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BEE compliant. ABVA full membership No. BVA 049 Certificate No. BRSEMP17
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Words form the basis of communication, but communication is not only what we say or write. An integral part of communication is how well we hear what is being said. Good communication skills reduce the chance that we will make fools of ourselves.
Misperceptions of what was, or was not, communicated saps anyone’s energy and reduces their ability to perform. Prolonged silence over these misperceptions can lead to disaster, yet many people prefer silence when it comes to resolving difficulty in relationships, not realising that consciously ignoring people requires a lot of mental energy - talking is always the best approach – it’s communication that solves problems, not silence! Teams, families and businesses all need to develop an environment where communication is encouraged!
Everything said in the world of business can be broken down into two parts: Self-Talk and Team-Talk. It is vitally important to not only understand the differences in these two types of communication, but to understand the most basic and fundamental dynamics involved in each:
Self-Talk: This is not mere uninitiated and non-conversational thought - it is what happens when we initiate internal conversations with ourselves. These conversations will either build up or destroy your self-confidence and are a pretty good indicator of your self-image. The type of conversations that you conduct with yourself have a direct impact on your ability to perform, because, without realising it, we all feed on a constant menu of positive or negative conversations. It is vital to your success therefore, to develop internal habits of correct Self-Talk, yet it is an area of our lives to which we typically pay very little attention! Until we spend energy focusing on the communication that we have with ourselves, we seldom realise that we can take conscious control of the content of that self-communication. Two areas to watch in our Self-Talk are the following:
Disappointment: In our business lives our emotional engine is very often revving at a high speed, and reaction and overreaction is often working faster than logic. For some people, their desire to perform at a high level actually gets in the way of their actual performance. Using words such as “Wake up”; “Come on, you idiot”; “I’m never going to be able to do this”, is blatant negative self-talk and lies at the beginning of the descent down the slippery slope that weakens self-confidence and, inevitably, performance. We all feel disappointment when we fail to measure up to the expectations we have of ourselves, but by focusing on the present and the near future, discarding what’s already behind us, the odds are that we are creating more and more opportunities for ourselves to succeed. After any disappointment refocus and reload the gun because your next attempt has a good chance of hitting the mark. Auto Responders: When we make positive self-talk a habit, we begin to automatically respond to situations according to the positive words we have programmed into our minds. We need to consciously focus on these words because the auto-response mechanisms kick in more often than we realise. Dynamic people doing dynamic things in life program their auto-response system to utilise dynamic words. For example, in response to a question such as “How’s it going?” they automatically use such words as – “Excellent”; ”Awesome”; ”Really well”; ”Extremely well, thank you”. You have to reset these auto-responders on a regular basis because ever-changing circumstances have a direct influence on our thought processes and negative responses often creep in without consciously realising it. Choosing thoughts that follow the circuit of optimism will trigger our auto responder to respond positively regardless of the situation, which in turn reinforces our self-talk – we create a circuit of positive internal confidence that is always ready to branch out and influence others.
Disappointment: In our business lives our emotional engine is very often revving at a high speed, and reaction and overreaction is often working faster than logic. For some people, their desire to perform at a high level actually gets in the way of their actual performance. Using words such as “Wake up”; “Come on, you idiot”; “I’m never going to be able to do this”, is blatant negative self-talk and lies at the beginning of the descent down the slippery slope that weakens self-confidence and, inevitably, performance. We all feel disappointment when we fail to measure up to the expectations we have of ourselves, but by focusing on the present and the near future, discarding what’s already behind us, the odds are that we are creating more and more opportunities for ourselves to succeed. After any disappointment refocus and reload the gun because your next attempt has a good chance of hitting the mark.
Auto Responders: When we make positive self-talk a habit, we begin to automatically respond to situations according to the positive words we have programmed into our minds. We need to consciously focus on these words because the auto-response mechanisms kick in more often than we realise. Dynamic people doing dynamic things in life program their auto-response system to utilise dynamic words. For example, in response to a question such as “How’s it going?” they automatically use such words as – “Excellent”; ”Awesome”; ”Really well”; ”Extremely well, thank you”. You have to reset these auto-responders on a regular basis because ever-changing circumstances have a direct influence on our thought processes and negative responses often creep in without consciously realising it. Choosing thoughts that follow the circuit of optimism will trigger our auto responder to respond positively regardless of the situation, which in turn reinforces our self-talk – we create a circuit of positive internal confidence that is always ready to branch out and influence others.
