The importance of being earnest: practices for partners
Once upon a time a wise man ... said nothing. Those were dangerous times and unreliable interlocutors.
It's a meme. But it has a well-reasoned rationale, according to research in neurophysiology. Have you noticed that sometimes you talk too much? Or maybe it's the other way around - you've been called the silent one since you were a kid?
Anyway. The secret of successful business communication has already been found: talking and listening for the same amount of time. Even if you yourself have already found a balance between how much you talk and how much you listen, most people around you still talk too much. And this is a problem we will face more than once: the vast majority of people actively seek to be heard and do not seek to hear others at all.
M. J. Ryan, a business coach and author of popular books, once took this problem seriously. She grew tired of watching people in business continually use the same long ineffective business processes and hinder self-actualization - and all because they can't abandon unproductive personal habits, especially in their speech. Then she wrote the book "This Year I Will...": about the promises people make to themselves and about how to actually help yourself set goals and achieve results. Working on this book and especially working with top managers and leaders of well-known companies resulted in the author's next book, "Habit Changers". The book was published in 2017 and contains 81 working tips on how to use mantras to stop the verbal flow and set yourself up for effective communication.
M. J. Ryan was serious enough to start by changing her habits and then share with others. And now she enjoys watching hundreds of satisfied customers change their lives and build their business processes effectively.
What is it about? For example, the adage "Speak and listen equally". It suits both those who really like to "spill the beans" and those who believe that silence is golden and silent people seem smarter. How do you apply the adage? About that:
• When you start a conversation with someone, say one sentence and mentally utter the adage.
• While you are mentally uttering the adage, your interlocutor has time to respond to you.
• Don't rush to deliver your next statement until you've heard the answer. Do not interrupt, even if you really want to (say the adage again if you really, really want to interrupt the interlocutor).
• Practice this whenever you communicate with people. Eventually you won't need the adage to let someone else speak and hear more than just yourself. It will become a habit.
The adage works for the taciturn person in this way: it extends the pauses, and the talkative interlocutor finally notices that he or she is talking too much. This is a polite way to remind your interlocutor of the difference between a dialogue and a monologue.
Surprisingly, listening to the other, you can learn a lot of interesting things. You must have read our "Partner Work Methodology" in the back office and noticed the chapter on "How to Interact with Customers". In this chapter, we have already examined, among other things, a common mistake called "Talking More Than the Customer". Because of this mistake, many partners finish communicating with the customer before they achieve results. We hope that "Methodology" and our today's story will help you avoid this and other mistakes, and make any of your business communications easier and more effective.