Common sense wins the world: the common secret of successful people

Chapter 19 Common Sense of Communication - Only in this way can communication be effective! (1)
Communication is not only to achieve a certain utilitarian purpose, but more importantly, to help us understand people and human nature, and to deepen our control over our interpersonal and work relationships.The effectiveness of communication depends not only on how we express it, but also on how the other party responds.Listening and expressing are always a two-way process, and the interaction between the two constitutes the main link of communication.If you want to be an effective communicator, you must have a common sense of communication.

In communication, what aspects should we pay attention to?

Listening without respect is ineffective
David, a department director of General Motors, is a boss who likes to listen to people's speeches, but he found that his method did not win the approval of his subordinates, but fell into a strange circle: "I told the employees that everyone can choose a time to talk to me. I don’t refuse to tell their views. At the beginning, the atmosphere in the department became active, but the good times didn’t last long. They gradually stopped giving me too many suggestions for work, and they always ended the report with a few words in face-to-face conversations. .I wonder how many more people choose to email me with details!"
What is the source of the distress of this self-confessed enthusiastic listener?He tries to listen, but the staff doesn't treat him with respect.This shows that even if the boss learns to listen, he may not be able to achieve results. It depends on what we have done in listening.David must have done something wrong somewhere.

With my reminder, Dawei finally discovered the crux of the problem.He has a "hyperactive" side to his personality and has never been a person who can sit still.His small gestures gave him away when subordinates reported to him or had heart-to-heart conversations with him—it made him seem less attentive while listening, as if he was on his phone while eating.

One of his subordinates said: "Our boss is just acting. His eyes wander, he seems absent-minded, his fingers keep circling, and he sometimes plays with a pen. Or he is browsing social networking sites while we are reporting."
"Yes, he was listening with his ears, but he wasn't paying attention to us at all," said another subordinate.
Another subordinate said: "I think the boss is humiliating us. He doesn't care what we say. Sometimes I spend a night writing the proposal. In fact, he has already made his own decision, but still let me be the boss." Read it to him. He's just putting on a show, and he's probably thinking, "Look at the idiot, he has no idea he's written a bunch of crap!" ""
I didn't expect Dawei's image among the employees to decline to such an extent.It's just a negative effect of his facial expressions and body movements when communicating, and he doesn't know anything about it.For a time, he felt good about himself, but he didn't expect his employees to be so sensitive, and he would pay close attention to every move of his boss.

The bottom line: listening without respect is ineffective.Respect is the main basis of listening. If your every move is filled with disdain or incomprehension of the narrator, so that you don’t focus on him at all, and you don’t communicate with him seriously, this kind of listening will not be possible. As a result, it will cause great harm to the relationship between you.

1. Focusing elsewhere, eyes wandering, or doing other things at the same time while listening to someone talking.

2. Interrupt casually, interrupt others before they finish speaking, and start to express themselves impatiently.

3. After listening, he began to talk about his own views without caring about the other party's previous views.

4. Don't know how to wait when others answer the phone, so that the other party cannot finish the call smoothly.

5. Listen to the other party from a long distance, such as letting the other party sit on the sofa, while you are sitting behind the desk, more than 5 meters apart.

6. When listening to the other party's speech, the expression is stiff, or there is an impatient look. Although the ears are always listening, it gives the impression that you have heard enough.

…………

These are "disrespectful listening".Once I went to Shanghai on a business trip to work in a company.This is the first time we have cooperated, and the chairman of the other party wants to have a face-to-face meeting, and we will meet at 10 am.I got to his office 10 minutes early and waited in the lounge outside. At 10 o'clock sharp, his secretary invited me in.After less than 2 minutes of communication, I discovered a serious problem - Mr. Chairman nodded while listening, and kept looking at his watch at the same time.

I stop: "Is there a question?"
He forced a smile: "It's okay, you can continue."
At this time, I said seriously: "Sir, if you have more urgent work, I have no problem here, we can make another appointment."
He hurriedly waved his hands: "No, Mr. Gao, I'm fine."
This is a very poor communication.I learned afterwards that he invited friends to play golf at noon that morning at 11 o'clock.I think it interfered with his mood and made him focus on the time in the middle of the conversation - he was eager to get out of work and get to the golf course as soon as possible.Fortunately, I realized that this was not a good partner during the first communication, and did not cause further losses to the company.

The first element of communication is dialogue, not "listening to people".Speaking is a one-to-one one-way behavior, but dialogue is a two-way behavior that interacts with each other. It requires both listening and feedback at the same time—including facial and spiritual feedback.At least you have to show your importance and let the other party feel that you are listening to every word seriously, so that the communication can continue.Otherwise, in an indifferent atmosphere, it will only make the other party's narration tired and make the atmosphere of communication awkward.

