Clean communication

Yesterday, a friend and colleague reminded me of something that I always advise others to do, thus reinforcing the observation that just ‘cos you know something doesn’t mean that you actually do it!  I had written a business letter about something that had got under my skin.  It had been on my mind for sometime and I had not had the chance to deal with it appropriately.  I had drafted a letter which I’d shared with a few people to check I’d made my points clearly and persuasively, and had had good feedback.  However, my friend spotted something the others missed.  The language I had used whilst clear and powerful was not ‘clean’.  In other words, the phrasing I had used had revealed my underlying feelings of blame and annoyance, and thus was likely to subliminally put the recipient on the defensive.  This is a good way of not getting what you want!  It is going to elicit a pushback rather than “I see your point.”  By using terms like “You will see..” rather than a more impersonal “It can be seen..” I had made it personal, therefore less likely to enable an objective consideration of the facts.

If you say something like “Any idiot can see that ..” you are clearly implying that if they don’t agree with your point of view they must be an idiot.  We tend to let this kind of thing leak into our personal communication, and it usually lands us in trouble, but in business it is definitely a mistake.

I cleaned it up and was very grateful for a timely reminder.  Either say outright what you think and feel and deal with the consequences of that conversation or let the facts speak for themselves.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2014 at 08:00 and is filed under Communication, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.