Conversational Intelligence - EQ Skills Empower Communication

Do you know how many different kinds of intelligences you have? More than you might think.

Conversational Intelligence

There is a great book by Judith Glaser, "Conversational Intelligence". The entire book is about how to be smarter with the way we communicate and the words we use. Throughout the book, EQ skills are the foundation of what she is sharing. This book is in the context of leadership, but in reality, it is for everyone. We are all leaders of ourselves. We lead others and influence their lives in many ways. The better we can communicate, the more influence we will have, and that includes with ourselves through our self-talk.

Here are two short videos that speak to this:

• Words Matter
• Self-talk and Roadblocks

EQ in Communicating

When you think of communicating with someone else, what does that look like for you? Many people think of talking, or emailing, or texting someone. Their focus in in outbound communication. But communication is far more than speaking or writing the words for someone else. Effective communication has several key elements to consider:

• Who am I communicating to?
• What is their preferred communication style? (based in personality - bottom line, inclusion of others, understand the why, facts and details)
• What form of communication do they prefer?
• What is their current situation and how does that impact their ability to communicate with you?

There are more elements of effective communication we can look at, but these are a good start.

Connection

To communicate well with other people, there must be some form of connection. Even if you do not know the person well, there is a reason you are attempting to communicate with them. Here are some examples of what that might look like:

• At home - you have family connections, shared experience and life together. You have goals as a family that you would like to achieve.
• At work - you have shared goals, maybe shared values and culture. You want to succeed so you want to help your team succeed.
• As a leader - you have a vision of how to lead your team to success. You need to be able to connect well with your team members so you can share the vision and communicate what will be needed to reach the goals. You are seeking higher engagement and effort.
• As a salesperson - you have resources that buyers need and want. You are looking for ways to connect so that you can communicate how you can help your buyers and their organizations.

Notice that connection starts with a place of shared interest. But it does not stop there.

Have you ever tried to lead other people to do something and they just can't seem to capture the vision of what you are trying to do? Is that their fault? Spoiler alert: if you want someone else to do something and they are not getting on board, look first to the way you are communicating with them. We all fall into the trap of thinking other people understand things the same way that we do. Maybe you are doing a great job of communicating. But maybe there is a lack of connection with the person. Why does that matter if you are communicating well?

Communication without connection is just words. Connection is the conduit for effective communication. It is the motivation for someone to listen to what you are communicating and then do something with what they receive. I have created the C-Cycle (Connection Cycle) to describe how to connect well with others.

There is a heavy dose of EQ (emotional intelligence) throughout this connection cycle. It begins with empathy. If you want effective communications with other people, you want to start with understanding who they are, their needs, their pain points, the best form of communication for them. I train salespeople and sales teams in this approach, and it has proven to accelerate sales success. The better you understand who you are communicating with and their needs, the more effective and influential your communications will be.

In a World of Noise

Research tells us that we get the same amount of input in one day that our grandparents did in 365 days! Think about that for a minute. Communicating with others is even more of a challenge when you consider all of the noise you have to cut through just to get your message across.

I was working with a group of leaders recently who were increasingly frustrated by how much they were not getting done. As I listened to them, it became obvious what the primary issue was. Can you guess? I asked them how many emails they received in a day. The answer...a staggering average of 300 emails a day. They were spending up to 4 hours a day just dealing with emails. That is half the day gone. On top of that, they had created an in-house messaging system (text messages) that added another 50-75 messages a day. The messaging system was added to circumvent the massive amounts of email, but they still had to manage their emails. How effective do you think their communications were? The increasing stress and pressure cannot continue forever. Something has to give. When I talked with some of their people, here is what I heard, "We can never get an answer from them quickly, so we just do what we can until they get back to us." Does this sound like something you have experienced?

What Can We Do

The first thing you can do is look at communication differently. Here are some suggestions on how to do that:

• Only communicate things that add value (reduce the noise and make your communications more effective because of it).
• Understand what your connection with other people is based on and build stronger connections.
• Understand who you are communicating with.
• Don't assume others will understand things the same way you do.
• Don't "fire and forget" with your communications. It is so easy to shoot off an email or text and get it off your mind. Then you wonder why the other person has not responded or done what you asked. Communication is a two way street, and effective communication takes effort.

Recent studies point to one key finding, 90% of what you communicate will be lost or misunderstood. Another way to look at this, you have to communicate 10 times on the same issue to truly pass on the full message. We expect better, don't we?

This is where EQ skills in communicating will empower your communications to be more effective and more successful. When you build strong connections, people will be more invested in what you are trying to communicate with them. They will listen better, and ask questions to clarify.

Like many things in life, you have a choice in how you communicate with others. The more optimistic and engaging you are, the more effective your communications will be. It's your choice.

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EQFIT® YouTube Channel

EQFIT® Blog

EQFIT® Podcast

 Copyright © 2023 EQFIT® - Author: Steven Goodner. All rights reserved. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: [email protected]