communication skills

Erik Tyler | August 20, 2015 | 10 Comments

Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me (Ask Instead) – Erik Tyler

You’ve been there. You’re leading a group. You’re meeting with a coworker, an employee, your boss, or maybe even your spouse. You feel like you are speaking clearly, but the crickets are chirping in the corner. You’re met with slack jaws, slightly glazed eyes – and silence.

Maybe you find yourself meeting with people to discuss action points that need to be put in motion after your meeting is done, whether as part of a project team, employee reviews or conflict resolution. And people are nodding in agreement. Perhaps you’ve fallen back on the old standby of asking people to “repeat back what I just told you,” and they did so verbatim. Then … nothing happens. Nothing changes. Yet, you’re positive they heard you. What happened?

Worse yet, maybe it’s not silence or inactivity that you’re finding to be the problem. On the contrary, you’re thinking you would welcome some silence, because it seems like too many meetings dissolve into debate, arguing, posturing, resistance, confusion or general chaos.

I’m hopeful that you will have some real “Aha!” moments during our next few minutes together. Let me also add that, while this blog is geared toward business communication, the principles and approaches we’ll discuss here apply to interpersonal communication anywhere : with students you teach; with your friends, your spouse, your kids. In short, they are “people practices” not merely “business practices.” And as such, you may find the greatest value comes in getting through to your teen son than your business associates.

Erik Tyler | July 16, 2015 | 6 Comments

Big Fat Lie #3: How To Say It Without Saying Anything At All – Erik Tyler

I trust that in the last few weeks, you’ve begun to think about communication as the truly magical and monumental thing it is, and that you’ve learned to be a better liar (in the best of ways, of course) in Part 1 and Part 2 of this “Big Fat Lies” series. Today, let’s continue to fine tune our mastery of the craft by pulling the curtain on one of the sneakiest – and yet most powerful – lies of all: nonverbal communication.

I think most of us take nonverbal communication for granted, because it infuses itself into most everything we do, even without our being aware of it. However, it’s just that lack of awareness that can get us into trouble and leave us wondering what went wrong in both personal and professional communication settings where it seemed our spoken message was on track – yet, for some mysterious reason, was not received as well as we had hoped it would be. Or perhaps, you’re just wondering how to pack more punch in a presentation.

Erik Tyler | July 9, 2015 | 6 Comments

Big Fat Lie # 2: How To Say What You Didn’t Actually Say – Erik Tyler

In my last post, I called you a liar. That is because you are one. And I trust you were challenged to become an even better liar after having read the aforementioned post – that you were inspired to incorporate strong idioms and figures of speech to vary your language approach, make your message more clear, and improve both your oral and written communication through clear voice and tone.

Today’s Big Lie is all about skillful slips of tongue. We’ll also cover how to approximate those linguistic loopholes in writing, which is both tricky – and, at times, immensely useful.

SETTING THE STAGE

As before, I’m going to ask you to stop in a moment and consider something before continuing to read: to answer a question to yourself (or, better yet, in writing), as part of the exploration and learning process. You may think you don’t need that step; and, as most anything else in life, the choice is yours. But carefully considering what you already know or believe about a topic before learning more will significantly increase the impact and “stickiness” of the new information.