The Business Of Better Communication

Are you in a world of talk or a world of hurt or frustration? Either you’re in the business of better communication or you’re not in business at all, y’all. For example, what do you feel is the missing key to unlock a closed or locked door of communication? And, how could you improve your communication skills today that will pay dividends in your career tomorrow? Actually, those were the very questions I recently asked to workshop audience members made up of business executives and leaders.

THE GREEN LIGHT OF GOOD TALK AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE CHANGING BUSINESS WORLD

Got time to talk? You are plenty wise to get to know the communicator type of the people with whom you’re talking. That way, you don’t have to accommodate their style but you can when it will create win-win partnerships. How can you give the green light to good talk?

1. Focus like a hawk. Be more focused on what others are saying, than what you are going to jump in and say next.

2. Seek to be a better communicator and ye shall find. Set a goal to improve your communication skills a little each day, and within a year you will make smooth communication moves that net friendships.

3. Match the talk tempo. Communicating with a talk partner is like jogging or dancing together; taking turns talking or making points and matching the pitch and pace of talking gives the green light to good talk. Match the talk tempo.

4. Don’t stare off into outer space. Try to keep your eyeballs touching, and smile or nod your head in agreement when you do.

5. Enjoy feeling stupid. Leaders who aren’t “know it alls” listen really well because they are always in a learning mode.

6. Save the best for first. Instead of “saving the best for last,” do as much of what’s important to your work passions first.

7. Be on “your time.” Take time to think issues through, including four minutes of self-study or personal meditation each day.

8. Listen with “three ears.” Deep listening changes the listener and the speaker. You can’t listen with a half of an ear AND multitask AND get the drift of the complete message.

9. Change what isn’t working. Pick a flaw or an Achilles heel and work on daily improvement. For example, if you dislike change park in a new parking spot every day.

10. Connect instead of dissect. “It’s your fault!” is a way of shunning that dissects drivers on the two-way communication highway and creates a disconnect. If there’s no one to blame, what would you be doing differently today to make your dreams come true?

11. Don’t be content with feeling contented. Like the Rabbit in the parable of the Tortoise and the Hare, sit smugly on your laurels and you will be passed by in a hurry.

12. Tell the truth. You must have “guts galore” and express true feelings and thoughts that might hurt someone.

13. Know the communicator type of those you work for. You can’t always surround yourself with positive people, so know the quirks of your opposite communicator type so you don’t take things too personally.

That’s why good talk isn’t cheap, it’s priceless!

GIVE THE GREEN LIGHT TO GOOD TALK

When at first you don’t succeed, try, try doing something DIFFERENT for a change. Doing more of what isn’t working, still won’t work to resolve the communication problem at the crossroads. Enough already of you yakking about how taking time to listen will help you communicate better, and then drifting off into dreamland whenever times get tough or a bore gets off on being on a soapbox.

IS YOUR COMMUNICATION A COMFORT ZONE OR A COFFIN?

Has your “comfort zone” really become a coffin with money stuffed inside of it waiting for you to drop by? Ask questions and more questions. Feel proud to be a dumbbell who’s a “know-it-little.”

ABOUT LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION PSYCHOLOGIST DR. DENNIS O’GRADY, PSY.D.

Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a Dayton-based communications psychologist and relationship expert who has spent over 30 years of his career dedicated to the advancement of organizational and leadership development, personal executive coaching, effective couple communication skills, and positive and effective communication strategies for anyone. Dennis is the author of three books, and father to three daughters, two of whom are teenagers. Dr. O’Grady is the developer of the “Talk to Me: Communication Moves To Get Along With Anyone” system available on his Web site and at Amazon.

What’s The Biggest Roadblock To Communication At Work?

Nothing causes a talk wreck on the crammed and jammed Communication Highway faster than taking your eyes off the road and yelling at a fellow talk passenger: “It’s my way or the highway!” In fact, that kind of “It’s-all-about-me!” negative thinking and talking is an exclusive VIP club you can’t afford to belong to. Why? It excludes others by making them feel as unimportant and insignificant as dirty stale gum stuck to the bottom of an old tennis shoe.

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION

The Entrepreneurs Center in Dayton, Ohio, recently asked me to host a “Talk to Me” business communications seminar to help “incubating companies” and “entrepreneurial leaders” get a good grip on good communication. The leadership group developed this list of communication roadblocks…do any of them fit your situation with communication at work?

9 ROADBLOCKS TO GOOD COMMUNICATION AT WORK

Roadblock #1: Not being interested in what people have to say. “Turning a deaf ear” to those people who come across too strong, or talk too much and create creating “white noise” that is distracting.

