{"id":4968,"date":"2024-06-05T13:52:17","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T11:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/?p=4968"},"modified":"2024-06-05T13:52:17","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T11:52:17","slug":"communication-is-a-superpower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/2024\/06\/05\/communication-is-a-superpower\/","title":{"rendered":"Communication is a Superpower"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello Friends!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve been around here for a while, you will definitely have heard me say at some point that Leadership is Communication. Communication with your team, and communication with yourself. I truly believe that good communication is what makes the world go round.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans are the only species who communicate as effectively as we do. Other animals have rudimentary communication but no other species has real language like humans. This is really our superpower!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s interesting about communication is that nobody is born<\/strong> a supercommunicator. There is no personality type that is more likely to be a supercommunicator. It is literally all just learned skill. 

However, it is a learned<\/strong> skill. Left alone, a baby will grow to crawl and then walk. That is instinct. But without input, a baby won\u2019t learn language. It has to be taught. And we DO teach children how to talk, how to read, and how to write. Yet how often are we teaching the skill of communication?? If you were lucky, you had someone role modelling it to and for you. But rarely is it actively taught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, according to the research, we are only using good communication skills about 30% of the time. 30%!!! Imagine only using a skill 30% of the time?!? 

Imagine if Superman only used his ability to fly 30% of the time. Instead of flying to save people in need, he walked. What a waste of energy. Of time and effort. Of possibility!! 

The thing is, communication is happening regardless – but what<\/strong> is being communicated is a function of how <\/strong>we communicate. And we unintentionally and often inadvertently give up that what by not actively choosing the how!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIME TO THINK…<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do we work on that how<\/em>? According to Nancy Kline, the creator and pioneer who developed The Thinking Environment and author of Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Everything we do depends for its quality on the thinking we do first<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like the difference between reacting and responding<\/a>, but on a much bigger scale: we need to think about how and what we communicate. Putting in the thought beforehand is going to level up your communication!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SUPERCOMMUNICATORS…<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came across Charles Duhigg and his book on\u00a0Supercommunicators<\/a>\u00a0when I heard him interviewed both on Simon Sinek\u2019s\u00a0podcast<\/a>\u00a0and in the Ten Percent Happier\u00a0podcast<\/a>.
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Duhigg learned that supercommunicators are those who \u201chave thought enough about communication to know how to recognize what kind of conversation is happening and then match other people and invite them to match themselves so that we really feel connected to them<\/em>.\u201d
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It is that element of connection that is what turns regular communication into a superpower, and as with Nancy Kline\u2019s book on Thinking, it is the\u00a0intention\u00a0<\/strong>and the\u00a0thought\u00a0<\/strong>behind our communication that is what takes it to the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SMART BREVITY…<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much of what I do in my role as a Speaker Coach<\/a> is help my clients recognize that more is less. We spend hours crafting dozens of slides to back up our presentations, when we really only need 5. We spend countless minutes describing how we got to a decision\/conclusion\/idea, rather than just talking about what it is. We use up so much air time, without actually saying much at all.

A colleague of mine recommended the book Smart Brevity<\/a> as an antidote to this. And it is brilliant! True to its title, the book itself is brief (only 214 pages, many of which are illustrations) and in fact you only need about an hour to read the book cover to cover. It opens with this fabulous quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever in the history of humanity have we vomited more words in more places with more velocity. […] Be honest. You\u2019re a prisoner to words. Writing them. Reading them. Listening to them<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0

As the authors write, \u201cwe\u2019re taught that length equals depth and importance<\/em>.\u201d And that conflation has led to us prioritizing quantity over quality.\u00a0

We also \u201ctend to think too much about what we want to say, versus what others need to hear<\/em>\u201d. Here here!! I\u2019ve been saying this for years. Decades, in fact!

This book is a short, powerful manifesto on how to communicate better:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n