Manager or Dominator

How do you know you were heard?

When you begin a conversation with someone on the telephone do you manage the conversation or dominate it? If you manage it you are a rare and gifted communicator. One that is understanding, respectful, patient and friendly. If you manage the conversation you are a person who is more concerned with the success of the communication event, and less with making your point or having your story heard. Most times when we talk to another we have an agenda, something we need to communicate.

What we often forget is communication is a two way street and the other person most likely has an agenda as well. To make the most of our encounter we must always remember, the other person has things they need or want to communicate too. Let them, and you'll be seen as a great communicator, not a dominator. Give the conversation room to grow and expand, listen to what they have to say. As my father used to say, "Use your ears more, they have a bigger role in life, that's why there are two of them."

Just like these gears, as each speaker takes their "turn" the "conversation" gear changes directions. This allows for the free flowing of thoughts and ideas. You never know what you'll learn from someone else until you "Hear" them!

Everyone sees life from their perspective, through the eyes of their own id. This "self centered" approach to communication is fraught with land mines. Misunderstanding, Misinterpretation, misrepresentation, hurt feelings and in some cases anger. Do you think you hear other people in your conversations? Do you think they felt as though they were heard? Did you feel like you were heard?

Think back on your last telephone conversation, what were you doing while the other person was speaking? If you are thinking about what you have to say, how your story applies or what you need to buy at the grocery store, you cannot possibly be following the conversation or processing what the other person is saying to you.

A truly great communicator is not the one doing all of the communicating all of the time, it's the person who is willing to listen and understand the thoughts of the other person...first!

To better follow the thread of this topic buy my book. You'll learn more about human communication in the unseen world of the telephone.  You will learn about The Art of Visual Listening!

Until next time, listen carefully and think before you speak!

Four Things You Need to Know About Telephone Talking

In the beginning man uttered grunts and groans to the person next to them to indicate a rudimentary thought. The hollow tree stump to be used as a drum was the next evolution. This gave way to fire, and smoke signals were born. This was closely followed by telegraph, radio, telephone and then the pinnacle of communications the internet.

Somewhere along this progression we lost our ability to understand the most basic of all human communications, the voice. We lost the ability and some would argue the desire to really communicate and to really understand one another. Over the next few postings I will be discussing this in greater detail. I would love to share this communications journey with you. In order to come along you'll need to go to my blog and become a follower. Following my blog does not obligate you to anything other than you might enjoy what we discuss on this site. It also helps promote the blog by raising it in the search rankings. Please take a moment and become a follower right now. Click here: Visual-Listening Blog

Now back to our story. If you were like me, you bugged your parents for months until they finally relented and bought you your first drum kit. This is where it all went very bad. You began to communicate, not realizing that everyone within a three block radius could hear you murdering the drum solo to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. It is precisely this range of sound that attracted the ancients to use the drum, originally a hollow tree. They could communicate over vast distances.

There was a limitation in the beginning. If your village was under attack and you sounded the distress call on the drum it sounded "Tonally" the same as "hey what's for dinner" There was no sense of urgency to the sounds.

This problem was resolved in central Africa by the Bantu speaking tribes. They developed the drum equivalents of their language a sort of Morse code. A word, whether, in English or a form of Bantu can have a completely different meaning depending on the intonation expressed. In my book, Don't Look At Me In That Tone of VOICE! I discuss this in terms of a musical sing song-ness to our speech. These tones indicate many things such as urgency, fright, pleasure, etc.

The drums of the Bantu can easily replicate these tones. There are, as you might expect, limitations to this form of communication. Many words contain the same number of syllables. One might assume confusion would set in, not so. The tribesmen of the Bantu speaking nations say they can hear the difference by the context the drummed phrase is sent in. As you might imagine a message sent using drums could be quite lengthy.

Now we return to your mangling of the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida drum solo. How good a communicator are you? Can you hear the tonal changes in the voice of the person you are speaking with? Do you pay attention to these "Speech Road Signs?" Are you listening to the overall speech and not simply thinking about what you are about to say? I recommend you take a tip from the Bantu drummers. They cannot drum (speak) over one another, if they are to hear and comprehend the message. Thus you too should listen to the entire message before you formulate your thoughts and response.

Until next week, listen carefully and think before you speak!