Team-Talk: If self-talk is what we say in our minds, Team-Talk is what we articulate to our external world. Business is all about teams of people working towards achieving common objectives and all teams, good or bad, are what they are because of what they want to be. No matter how talented a team is, it can be easily shipwrecked by the power of loose lips, and this translates into two areas to watch carefully:
Spoken Words: Spoken words have the power to either build teams or destroy them. Banter and joking happens naturally in any team environment, and it is generally fun – building and strengthening relationships. What is said to a fellow teammate’s face seldom rocks the boat but, like a bushfire out of control, what is said about a teammate behind his back isn’t easily put right. Team-talk that works is made up of words that encourage people publicly and critique their performance privately. It is interesting to note that it is always those people with low self-esteem who seem to have a strong need to ‘put down’ those around them – they seem to have an uncontrollable desire to lower their team-mates in other people’s eyes so as to feel better about themselves. We all tend to laugh and have fun with things that are said about others, but dysfunctional families, businesses and sport teams all begin heading downhill when they start becoming lazy with the words they use. It’s easy to say bad things about people closest to you, but successful people build successful teams around them by choosing to build people up through affirming words. Written Words: If spoken words are hard to take back, it is impossible to take back the written word. “I was misquoted” does not mask what was actually said because what comes out in print tomorrow closely mirrors what was said today. Mature people don’t skirt around the questions posed to them. They obviously answer a question with their own slant about the situation, but most of the time they slant towards the positive. Team builders are aware of this and think through their answers carefully before giving them. What we read can either build us up or break us down. Posting the inspiring words contained in many slogans and quotes around your living and working environment have a great impact on you, and on others around you. Immediate feedback about a positive quote or slogan is unusual, but over the longer term, those positive written words help set the course and build the environment.
Spoken Words: Spoken words have the power to either build teams or destroy them. Banter and joking happens naturally in any team environment, and it is generally fun – building and strengthening relationships. What is said to a fellow teammate’s face seldom rocks the boat but, like a bushfire out of control, what is said about a teammate behind his back isn’t easily put right. Team-talk that works is made up of words that encourage people publicly and critique their performance privately. It is interesting to note that it is always those people with low self-esteem who seem to have a strong need to ‘put down’ those around them – they seem to have an uncontrollable desire to lower their team-mates in other people’s eyes so as to feel better about themselves. We all tend to laugh and have fun with things that are said about others, but dysfunctional families, businesses and sport teams all begin heading downhill when they start becoming lazy with the words they use. It’s easy to say bad things about people closest to you, but successful people build successful teams around them by choosing to build people up through affirming words.
Written Words: If spoken words are hard to take back, it is impossible to take back the written word. “I was misquoted” does not mask what was actually said because what comes out in print tomorrow closely mirrors what was said today. Mature people don’t skirt around the questions posed to them. They obviously answer a question with their own slant about the situation, but most of the time they slant towards the positive. Team builders are aware of this and think through their answers carefully before giving them. What we read can either build us up or break us down. Posting the inspiring words contained in many slogans and quotes around your living and working environment have a great impact on you, and on others around you. Immediate feedback about a positive quote or slogan is unusual, but over the longer term, those positive written words help set the course and build the environment.
Success in self-talk and team-talk doesn’t happen by chance. Most people tend to just spout off the first thing that comes to mind without prior planning and often inadvertently cause damage. If you want to communicate well, follow these simple rules:
Coaching Tip: The words we use have the power to both build and destroy – choose your words well and become acutely aware of expressing your thoughts with precision: - Begin with how you speak to yourself
Remember that internal misjudgements are six times more likely to cause business failure than external factors. Success in business, as in life, is all about getting the fundamentals right … and the actions you take!
Makes you think, doesn’t it!
Signed: S.C.
QUOTATION:
NO MAN MEANS ALL HE SAYS, AND YET VERY FEW SAY ALL THEY MEAN, FOR WORDS ARE SLIPPERY AND THOUGHT IS VICIOUS.
- Henry Brooks Adams
Relationship Pearls Turn your Melodrama into a Mellow Drama. Many people live as if life were a melodrama, blowing things out of proportion. Take the edge off your seriousness. Remind yourself that your life is not a soap opera.
- Richard Carlson
Source: ABSA Business Circle