Roadblock#2: Not having an agreed-upon system of communication. Clear communication channels that everyone can use so that talk is focused on producing positive results and not watered down with platitudes.

Roadblock #3: Not being open-minded. No resolution of issues, much less a full exploration of issues to know the travel options on the talk highway.

Roadblock #4: Not enough “kneecap-to-kneecap” and “eyeball-to-eyeball” opportunities for regular, weekly communication. The “virtual office” undermines the need for human connection and contact, and thus deprives us of the synergy that “alive and lively” emotional interaction promotes.

Roadblock #5: Not cooperating confidently. Insecurity complexes or “hoarding of vital information” to “feel secure” and “in control” of one’s work environment.

Roadblock #6: Not staying mentally on track. Drifting off in fantasy, reverie or throwing a private irritating pity party as talks become boring or stuck in a rut.

Roadblock #7: Not listening to what you don’t want to hear. Complex problem-solving does not thrive in a black-and-white world; it prefers a colorful world that values holding differing viewpoints in your mind at the same time.

Roadblock #8: Not remaining patient and calm while driving in crowded talk traffic. Stressing out while driving on the communication highway and blurting out put-downs or put-offs that make passengers stare off into blank space.

Roadblock #9: Not being patient with or understanding your opposite communicator type. Empathizers who blow off Instigators as “blowhards,” and Instigators who snub Empathizers as “too touchy-feely.”

LET’S TALK FOR A CHANGE

You can drive around any of these roadblocks with skill and aplomb when you spend four minutes a day using the “Talk to Me” communication system. First things first: Know your own communicator type. Second things second: Know how your opposite communicator type views you negatively. Third things third: Keep stopping along the way to put gas in your tank, so your energy will be positive when your temper is tested.

ARE YOU A XENOPHOBE?

A “xenophobe” is a person who is unduly fearful, contemptuous or suspicious of strangers or foreigners, namely, new people you don’t know who are new to you. What better to do: You can listen well and ask directive questions to encourage everyone with whom you come in contact to attend a “Let’s Talk” town meeting of the minds…especially helpful as you travel on down new highways and byways of change.

ARE YOU CAUSING A TALK WRECK?

Here’s a tried-but-true tireless example of being a good communicator: If you don’t know the names of the people on the cleaning crew in your office, then you aren’t communicating in open ways that include everyone to do better business today. Nothing stops or blocks open talking from flowing on the two-way Communication Highway faster than bellowing at a fellow talk passenger: “It’s my way or the highway!” Why? It excludes and rejects others and turns you into a xenophobe.

ABOUT LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION PSYCHOLOGIST DR. DENNIS O’GRADY, PSY.D.

Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a Dayton-based communications psychologist and relationship expert who has spent over 30 years of his career dedicated to the advancement of organizational and leadership development, personal executive coaching, effective couple communication skills, and positive and effective communication strategies for anyone. Dennis is the author of three books, and father to three daughters, two of whom are teenagers. Dr. O’Grady is the developer of the “Talk to Me: Communication Moves To Get Along With Anyone” system available on his Web site and at Amazon.

Positive And Effective Communication Strategies For Work

It’s easy to send mixed signals or miss the communication mark at work. Just ask anyone who works for a living in the fast-paced, exciting world of commerce and leadership communication. With “open lines of communication,” the team canoe heads in the right direction with all canoeists paddling in the same direction. But with “incomplete communication,” you can end up with lack of morale, or the equivalent or an elephant sitting in the canoe, lazily grinning. When members of the team don’t listen well, they also don’t generate new ideas that will provide strategic solutions to old problems.

BEING A MORE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR AT WORK AND HOME ISN’T IMPOSSIBLE USING THE “TALK TO ME” COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

I recently led a luncheon seminar for business executives on “the business of communication” for the Entrepreneurial Development Network or EDN in Dayton, Ohio. The seminar was sponsored by the Dayton Development Coalition, the Dayton Metro Library and Greater Dayton IT Alliance. My colleagues from Aileron were present, too. It was a highly interactive training seminar that tested each participant’s talk type, role-played how Empathizers and Instigators too frequently misunderstand one another, and demonstrated how to stay on the right road of communication for the benefit of all. The bottomline: My “Let’s Talk” seminars teach you how to be more responsive to other types of people or communicators to produce better results for all constituents.

WHAT’S THE TOUGHEST COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE YOU FACE AT WORK TODAY?

In all, 9 Empathizer or E-type communicators and 15 Instigator or I-type talkers participated. Here are their answers to “What’s the toughest challenge you’re facing at work today?”

