Key Point: Learning how to listen and talk to each other is a life long requirement. It requires focus, thoughtful skill development and the mindset, that face-to-face, voice-to-voice conversation is essential to relationship development. An experienced colleague of mine, who has had a very successful executive career, mused to me the other day; “so many of the challenges I was dealing with last week could have been avoided by having conversations with people rather than using the ubiquitous email. If I had a blog, I would blog about the need for everyone to talk more and use email less… It could be a topic for one of your blogs, Lorne?” Ok… Jill… Here it is:
The foundation of successful “talk” starts in childhood. Decades of research shows that parents of all backgrounds do not need to buy expensive educational toys, digital devices and chauffeur their kids to enrichment classes to give them an edge. What they need to do with their children is much simpler: TALK!! But of course, the quality of these discussions counts too. A study conducted by researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health (published in the journal Pediatrics), found that two-way adult-child conversations were six times as potent in promoting language development as interludes in which the adult did all the talking.
Notice the phrase “two-way.” Well, the competence from relentlessly developing effective two-way conversation needs to be continuous. It is instructive to me that two leading companies Quicken and Zappos, prioritize two-way communication while bringing all new employees on board. They do not and cannot assume that their new hires come equipped to know how to constructively talk. Wow! The lead content of the leadership development initiative at the company I work for is called “Conversations!” Why? As Susan Scott has famously noted, “Conversation is the relationship and the relationship is the conversation.” One key to effective leadership is the ability to have crucial conversations and develop relationships.
Character Moves:
- How have you improved your skills or ability to have a two-way conversation recently? Are you more equipped to take on any challenging discussion? What framework or model do you use? Or do you just “wing it” because you assume everyone just knows how to ” talk?” As an example, I’m going to watch the video below: “How to Speak so that People Want to Listen.”
- Please STOP hiding behind or inappropriately using email and/or texting. They are typically NOT effective tools for problem solving, creating, or meaningful relationship development. With platforms like Skype, FaceTime , and many other video oriented options, we can have more face-to-face interaction, even at a distance. More listening, and talking… Less email trails that can waste time and result in a relationship deficit.
- Remember if we really value a relationship, we have to invest in talking to each other: That simple AND complex. Right, Jill?
Watch this video and just talk in the Triangle,
Lorne
One Millennial View: No one needs to remind me that my iPhone is used less as a “telephone” than anything else… 90 percent of my correspondence is text based, and that’s how I prefer it. Except, there are situations we’ve all been in when tone is ever so important. Unless you’re dead sure how someone is phrasing something, or knows the cadence of your own voice (which implies you likely spend enough face-to-face time anyways where you’re on that level), a call is never a bad idea when communicating something where “tone” could be misunderstood. Heck, iMessage can even record and text audio messages now with the push of a button… Let’s avoid getting caught in the tone-trap, they don’t have an emoji for “digging yourself out of a hole” yet. I would know.
– Garrett
Edited and published by Garrett Rubis