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When You Need To Be Heard

by Miki Saxon

Last Monday I laid out a do-it-yourself plan for mangers to juice growth among their people. Beth Miller asked why I didn’t include coaching; I responded that I believed that line managers needed to take responsibility for professional development, especially in the current economic climate.

Beth asked,“So what holds back managers from coaching?”

My response is what I want to focus on today.

“I think it’s partly language. I know a number of managers who have implemented what I described in the post, do a terrific job developing their people, but don’t consider any of it coaching or even mentoring. One even scoffs at “coaching,” yet he’s known for building his people.

In working with my MAP coaching I’ve found that what holds many managers back is terminology. If they relate to the descriptive terms there’s no problem, but if they don’t relate they can’t implement what they’ve learned. I change the language and bingo, they take off like a rocket.”

People are far more word-sensitive than most realize. They’re more aware of it in politics, religion and advertising, but less so in general business, even less when talking to their team and it’s almost non-existent when it comes to their own ‘hearing’.

The nice thing, as I said, is that it’s an easy fix once you notice. Noticing is easy, too. Just keep an eye out for a blank look when you’re talking. It’s that look of incomprehension that is the key to repeating, but in different words. There’s nothing that drives people nuts faster than having the same thing repeated over and over; if it wasn’t understood the first time repeating it or saying louder isn’t going to help.

And don’t start the change with ‘what I mean is…’, because many people will tune out at that point focusing on figuring out what you already said.

Instead, wait a bit (depending on context) and then present your thought from a different angle or change the phrasing of the thought that accompanied the blank look.

This isn’t about dumbing down what you say (or write); it’s about presenting it in a wholy different way; a way that the other person can hear.

The manager mentioned above detested the word ‘coach’ as some touch-feely new-age notion, nor was he enthralled with the term ‘mentor’.

To him, he was just doing what any manager worth a damn did—make sure that his people developed new skills and used the ones they had fully to the benefit of both the company and themselves.

As he once said to me, “developing people is part of a manager’s job, not something extra“—and his employer paid him to manage.

Gee, if I could bottle his MAP I could probably retire.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: YOdesigner on sxc.hu

One Response to “When You Need To Be Heard”
  1. Julie Eads Says:

    You make a very good point. My problem though isn’t the “blank look” but the nod of agreement only to hear much later that what I said was misinterpreted. I don’t believe this is the fault of the listener. I’m sure that the fault lies with the way I’m saying it. I’m working on it but could always use some tips on improving my communication skills!

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