1. Incomplete communication. Being complete in all communications, verbal and written, so there is a good exchange of complete ideas and accurate messages.

2. Misunderstanding of roles or positions. Unclear communication about who does what, when and how and why.

3. Being too virtual. No daily “kneecap to kneecap” or “face-to-face” human interaction where you can “read” the nuances or tone of the speaker message.

4. Too much e-mail. Large quantities of unnecessary e-mail can tighten the noose of “lack of time” around your neck, or you may accidentally delete an important message because you prefer to talk by phone or in person.

5. Clarity and clarifying. Getting across what is meant and needed and the “keep it simple” ordering of tasks to accomplish in order to get the job done.

6. Not listening. Too many strong personalities in the meeting room at the same time trying to get their point across without encouraging or including differing viewpoints of the “less vocal” speakers.

7. Fear of public speaking or debating. Team members who fear speaking up, although they have vital input, for fear of appearing stupid, outnumbered or resistant to change.

8. Words as gospel. Using “bookish” words or talk to make a point but missing the boat of real world applications using uncommon, common sense that energizes action.

9. Taking enough time to toss around creative or novel ideas. Hurrying through agenda items, or taking too much time on distracting people or problems, thus failing to meet and greet “outside of the box” emerging trends.

10. Butting heads. Too many bulls in the china closet “butting heads” about the “right and wrong ways” to problem-solve versus solving the problems in “what works or doesn’t work” steps…and then moving on by compromising.

11. Agreeing on a resolution to a problem. Coming to agreement on a productive course of action is best accomplished by adopting the strengths of your opposite communicator type.

12. Being able to dialogue. A good dialogue is not a bombastic monologue. It involves handling emotional objections logically, and negotiating a new route to take with a fellow driver on the two-way communicator highway.

MOST PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS?

Guess what: Most people are idiots who like to blame it on others. I’m just joking, don’t ya’ know? It’s all about me…just joking, too. We all need human contact because life is more grand when you talk to others and learn about emotional communication.

USING WHAT WORKS VS. DOESN’T WORK DEFINES EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

The point of using positive and effective communication isn’t to get your way, but to get the job done by realistically accounting for and being responsive to what is and what isn’t working. In fact, elsewhere I’ve written about “The Hummingbird Effect,” which tells a story about how a trapped hummingbird in my garage did more and more of what wasn’t working and became exhausted. “Doing the right thing” is not the same thing as “Doing what works to solve a complex problem whose solution is not obvious.”

UNDERSTANDING COMMUNICATOR TYPES

Reserve the time to be a better communicator today. Using the “Talk to Me” communication system, four minutes of daily study is all it takes to become a more proficient, positive and effective communicator to make things happen that are good for us. Being too confident and overbearing, does not recognize the importance of others’ perspectives that will enable you to get the job done faster and with less expense of frustration. You are either an Empathizer or Instigator communicator. If you aren’t working to better your type, you had better be prepared to fall behind in the race for better business opportunities.

ABOUT LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT DR. DENNIS O’GRADY

Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a communications psychologist with over 30 years experience dedicated to the advancement of personal growth and organizational development. His executive and business consulting programs and keynote seminar speeches focus on the areas of communication, change management, leadership development, strategic decision-making and conflict resolution and relationship enhancement. Dr. O’Grady’s third book that teaches his effective and positive communication system is called “Talk to Me: Communication Moves To Get Along With Anyone” and is available at his Web site and at Amazon.

Do You Have A Jerk For A Husband? A Jerkette For A Wife?

Do you have a jerk for a husband? Do you have a crummy wife who is a jerkette? Have you lost your freedom a little at a time by the constant scolding from a negative backseat driver who has plenty of opinions about how to drive your communicator car better? Did you lose your happy a long time ago, and is it now strewn along the miscommunication highway like trash? If so, I don’t mean to be mean, but you may have a grumpy husband or a crummy wife riding on the passenger side of your life. Perhaps it’s time to look at your life map again and choose a new direction, instead of stare into the rearview mirror of your life and feel filled with regrets.

LOOK WHO’S TALKING: SCRAPPY VS. CRAPPY COMMUNICATORS

“Crappy communicators” are dishonest; they snap back reflexively or bark orders and advice at you to drive as they do. “Assertive communicators” hone their communication points into sharp laser points to light up the path ahead at night. “Scrappy communicators” are those of us who have learned to stand up for the truth and talk back without getting even, which puts you behind. Which one are you? Are you a scrappy communicator or a crappy communicator?

DO YOU HAVE A JERK FOR A HUSBAND OR A JERKETTE FOR A WIFE?

