Hello listeners, welcome to Social Skills Coaching, where you become more likeable,
more charismatic and more productive.
Today is March 13, 2024.
We're diving into another section of Patrick King's Conversation Skills training today,
focusing on bad communication habits to avoid.
Are you curious how it works?
Tune in to learn how this simple strategy can create strong connections and leave a
lasting impression.
For more tips on effective communication, check out Patrick King's book or visit his
website at bit.ly-pk-consulting.
Let's get started.
After Bad Communication Habits To Avoid Maybe you read the previous descriptions
of barriers to communication and thought it all sounded a little serious.
Perhaps you are simply looking for ways to improve everyday conversation and not necessarily
become a master at juggling the deep and meaningful stuff.
However, even if you are, on the whole, a flexible, open-minded and non-judgmental communicator,
you may still fall into the common habitual conversational traps that plague the best of
us.
That's because the biggest barrier to excellent communication is all those small, mindless,
and automatic acts that erode trust and connection.
Granted, these conversational habits don't mean that you have psychological issues with
prejudice or a deep-seated need for control, but, in a way, knee-jerk habits like these
are worse because they are usually invisible, unconscious, and may even be encouraged by
your general environment.
Before we take an earnest look at what we should be doing to become better communicators,
let's explore a few more things not to do.
Human life is largely comprised of conversations.
Every relationship, every human interaction, every job, everything, at some point, requires
you to encounter and engage with another human being.
And whether you fancy yourself a world-class communicator or would sooner send an email
than deal with face-to-face discussion, chances are you have at least a few terrible communication
habits that drive people nuts, yes, even you.
Now the following habits won't cause major blowouts or serious miscommunication, and
they're not the end of the world, but they're good, low-hanging fruit to begin with as we
embark on sharpening our communication skills.
Constantly interrupting
Maybe you interrupt because you're excited by what the other person just said.
You simply have to interject and say your thing.
Maybe you interrupt because unconsciously you think that what you have to say is more
urgent or more important.
Maybe you're doing it because you're rushing the conversation along, having already jumped
to conclusions about what the other person means and made your judgments about it.
In any case, it doesn't matter why you do it, only that it makes the other person feel
awful.
It's understandable, you want to be heard, but so do they.
Take it a step further and don't even think about interrupting.
You know what this means.
When you are suddenly more interested in your own response to what's being said than listening
to what's being said, it shows.
The other person can tell that your attention has suddenly moved inward and you are preparing
a response.
A good habit is this.
After someone stops speaking, pause, and count slowly to three in your head.
This sends the message, I'm here, I'm paying attention, and I care about what you have
to say, and let's the other person know they don't have to rush to get a word in and that
you are respectful enough to pause to process what they're saying.
Multitasking A conversation merits more than the few
glances you can muster when you finally tear your eyes away from your iPhone.
We are probably all guilty of the practice of multitasking, at least occasionally.
No matter how insignificant or pointless your interactions may appear, you must be there
for them.
In other words, you can't mindlessly check your phone or run through your grocery list.
Pay close attention to the people you're talking to.
Qualifiers Not to be rude or offensive, but this could
be a horrible idea, but I know what you're thinking, but...
Qualifiers, i.e., little expressions said before or after a statement with the intention
of softening or mitigating that statement, certainly have their place.
Overusing them, though, can be pretty annoying.
Why?
In the right circumstances, they can come across as condescending and unneeded.
Remember the manipulative communication style?
Nobody wants to feel like they're being managed or handled.
If you go to great lengths to use qualifiers, it may stir up feelings of mistrust in your
listener, who could wonder why you're not just being direct.
Remind yourself that the word but is kind of magical.
People tend to discount everything that came before that word.
It's yet another barrier, albeit one that is mostly just annoying.
Equating Your Experiences
In Chapter 4, we'll look more closely at mastering the emotional aspects of effective communication.
But for now, it's enough to banish this single, meaningless phrase from your repertoire.
I know exactly how you feel.
It's even worse if you then proceed to tell a lengthy story about a time when you've felt
similarly, despite the fact that the two situations are completely dissimilar.
Keep in mind that every person's journey is unique.
It's good that you're making an effort to be empathetic, but think about it from the
other side.
Has hearing about someone else's hard time ever made you feel less unhappy about your
own troubles?
Probably not.
Whether you can understand another person's experiences or not is irrelevant.
Almost always it will not feel good for them to hear it.
Floundering We've all encountered people who ramble on
without a point, as though they like the sound of their own voices.
If you have a tendency to do this yourself, constantly try to remember how mind-numbing
it is to be on the receiving end.
Floundering and waffling on and on is usually a bad habit we get into when we're nervous
or unconsciously afraid that something bad will happen, unless we keep performing and
filling the silence.
But like every other poor communication strategy listed here, it doesn't work.
The more we talk, the less people listen.
Think carefully, say what you need to say, and be straightforward and succinct when you
talk.
Have faith that you've been heard, and if you haven't been heard, just let it go, because
it's likely that you would not have convinced anyone to care or understand simply by going
on ad nauseam.
Waiting Instead of Listening Everyone knows they should be a good listener.
To be honest, most of us are better at acting the role of good listener than actually being
one.
Rather than listening with all our attention to what we're told, we're really just waiting
our turn.
Of course, we might be listening with an agenda, discarding what doesn't fit the agenda, hearing
what we like, and spending the next few minutes drafting a witty response, just as soon as
the other person stops talking.
If this is a bad habit to break, remind yourself of the fact that people can usually tell when
you're not listening.
It's not easy to hide, and it makes you appear selfish, disinterested, and unkind.
