its impact is not as strong as command tonality because it sounds like the speaker is unconfident or uncertain about their content.

The process of communication

Communication occurs when a person wants to send a message to another person or group of people. The sender will encode the message into words, symbols or pictures, then convey the message via a selected medium (for example, verbally, by telephone, via email, in a blog, newsletter, on social media) to the intended recipient who then decodes the message into thoughts, images and emotions that makes sense to them.

When the message is decoded as the sender intended, the communication has been effective.

But, as George Bernard Shaw rightfully put:

Communication…the single biggest problem is the illusion that it has taken place.

There is much wisdom in this Shavian witicism. People process information differently based on their personal experiences, beliefs, values and attitudes, so you can’t assume that your message has been interpreted as you intended.

Three keys to effective communication

Key 1: Be congruent with your verbal and non-verbal language

For communication to be effective, there must be alignment between what you say, how you say it and your body language. If there is match between your verbal and non-verbal language, the meaning of your communication will more likely be received as you intended by all who received it.

Key 2: Be flexible to preferred sensory modalities

We experience the world through our senses—seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting, and our sensory preferences influence our preferred language type. Some people are more visually oriented while others are more auditory or kinaeasthetically oriented. These sensory preferences influence the words we use. Visually-oriented people will use words associated with seeing, auditory-oriented people will use words associated with hearing and kinaesthetically-oriented people will use words associated with touch.

To illustrate, “I understand” could translate as follows:

• Visual – “I see what you mean” or “I’m no longer in the dark”
• Auditory – “I hear what you say” or “That’s sounds like a plan”
• Kinaesthetic – “I get your drift” or “I’ve got a handle on it now”

When speaking with someone, the idea is to adapt your language to appeal to their sensory preference. Therefore, paint word pictures for the visual people, play a tuneful song for the auditory people and touch the hearts and minds of the kinaesthetic people.

Key 3  Communicate with people how they want to be communicated with

DISC® is an excellent model to better understand different styles of communication and how you can adapt your own behavior to improve the effectiveness of your communication with others.

Below is a snapshot of the four DISC® behavioral types.

Following are some tips on how to communicate with the four behavioural types.

How to communicate with a D – the language of power and authority

Some verbal and non-verbal ideas for communicating with a D:

How to communicate with an I – the language of optimism and inclusiveness

Some verbal and non-verbal ideas for communicating with an I:

How to communicate with an S – the language of stability and certainty

Some verbal and non-verbal ideas for communicating with an S:

How to communicate with a C – the language of precision and logic

 Some verbal and non-verbal ideas for communicating with a C:

Tops tips on being an effective communicator

Below are some of my top tips on how you can apply the above information to become a more persuasive and influential communicator.

Be clear on the outcome you want

communicate with volition, have a purpose, know your intention, know the response you seek

Build rapport

be interested, be present to others

Be a good listener

be curious, be silent, clarify and summarise

Ensure congruence between verbal and non-verbal language

align your words, tonality and body language

Be authoritative and confident

use command tonality not questioning tonality, believe in what you say, impart certainty, credibility and self-assuredness

Be flexible to preferred sensory language types

choose your words to match the preferred language types of others

Adapt your behaviour to the communication style of others

apply behavioural flexibility to communicate with others how they want to be communicated with

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