Let’s not cast stones of blame. The goal of this exercise is to look into a pond of illumination so that YOU can figure out where you’re going and with whom. Here are the negative traits of a demeaning husband or a mean wife of any gender condition:

1. Tries to tick you off and hurt you on purpose. A jerk punishes you when you push back and say “no way, Jose…but will decry and deny this truth ’till the cows come home.

2. Thinks it’s your responsibility to fix things. A jerk considers you an employee, one whose job it is to make a jerk’s life easier living. You’ll know if you constantly feel as if you’re working too hard to fix everything.

3. Always knows best (just ask him or her!). Exhibits “Perfect is, as I do!” rhetoric, since the jerker is privy to the right way to do things and VERY proud to tell you all about it.

5. Is into heavy-duty debating. A jerk wants to make all the decisions, while deluding you into thinking you actually made a choice.

6. Makes you feel brainwashed again. A jerk is lots of fun one-on-one – until there’s work to be done. If you can’t get a grip on griping, you will hear: “It’ll be fine. It’ll be perfect. You’re making a bigger deal out of this than it is, so give me a chance to prove it to you.”

7. Is a (Con)niving convincer and smiling liar. A jerk “had me convinced that I was the problem because I wasn’t happy, when in fact, I wasn’t happy because I was stuck in a relationship with that jerk!”

8. “I don’t believe it!” A jerk is a fake and a phony, a sick and twisted insecure liar of the slickest and trickiest kind. Maybe that was too intense! What you see in public is not what you get in private from the OCD or passive-aggressive trickster.

9. Grumpy husbands and crummy wives desperately need lives, too. A jerk is one because he or she isn’t dealing with the emotions of freedom, compassion, vulnerability, coldness.

BIG TALKER AVENUE

Are you a scrappy communicator or a crappy communicator? Well, truth is you can’t live on both sides of the Honesty Communication Street vs. Lying Like A Bad Rug Big Talker Avenue. Crummy husbands, crappy wives serve you a manure sandwich that slowly poisons your life.

PSYCHOANALZYE THAT JERK OR JERKETTE BEFORE HE OR SHE GETS AWAY

Missed communication is con-artistry that will make you scratch your head and try to figure the jerk out (which in and of itself would be a full-time psychologist’s occupation without pay). Have you seen your brain lately on Jerk? It’s not a pretty sight.

ABOUT THE DOCTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS PSYCHOLOGY DENNIS O’GRADY WHO HAILS FROM THE INVENTION CAPITOL OF THE WORLD DAYTON, OHIO, USA

Demeaning husbands or mean wives are simply no fun in relationship heartland. You can snap and fly off the handle at the drop of a glass. Whether your glass is half-full or half-empty doesn’t matter, not when your broken glass is strewn across your floor in pieces. Love is like that: a fragile crystal vase that can hold so much as look as it remains intact. Jerks get off on jerking you around by the cheek or collar, much like a goat on a rope. When you comply, you are “loved”; but when you don’t comply, you aren’t liked or loved and you’re often told you’re in desperate need of psychotherapy. Jerks can turn a “sweetheart and a half” into a “sourhead twice over.” Call the emotional teacher (the one who reaches inside your chest and pulls out your lungs) by whatever name you will: Evil, mean-spirited, nasty, shaming, demeaning, annoying, difficult, rude and disrespectful, immature, displeasing, a jerk or jerkette, are “the most annoying piece of crap I know!” Any way you slice the manure sandwich, you’ve got to stop letting the jerks, jerk you around and bring you down. The reasons behind these logical feelings can be found in Dr. Dennis O’Grady’s third book called “Talk to Me: Communication Moves To Get Along With (Almost) Anyone.”

How Negative People Drain The Life Right Out Of You

How do negative people drain the life energy right out of you while you watch stunned and dumb? Using our communicator car metaphor, how do these ME-first pessimists who are ME(an) “energy vampires” siphon the gasoline right out of your blue Empathizer or burnt orange Instigator car, and how do they do it right under your nose? And why do you let them put you so low on fuel that you lose enthusiasm for your life goals? It’s almost like highway robbery when the slippery talks and slick tricks of an “I feel so bad about it!” pessimistic negatalker keep you coming back for more.

THE PROBLEM WITH OPTIMISM

You can either choose to be an optimist, a pessimist or a realist. Val is a realist-optimist reader who posed this challenging question:

I agree wholeheartedly with your statements about negative people being control freaks, and effective communicators being peace freaks. One thing I wish you would touch on is how negative people are attracted to very optimistic, independent and positive people. They seem to be genuinely interested in your state of being, then they slowly drain the life out of you due to THEIR lack of ambition. Before you know it, you have allowed them to rob you of most of your life and livelihood. And you become like them, negative and cynical; they eventually make you feel like them! Yes, this is speaking from experience as an optimist who’s been robbed!