The purpose of listening is to understand and communicate - many people often feel that listening is very simple, just like David.They think that they just sit there and listen with their ears open. What's the big deal?That's not the case at all.The reason we communicate is that both parties have different viewpoints, starting points and positions, which determines that communication is a serious job.We need to reach a consensus through communication to achieve mutual understanding and trust.If you don't care and don't invest enough, it will only make the understanding gap between the two parties bigger and bigger, not solve the problem, and increase the difficulty of follow-up communication, making further communication more difficult.

Therefore, in the skill of listening, you must follow three steps.

No matter how much you disagree with him, be patient and let him finish without jumping in to express your own.

After the other party has finished speaking, you first repeat his point of view, which not only shows that you have listened carefully to what he said, but also waits for the other party's confirmation to lay the foundation for your reply.

If your explanation is wrong, then you need to ask the other party to explain it again in general, and then express your opinion based on your own understanding, and ask the other party to further explain-give feedback on your point of view.

More than ten years ago, when the company was first established, I found that fully understanding people's needs is a labor-intensive project, and sometimes it is even the most costly work we pay in management and communication.In consulting, clients' needs are both complex and nuanced.Although they know what they need and understand what's going on, it's difficult for them to convey this to us fully and clearly when expressing it.Only after we have given many feedbacks and explanations can they finally confirm their needs.

What is even more challenging is that after working together for a period of time, we discovered that the actual needs of the customer were different from what was expressed before, and sometimes there was a big gap, or even the complete opposite.This reflects their problems in expression, and it also more deeply reflects that there are still many deficiencies in the work we do when listening.

For example, in a product survey we helped a company do, more than 74% of the respondents answered that they would be very likely to buy the product in the next few months, and more than 50% of the respondents thought they would very much need it. this product.But in the follow-up interview for the next year, we found that only 15% of the respondents bought the product as they said, and another 57% of the respondents began to think that they were not sure whether they really needed it. products.At the same time, they couldn't tell the specific reason.

In this regard, my work assistant Lina also said very distressed: "The results of listening to customers will always become invalid after a period of time in the future, just like expired pills. Today they throw out an answer with great certainty, But tomorrow they suddenly denied this view and expressed another new demand. This makes our work have to start from scratch, and no one knows how they will change their words in the future."
Of course the customer cannot be blamed for this.We later came to a useful conclusion—we found that to meet these challenges, we had to change our understanding of listening.

1. See what's behind the needs: Before listening to their voices, get a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of their real needs, rather than just confirming a certain need based on their one-sided words.

2. Respectful communication attitude: In the process of listening, we must express enough respect and let them feel that this respect is always there, so that they can hear their true voices instead of teasing you or dealing with you.

value other people's opinions

In communication, we want others to have a valued experience in us.On the contrary, it is easy to cause mutual suspicion and incomprehension.Therefore, when you sit in front of a person, don't always exaggerate your achievements to others, tell your advantages, and don't waste your time talking about those achievements that we are not worth mentioning.You want to try to encourage others to speak up and listen to their opinions, rather than highlighting yourself.When others put forward different opinions, we must pay attention immediately, give feedback, and re-examine ourselves.

When you value others in your communication, you respect yourself.The reason why many people can't communicate well and always become losers in communication is often only one reason-they talk too much.Instead of understanding each other, their goal becomes persuading the other to align with themselves.

Negative case
Before an investigation was launched, the new official Hughes took office and became the head of the FBI's investigation team in the Washington area.Hughes and I met in FBI orientation.He is three years younger than me, young and energetic, and has long been known for his thunderous work style.But when I heard that he was going to be the commander in chief of the operation, and that he was going to be there, I said to Snow, "Wait a minute, he's probably the fastest investigation director ever dismissed."
Snow bet me.He thinks Hughes can last at least a year, and I don't think it will last more than four weeks.Our bet was a used car -- I hadn't bought a car at the time, and Snow's used Toyota SUV became my "prey."

On the first day Hughes took office, he held a working meeting of all members. He took a notebook with dense writing on it. He didn't know whether it was Harold's instructions to him or his own ideas.Anyway, the room was full of agents, each with a stomach full of questions and a report on their investigations of the last few weeks.Sadly, Hughes didn't give us a chance.The meeting lasted half an hour, and Hughes himself spoke for 29 minutes.Just as I expected.

In the last minute, he had finished assigning work, and then said loudly, "Any questions?"
Lo and behold, he gave the 20 agents below a total of 60 seconds to speak.Snow and I smiled knowingly, and heard the people respond in unison: "No, sir."
The action did not go well.In fact, Hughes's plan is not perfect. What he emphasizes is execution, not the rationality of the plan.This is not surprising, he never listened to the advice of his men, because he only trusted his own intelligence.Hughes even suggested to Harold: Conduct an internal moral inspection throughout the District to find out those agents who have ambiguous ties to the subjects of the investigation, so as not to have another "Hanson" (an FBI agent who sold information to the Russian spy agency. ).Without a single communication with his subordinates, he concluded that this person might be an "internal traitor", and he did not give the other party a chance to sue for grievances.This is tantamount to digging their own grave.

