It’s all about communication

Communication is a fundamental aspect of human life that has been around since the dawn of time. It is an essential tool that enables people to connect, interact, and exchange information, thoughts, and ideas with one another. Those who can master the art of communication can unlock numerous opportunities and achieve greater success in their personal and professional lives. You can have the best education, the best strategy, the best people, but if you are not good at communicating, you’ll never be successful.
No human being has the common perception. Not even close. It is impossible that you perceive something in the same way your colleague, partner, child or whoever does. We absorb information and mix it with our experiences, and then we build our own reality in our brains. Things get perceived differently, that’s a fact. 

One very important thing is:

We don’t communicate to be understood by the other person, we communicate to understand the other person.

To make something a common matter (the literal translation of communication based on Latin), we can approach it at 3 stages:

Pacing:

This means we’re making sure that we understand each other. If I want to make sure I understand someone or that someone understands me, I have to adapt to their pace. Here are 3 tools to lead:

• Mirroring

Mirroring refers to physical adaptation to posture, gestures, breathing, facial expressions, movements or weight shifts, muscle tone, etc. Here you adapt like a mirror to everything you can see in your partner.

• Patterns

This means you’re using the same words or patterns (e.g. tonality, speed of talking). So if your opponent speaks really fast, do so too. If they speak in pictures, mirror them as well. 

• Value Pacing

Value Pacing is a very strong level of pacing. It means that when a person has certain values, I mirror them, even though those values might not be my own values. For example, when you talk in metaphors, use sport-related ones if you talk to a person who's very enthusiastic about sports. In that way, I can create a bond with that person.

When it comes to pacing, you best start with the basics, e.g. start mirroring the body language, especially with people who you might not have a good relation with yet. 

Best case scenario: We’re already paced as a team when we meet. 

Outing:

Outing means that you show very clearly that you understand what the other person means. There are a variety of options on how outings can be (e.g. silent or loud), but outings have to be visible. One example for an outing could be that you say to the opponent person that you want to leave the room and talk outside. But the interruption/outing point could also be verbal by saying what we felt before.

Leading:

Principle rule: Never start with leading, we always need to pace and out first. We could fall back anytime and start with pacing again. 

3 tools of leading: 

• Feedback

Discussing what went well and what not is not feedback. Feedback is about something that I do not recognize about myself, but someone else does. The one who shares feedback refers to their perception and what they perceived. The message about the feedback giver is not a message about the feedback receiver, it’s a message about the feedback giver, that is why “I” messages are so important. Most important: don’t take feedback personally. That applies to both, positive and negative feedback. Success should not secure you, and failure should not frustrate you.

• Paraphrasing

If somebody expresses him- or herself, we already start to prepare our answer. First “paraphrase” – repeat what the person said – until the person confirms: yes, this is what I meant. Only then, then you can make your point. 

• Full messaging

When we place a message, it should be very well-designed to have high chances that it is perceived in the right way. Don’t assume people know what you want or think. There are 3 layers: comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. Comprehensibility is the extent to which events are perceived as making logical sense, that they are ordered, consistent, and structured. Manageability is the extent to which a person feels they can cope. Meaningfulness is how much one feels that message makes sense, and challenges are worthy of commitment.

Concluding, pacing is communication that establishes contact and trust. Whereas leading is communication that leads to progress, development and change.

I hope, some of these techniques will help you to improve your communication. I can’t emphasize enough that effective communication is the key to success. Whether at home or at work, clear communication is the key to good collaboration.

Thanks to Dr. Heinz Palasser for these valuable insights and to Anja Obermüller for taking notes.