Pessimists are like blood suckers who connect to your tender psychic skin. “Opposites do seem to attract, although they don’t always last.” That’s why you’ll find the communication types of Empathizers and Instigators coupled up for better and worse.

EMPATHIZER LEADER COMMUNICATORS AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DYNAMICS OF DEADBEATS

I assume that Val, by the nature of her question, is an Empathizer (E-type) communicator who breathes life into the deadbeats of her life. Here’s why and how the bright light of E-types can be dimmed by pessimistically perverse negative people.

1. I don’t want to hurt you by what I say or feel. E-types keep many of their best opinions quiet, out of fear of hurting a negative person’s self-image, as if that’s even possible.

2. I can’t help but try to fix it. E-types who try to help others often won’t try to help themselves, feel drained and lame and at-fault vs. at-choice.

3. I feel obligated, like I owe them. E-types fail to see that negative people take pride in selling snow to an Eskimo, and use a “victim storyline” about being unfairly treated by life due to no fault of their own.

4. I always make it into my problem. E-types take on others’ problems, as they simultaneously strip off the right to have a happy life.

5. I wish I would have spoken up. E-types are famous for saying, “I play the garbage in my brain over and over again why I didn’t speak up and say my piece!”

6. I dislike unnecessary conflict and confrontation. E-types fear conflict and hate unfair fights so much they steer clear of speaking up when their “right” opinion might get some flak or be taken “wrong.”

7. I try to talk but it’s just no use. About horses and parades: You can only clean up one side of the communicator street, YOUR side. Your talk partner must independently clean up his or her side without your help after the parade passes by.

8. I do most of the giving. E-types do more than their 50% of giving, and because they aren’t scorekeepers by nature, they get taken advantage of by the takers who confuse taking with winning.

9. I don’t want to come across as mean or selfish. E-types carry the guilt luggage of others and fear this implied threat of relationship abandonment: “You’re not doing enough for me, or trying hard enough to get along, which is hurting me and making me unhappy. You’ve got to try harder at this or we can’t be together.”

10. I lost the enjoyment of being who I am. E-types are prone to having their psychic bodies snatched, and put extra energy into others’ enjoyment while slighting their own pleasures.

NEGATALKERS: WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO NEGATIVE?

E-types believe that the spoken word of man is gospel, and should be taken seriously, which is REALLY funny, honey. That’s how negative people can steal your energy, too, when the rubber of “negatalker” words doesn’t meet the road of positive actions.

WHO OWNS THE TITLE OF YOUR COMMUNICATOR CAR BABY?

Principally, negative people get you sensitive types to do more of the work for them than they are willing to do for themselves. It’s a simply devastating illusional fact of life. Eventually, the pattern comes to light that the negative person makes a big mess for all you SO-o nice people to clean up. If you keep cleaning up a mess that isn’t your responsibility, then the negative person messes things up to dictate that others clean up after them.

DO YOU FEEL TURNED AROUND OR TETHERED AND TIRED OR TRAPPED AND TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF?

You are not bound or tethered by a ball and chain. You do not permit an energy thief to stick a siphon in your communicator car or a straw in your skull. You are supposed to be liked and approved of…you shouldn’t have to work so hard at that. If you are working harder to make someone happy than they are trying to make you happy…close your gas cap and drive off down the road of positive and effective communication destinations.

ABOUT TOW TRUCK DRIVER AND LICENSED LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION AND STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING EXPERT AND CORPORATE TRAINER DR. DENNIS O’GRADY, PSY.D.

Dr. Dennis O’Grady provides management communication training to companies, and is a communications psychologist from Dayton, Ohio, USA. He knows that E-typers are too good for their own good, and don’t ever live up to their own expectations, always trying harder and harder to please until they bleed. Empathizers also lose their bearings when criticized by others, and can take turns on the two-way communicator highway they shouldn’t go on if they’re shouted down. For example, if an annoying negative person is in the passenger side of the seat, an E-typer runs out of gas and ends up needing to call for a tow truck. The “Talk to Me” communication system will HELP you to get you on the road again, and keep you on track to get your happy back. It also teaches you how to fill your gas tank before you feel like you’ve failed at everything except being a failure. Last but not least: E-types lose their sense of direction, or where they should be headed, when strong or loud criticisms are directed at them or guilt bombs dropped on them from on high.