One of my passions, and as luck would have it, most popular workshops is the one on communicating in the way that your listener needs to be communicated to. In other words, talk slower to those that talk slower, and speed up your speech when you are talking to a fast talker.

I was giving this seminar last week to an aviation department. We were talking about the different personality dimensions, how some people don’t mind if you get straight into your business. Other people need to be eased into the business discussion. That is important in gaining rapport and building respect.

One person from the back of the room spoke up “Shari, we run on tight deadlines and with a sense of urgency. We don’t have time to spend 5-10 minutes talking about someone’s family. We need to take immediate action!”  With that, he puffed out his chest and very proudly sat down.

“That’s true” I responded quietly, yet firmly “your industry and your situations are immediate and time cannot be wasted. There are different ways to say ‘drop the wheels’. You can say it harsh and with an edge to your voice, or you can say it with the same amount of urgency yet in a softer tone with no edge, and with a bit of a smile or a relaxed face. You are still stressing the urgency. You are simply getting the message across in the best way that your listener will hear it and take action. If you choose the first way with a person that is not aggressive, they may back off and become intimidated. That’s what you want to avoid.”

He presented an excellent example of where emotional intelligence can make or break a situation.  On one hand, you can display your negative emotions by irritatingly demand that the mechanic immediately work on what is important to you.  Or, realizing the the person you are talking to has priorities, feelings and a brain of his/her own, you can approach him more objectively and gain his buy-in of the urgency.

So let me ask you …. What did you say, and what did they think they heard?

Mentoring and faciliting executives is vastly different than having middle managers or new supervisors in the class.  I spend more time with the higher executives digging deep into the far-reaching consequences and implications of average people skills [emotional intelligence].  New supervisors need assistance and practice in delegating, “letting go” and coaching.  Middle managers find mentoring and strategizing most challenging.  I have found that some instructions will transform these confident, intelligent, knowing leaders into stunned deer being caught in a car’s headlights. So what are these instructions?

• ‘pair up’ or ‘find a partner’
• ‘get into groups of three’
• ‘in your group, select who will go first’

Perhaps (more…)