Edited transcription of “Credible Communications – Effective Communication in the 21st Century” webinar for the University of Denver Alumni Association.
Part IV of IV
I have an exciting tool and a resource for you, and I named the model ASK. Ask for breakthrough communications, so when you’re finding one of these situations, maybe you don’t see eye to eye with somebody, things are kind of going south. Maybe you’re dealing with different sets of facts, information or data or they want to do it one way and you want to do to another way. I have a simple formula called ASK that stands for Acknowledge, Situation Analysis and Take Action.
Here’s the model, and I’m just going to put it on the screen for you. Again, if it’s something you’re interested in, please reach out to me. I’m happy to share these questions and all of this information with you. But the first step is Acknowledge. What we’re trying to do here is to acknowledge feelings, to acknowledge what the person might be experiencing, and to get that out on the table.
Next is Situation Analysis. From a situation perspective, what we want to do is understand what is your perspective? Here’s my perspective, and what we’re getting at here are the facts, so perhaps in acknowledge, that’s where you might say you’re feeling frustrated. Here’s how I’m feeling. You can get the feelings out, and once the feeling’s out, let’s now solve the problem. What are the facts that you have? Here are the facts that I have. And then, last but not least, is our Take Action. What happens is, once you’ve got the feelings and the facts out, then you could really work on solving the problem. And the Take Action is about getting ownership and accountability and being clear about who’s doing what, and what those next steps are. So I call it ASK, and it’s Ask for Breakthrough Communications.
I’ve got three tips for Credible Communications and Professional Presence, and they are everything we’ve talked about today. Make sure your first impressions are lasting impressions. We talked a lot about that today. Become conscious of the verbal and nonverbal elements. Be aware of what might trigger you as far as you know – gestures and things that you might do that might take away from your power and from your credible communications. And last but not least, identify the unconscious behaviors that can detract from your presence.
We’re talking about how to be successful in communicating, and so the cartoon here is actually successes equals 2% inspiration 97% perspiration and 1% deodorant. And with that I want to take you to an Execution Plan. We all listen to different webinars, we go to seminars, we go to different educational things. What I want you to do is to put the things that we talked about today in practice. This is just a simple format, and again if you reach out to me I’m happy to share this with you. First and foremost – what’s your goal? What will you do? I want to ensure my verbal and non-verbal are consistent. I want to be more conscious of my impression, my first impressions that I make and how those translates to lasting impressions. I want to understand the impact of communication style. Last but not least, I want to identify the behaviors that detract from my presence.
Now these may not be your goals. I just put them up there to give you some ideas. From today, what steps will you take? What are the one or two or three things that you would like to do and then what are the key actions? Let’s just say you want to be more conscious of your first impressions, and be more aware of how you show up when you’re meeting people or when you’re on the phone, knowing that they’re just hearing your voice. So what steps can you take? One thing that I do when I’m on the phone, I tend to stand because that raises energy and it helps you with just getting your voice to inflect and getting it out there and it’s usually stronger. What are your desired outcomes? What’s important about this? What do you want to gain? Maybe you want people to see as a bit more powerful, more credible. I’m always big on when are you going to do this, when are you going to start it and when you’re going to finish.
So with that, that is my recommended execution plan for today. What are the two or three things that you would like to do, or do differently as a result of today, and put your actual plan together. I want to thank you for your time, your energy, for listening in and now I know we have just a few more minutes. I’d love to take some questions and I’ll turn this over to the Denver University folks who could help moderate our questions.
Charlotte (Denver University): Okay, so if any of you guys have questions you can put them in the chat and we can ask them on your behalf.
Shelley: And just again I wanted to say if there’s anything that you heard about today that you would like some additional information on, you see my information here please e-mail me at shammell@thesagealliance.com You can visit my website https://thesagealliance.com/ I’ve got lots of leadership articles and things posted. Or call me, I’m happy to speak with any of you. You’re part of DEU and if there’s anything I can do to help you I’d be happy to speak with you.
Charlotte any questions or do we have a quiet group today?
