The seven keys to Understanding and Agreement are: Community, Intent, Coherence, Clarity, Feedback, Flexibility and Influence. While acting as keys to 7 locks that should be open at the same time to establish flow, each key stands on its own as an enabler to achieve more effective communication.
When speaking about Intent, I would like to remind you of the 3 questions you answered with "Yes" in Chapter eleven. In the checklist you answered "Yes" to the assumption that feedback, in other words the result of your communication, is the only way to measure the effectiveness of a communication. While this seems to be "common sense" and "motherhood and apple pie", most people (when asked about their intent for the planned communication), have only a vague idea about the intended outcome or result. Even more vague is their approach to actually "knowing" or "measuring" the outcome of the planned communication. Here is an example of a typical dialog I might have in a coaching session:
Question: "What are you trying to accomplish with your presentation?"
Answer: "Ehmm, I guess I want to give everyone a status update."
Question: "How do you know what people want to know and how will you know you have accomplished that goal?"
Answer: "Ehmm ... I don"t know"
In the above example lies the root cause of a lot of communication breakdowns. Because the intent of the communication is not established (either upfront, or at the beginning of the communication) the audience is left to guess what the intent is and will try to interpret the "flow" to make sense relative to their expectations. The converse is true for the audience. If the audience does not set clear goals for their attending the presentation, chances are they won't even know if the liked the presentation or not. Overall, a phenomenal opportunity to turn a colossal waste of life into a very productive use of time.
Here is the exercise I would like for you to go through the next time you prepare for a communication:
Exercise for Intent:
What is the main purpose of the communication: (check all that apply, or add )
- deliver information
- obtain information
- train / educate
- delegate
- entertain
- inspire
...
What can you do to measure if your intentions are achieved? (Use all that apply)
- State the goal of the communication ahead of time, or at the beginning of interaction
- Establish with the audience if your intentions are matching or conflicting with theirs
- Use the tripod method: Tell the audience what you will tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them
- Establish up front how you want to deal with questions (at the end, during the presentation)
- Give your contact information / availability for handling questions after the communication
- Establish a feedback channel (questionnaire, etc) to actively ask for feedback
...
It is very important to respect community differences in this preparation. For example, an Asian audience will usually not interrupt your presentation with questions. They will hold until the end. If you don't allow for enough time at the end, you are basically short changing them. Western audiences can be quite brisk in their interaction style: sometimes they will expect to be able to jump in with questions at any time
As you prepare your tools (for example education is very different from inspiration), you must be careful not to pour too much of your own community and cultural bias into the preparation. Not everyone is like you, as a matter of fact, most everyone is UNLIKE you. Here is where Key 1 and Key 2 interact. The more you know about the community aspects of your audience and the more clear your intent for your communication is, the more chances you have to accomplish a good "flow"
Some of you might ask: "This seems appropriate for presentations, but what about one-on-one communications, especially when we know there will be a conflict of interest?" The answer is that the Key of Intent still applies. It often is a great ice-breaker for conflict situations by stating up front "I would like to give you enough information and enough opportunities to ask questions so you might change your mind on subject X or subject Y". If you are trying to hide the intention to change someone's mind about something, they might perceive you as not trustworthy which does not exactly help the "flow". Always be clear about your intent.
Use the next few weeks to apply the above exercise a few times before you initiate a communication.
The next key I would like to address is the Key of Coherence.
When speaking about Intent, I would like to remind you of the 3 questions you answered with "Yes" in Chapter eleven. In the checklist you answered "Yes" to the assumption that feedback, in other words the result of your communication, is the only way to measure the effectiveness of a communication. While this seems to be "common sense" and "motherhood and apple pie", most people (when asked about their intent for the planned communication), have only a vague idea about the intended outcome or result. Even more vague is their approach to actually "knowing" or "measuring" the outcome of the planned communication. Here is an example of a typical dialog I might have in a coaching session:
Question: "What are you trying to accomplish with your presentation?"
Answer: "Ehmm, I guess I want to give everyone a status update."
Question: "How do you know what people want to know and how will you know you have accomplished that goal?"
Answer: "Ehmm ... I don"t know"
In the above example lies the root cause of a lot of communication breakdowns. Because the intent of the communication is not established (either upfront, or at the beginning of the communication) the audience is left to guess what the intent is and will try to interpret the "flow" to make sense relative to their expectations. The converse is true for the audience. If the audience does not set clear goals for their attending the presentation, chances are they won't even know if the liked the presentation or not. Overall, a phenomenal opportunity to turn a colossal waste of life into a very productive use of time.
Here is the exercise I would like for you to go through the next time you prepare for a communication:
Exercise for Intent:
What is the main purpose of the communication: (check all that apply, or add )
- deliver information
- obtain information
- train / educate
- delegate
- entertain
- inspire
...
What can you do to measure if your intentions are achieved? (Use all that apply)
- State the goal of the communication ahead of time, or at the beginning of interaction
- Establish with the audience if your intentions are matching or conflicting with theirs
- Use the tripod method: Tell the audience what you will tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them
- Establish up front how you want to deal with questions (at the end, during the presentation)
- Give your contact information / availability for handling questions after the communication
- Establish a feedback channel (questionnaire, etc) to actively ask for feedback
...
It is very important to respect community differences in this preparation. For example, an Asian audience will usually not interrupt your presentation with questions. They will hold until the end. If you don't allow for enough time at the end, you are basically short changing them. Western audiences can be quite brisk in their interaction style: sometimes they will expect to be able to jump in with questions at any time
As you prepare your tools (for example education is very different from inspiration), you must be careful not to pour too much of your own community and cultural bias into the preparation. Not everyone is like you, as a matter of fact, most everyone is UNLIKE you. Here is where Key 1 and Key 2 interact. The more you know about the community aspects of your audience and the more clear your intent for your communication is, the more chances you have to accomplish a good "flow"
Some of you might ask: "This seems appropriate for presentations, but what about one-on-one communications, especially when we know there will be a conflict of interest?" The answer is that the Key of Intent still applies. It often is a great ice-breaker for conflict situations by stating up front "I would like to give you enough information and enough opportunities to ask questions so you might change your mind on subject X or subject Y". If you are trying to hide the intention to change someone's mind about something, they might perceive you as not trustworthy which does not exactly help the "flow". Always be clear about your intent.
Use the next few weeks to apply the above exercise a few times before you initiate a communication.
The next key I would like to address is the Key of Coherence.
No comments:
Post a Comment