This is exactly what I judged.Three weeks later, the FBI received dozens of letters of indictment against Hughes.The reason is nothing more than: arbitrariness, illegal monitoring of colleagues, making everyone panic... The most powerful evidence for Hughes' "unfit to stay in the SAR" is of course the failure of his command.As a result, I won Snow's off-road vehicle, and Hughes left Washington in disgrace before he even lasted four weeks, and was transferred to the Western Division to deal with the tough cowboys.

I always like to instill my own ideas and block the other party's mouth. This is obviously a very wrong communication habit, which reflects a very strong "control freak" mentality.When you try to control others, the result must be a collective reaction, just like Hughes.We must reverse this habit, and in turn let the other party talk more, and become the one who listens to suggestions with an open mind, so that it is easier to achieve positive results.

Positive case
Rogge is a salesman for TSK in Paris, a company that makes car detailing products and has recently gone all out in the U.S. market.Roger was sent to Washington as a sales representative for DC.As a newly arrived company, they are obviously at a disadvantage in the competition with local companies.

"I know this very well, so we must have a better sales strategy, serve customers, and gain customers' favor." Rogge said.

Soon, a local car rental company in Washington was preparing to purchase the beauty products it needed for the next three years.As one of the three bidding companies, the TSK company represented by Rogge also prepared samples. After passing the quality inspection, he, as a commercial representative, went to meet with the head of the purchasing department of the company together with the other two companies.

This is a good thing and a major opportunity.Unfortunately, Roger suddenly suffered from severe pharyngitis that day and could hardly speak.He managed to speak a few words, but his voice was too hoarse.After rushing to the meeting place, the situation still did not improve.The representatives of other companies were refreshed, energetic, and ready for battle, but he had difficulty uttering a single word.

Rogge had no choice but to write down a note: "I'm sorry sir, my voice is hoarse and I can't speak. Please speak for me." His own illness caused the company to lose this order.

The head of the car rental company's purchasing department read his note carefully, then gave him a reassuring smile and said, "Oh, Mr. Roger, it's all right, let me do it for you." Picking up the instruction manual that Rogge brought, he looked carefully at the samples placed on the ground, and began to interpret while asking Rogge questions that he didn't understand.Then, Rogge simply wrote down his answer on the paper in response to the other party's question.

As a result, the Paris TSK company represented by Rogge got the business, and the other party ordered auto beauty products worth a total of 300 million US dollars.Where did Roger win?It is because he did not speak during the whole process, but instead heard all the questions the other party had about the company's products, and gave timely answers.He didn't have the opportunity to boast and cover up his shortcomings, but instead won the approval of customers.Because the customer's opinion has been fully reflected in this singular communication process, which is the key factor for him to win the order.

Rogge said afterwards: "If my voice could speak at that time, maybe I would lose that contract, because the other two companies talked hype, but they didn't get orders. This made me find that during the conversation In communication, no matter how well prepared you are, you must first leave space for the other party to speak and ask questions, instead of talking endlessly. Paying attention to the other party's opinions is the basis of successful communication."
In Canada, Peake's company has thousands of employees, and its annual profit has exceeded 7 million US dollars in less than 5 years since its establishment.In the most recent issue of North American Business Week, Peek was named one of the most promising North American entrepreneurs.People even feel that he has the potential to surpass those world-class rich people.

Why is Pique widely favored, and what makes him stand out?Purdell, a corporate consultant of Gaode Company, said: "He has cultivated an excellent tradition of democratic decision-making here. Peek respects everyone's opinions, values ​​their opinions, and gives them the opportunity to express them. Whether it is major He has a system of communication with the most grassroots for decision-making or issues related to the interests of employees. He believes that this is the most valuable dialogue for the development of the company, because the company is the home of all people, and it must be in the Hearing everyone's opinion in any decision can ensure the healthy growth of the company."
For many people, this is easier said than done.In the cooperation cases we have experienced, the managers of most companies do not pay much attention to the opinions of grassroots employees, and even have natural hostility.They feel that employees will only ask for prices and never consider the interests of the company, so they will always block their voices when communicating—no matter whether their opinions are constructive or not, they will not be considered.That's precisely why they couldn't succeed.

Regardless of whether it is a business or an individual, you must abide by the following four principles when communicating:

Being suppressed is a good thing: if you want to make an enemy, suppress him in communication; if you want to gain a friend, let yourself be suppressed in communication.

Let the other party express freely: If we can let the other party speak freely and accept it humbly, you will get greater benefits.Because it is beneficial to increase your understanding of him, and it is also conducive to increasing his goodwill towards you.

(End of this chapter)