Charlotte: Well maybe you answered all of their questions with your amazing presentation. Oh. I think we have a question coming in.
Shelley: I will tell you one question that I tend to get about communications is what if, I need to reposition the way that I’ve been communicating. Maybe I’ve been doing some of these either detractors, or I haven’t been aware of my emotions? How do I go about changing that? And really it starts the moment that you start communicating differently. What I usually do with my clients, my coaching clients, I’ll ask them from a self-awareness perspective, to either write something down or to track how often they do something.
So let’s say you want to take a motion out of the way in which that you speak, or when you’re interacting with somebody, and you get tense or emotional about something. When you can do this, you can track it and so how many times are you being emotional and track it over the course of a day, a week, a month and then whatever works for you – tie string to your finger put something on your calendar at the start of every day – “I’m not going to be emotional.” Write a sticky, whatever your system is, and then start tracking the times that you aren’t emotional and compare and contrast, and even if you start to get emotional and you catch yourself that’s just the win right there. So that’s something that a lot of people ask. Just how do I go about changing something that I’ve noticed I don’t like in my communication?
Charlotte: Alright. So I have a question. Someone wanted to say that they have a client who gets really wound up and they start to worry about this person, so they’re wondering, if you have any suggestions on how to calm other people down, or to help them manage their emotions in a professional environment.
Shelley: Yeah. And it’s really the things that we talked about. It’s when I was talking about the 90% of people that of top leaders that you know they re-direct. They do all of those things that we talked about that can help. But if your client is ultimately emotional, I suggest that you use that ASK model that I shared with you and whoever that is, go ahead send me an e-mail, reach out, I’ll send you the article, the model, all the information. I have a client that I’m working with, and she has a very difficult client, and she used the ASK and she was shocked at how well it worked.
The first step is acknowledging how they’re feeling, and by the way, when you acknowledge it doesn’t mean you’re saying oh you’re right and I’m wrong. It doesn’t mean anything like that. It’s just you’re acknowledging that they’re upset, or they’re frustrated or that they’re worrying, or whatever their emotion is and you’re letting them know that you’re listening. And then you can say okay, you know I see that you’re upset, I see that you’re worried, let’s talk about what are some of the things that would make you feel more comfortable here. And then you could get into the facts and the problem-solving, and once again I’m happy to share that model with anyone. Any other questions from, from our listeners.
Charlotte: I don’t see anything right now. But we can give it another few seconds if you want.
Shelley: Okay. I think the biggest thing, and this is something else that I hear a lot is, usually when I present this in a large setting, most people don’t realize the nonverbal communications. I would love for everybody who’s listening in here today to pick something that they do on the nonverbal side. Maybe you cross your arms, maybe you know, you do something, your stance maybe you don’t make good eye contact, whatever it is take something that will help you be more effective.
And then the other area where I usually get lots of questions is about the listening. The listening to respond instead of listening to understand. I want to challenge each and every one of you to do whatever works, but literally sit on your hands the next time you’re in a meeting with your customer, on a phone call – whatever it is – and when somebody says something, you’re just ready to jump in that you’re actually going to pause and then speak. I promise you when you do that pause, you’re actually going to be taking in more information, and you’re not thinking about formulating what your answer is. Any more questions before we wrap up?
Charlotte: I think that’s it. Thanks Shelley! Thank you so much, and we will be sure to get this presentation out to everyone who we were marketing this too, so we can also forward on any questions that we receive on our end as well.
Shelley: Yes please do, and I’m happy to speak to anybody. Thank you.
Charlotte: Thank you.
Sage Alliance, a Leadership Performance Company, provides coaching, teambuilding and assessments, workshops and speaking on topics including; leadership development, empowering teams, communications, lasting impressions, personal branding and building a coaching culture for executives and high-potentials – for both team and individual leaders.
Contact us today to discover how your organization can get the most through improved productivity, efficiency and direct impact to your bottom line, while leaders gain powerful insight, crystallize opportunities for growth and fine tune their strengths, enabling them to make the greatest impact. You can contact Shelley Hammell directly at shammell@thesagealliance.com.