Moments of Communication and Connection are the moments that matter. They matter in families, in friendships, and in business. These are those moments when you send messages to others, both verbally and nonverbally. What kinds of messages are you sending? What kinds of messages is your organization, your team, your presentation sending?
Sometimes we don’t think seriously enough about the messages we send. Recently I was in a meeting with some of the key decision-makers of a very large company. The discussion was about moving the organization forward within an immediate window of opportunity. Several of these key executives conveyed excitement, enthusiasm, and a keen sense of urgency about the path forward. You could see eyes light up with the challenge they were facing, tones of voices vibrated with energy, messages were framed with positive words and phrases. It was a powerful message that promises to have a great impact on the organization and on the way they do business.
As I reflect on the above thoughts about messages, I am reminded that we often send mixed messages. Even more often, the messages we send are misinterpreted and/or filtered by others. Can we control how our messages are received, interpreted, passed on to others? Experience has shown me that we can have much more control than we exhibit and I wonder why we don’t?
Honesty and openness are key elements of that control. Illusions are fatal to open communication. Second-guessing others potential reactions can be detrimental to how we send messages and certainly how they are received. If we spend more time on second-guessing and creating the illusionary responses to those “what if” scenarios, we severely limit our ability to be open and honest. Bert Decker said, “You’ve got to be believed to be heard.” Creating illusions, whether by design or by accident, limits believability, and the domino effect ends in a myriad of miscommunications.
What messages are you sending? How are you communicating? How are your communications influencing your clients, customers or colleagues, staff or suppliers, family, or friends? Think about it.