Fluff and filler words Padding out your speech with filler words may be more or less acceptable,
depending on your age, culture, and social situation, but it's almost always better
to avoid it entirely.
F filler words are things like um, ah, okay, like, you know, you see, uh, right, kinda,
so actually, er, hmm, and so on.
You may in fact have your own personal verbal tick.
For example, some people have a strange habit of ending every sentence with a dangling, so
that doesn't go anywhere.
Others will liberally sprinkle like or um everywhere, still, others will have overused
turns of phrase that add nothing at all to the message.
For example, the woman who ends every simple phrase with, if that makes sense, or the guy
who cannot open his mouth without saying, yeah, well, try this challenge for yourself.
Once you've identified your own pet filler words, try to consciously replace them with
plain old silence.
Just say nothing and pause until you can say something that isn't a filler word.
If you can be mindful enough to do this in the moment, you may be surprised at just how
polished and put together you come across.
You don't have to say anything profound, just remove the filler words and you automatically
seem more self-assured, authoritative, and sophisticated.
Note of course that if you deliberately don't want to appear that way, then ignore this advice.
So interrupting, being distracted, trying to make every conversation about you all these
smaller conversation killing habits are actually expressions of one deeper, bigger problem,
conversational narcissism.
We are all guilty of this to some extent.
A conversation is about two people.
Even beyond that, a good conversation is one where both people have actively participated
and both have connected with one another.
That simply means that to the extent you are focusing only on yourself, the conversation
will be lacking somehow.
The more you can focus on the other person, the better the conversation will be.
This realization seems pretty obvious on the face of it.
Look around and you'll notice that almost all cases of miscommunication or failed connection
come from, in one way or another, conversational narcissism.
Whether the obstacles are psychological, behavioral, or just bad habits we've fallen
into, if they put us at the center and cause us to forget the other person and their perspective,
then our communication will never be everything it has the potential to be.
The Report Game Imagine you're sitting across the street from
a cafe and watching three tables, each with two people having a conversation.
At table A, both people are leaning in together, seemingly mocking, seemingly mimicking one
another's facial expressions and hand gestures, while at table B, the people talking are looking
very serious and low energy.
But they've both leaned back in their chairs and, just like table A, seem to me mirroring
one another's behavior.
Table C is different.
One person is seemingly excited and smiling, while the other is calmer, speaking less,
and adopting a completely different posture and facial expression.
Not knowing anything about the content of the conversation, you can probably tell, even
from afar, which conversations are going well and which one isn't.
That's because at its most fundamental, good communication is not about the words you say,
but the degree of concordance, harmony, and synchronicity between you and the person you're
talking to.
So this is exactly our next pit stop on our journey to becoming better communicators.
Mirroring and matching.
Have you ever actually wondered what chemistry is?
That fizzle of energy and connection between two people is something that's difficult to
describe, but you definitely know it when you feel it.
However mysterious it feels, this chemistry is actually well explained as an evolutionary
adaptation that has helped our species bond, connect, and establish trust, even before we
developed verbal language.
Mirroring and matching doesn't need much explanation.
You've seen it with your own eyes.
When we match and mirror, we mimic not just what others say, but how they say it, the
words they use, their accents, turns of phrase, gestures, posture, voice tone, pitch and volume,
and facial expressions.
Here's the thing.
We all instinctively know how to mirror and match.
It's just that the more charismatic among us know how to do it deliberately.
In the 1970s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder introduced a communication theory called Neuro-Linguist
programing, an LP.
They claim that most people tend to feel happier and more comfortable around those who are
similar to them, even if this recognition of similarity is largely unconscious.
Have you ever noticed two people get together for the first time and immediately start to
look for things in common between them?
They may smile as they both realize they grew up in the same area, or like the same
shows when they were kids, or both indirectly know the same people.
As they do this, they may start to reflect and mimic one another, matching the other's
tone of voice, hand movements, and other idiosyncrasies.
It's as though the more similar we feel to the person in front of us, the more we feel
that they can hear and understand us, and the more we trust and like them.
Fearing is copying and reflecting a behavior in the same moment.
So they smile and you smile.
They whisper, and so do you.
Done right, it creates feelings of harmony and synchrony, like you're both doing a coordinated
dance in time with one another.
Matching is copying and reflecting, but not necessarily at the same time, so perhaps they
use an unusual or noteworthy turn of phrase, which you remember and return to later in
the conversation.
Almost literally communicating, I speak the same language as you.
The wonderful thing is that mirroring and matching can create strong feelings of harmony
and connection, even without you saying a word.
It's difficult to estimate just how much communication is nonverbal, but it's clear
that the proportion is significant.
Whether you're meeting someone new, talking to an old friend, or trying to navigate a
prickly conflict, matching and mirroring is a great skill to master, since it always
gives you a solid base on which to build.
There are three main ways to build rapport by using matching and mirroring.
Way one, match and mirror external communication cues.
Body language and nonverbal communication are prior to verbal communication.
If you adopt the same posture as the person in front of you, you duplicate their experience
in your own body and can understand more about their position, literally.
You also communicate that you're on the same wavelength and will create feelings of being
in sync.
In conversation, simply notice how open or closed body language as a whole seems.
Look for tension, crossed arms, hunched posture, closed fists, frowning, or relaxation, open
arms, expressive hands, legs uncrossed.
Without aping them very obviously, try to match this degree of openness or closeness.
Next, notice gestures, i.e., body postures in motion.
Are they moving quickly or slowly?
Are they graceful and flowing?
Or sharp and staccato?
Wide and expansive, fidgety, protective, restrained?
How do the gestures line up with everything else in the conversation?
Match and mirror this.
You can also match and mirror facial expressions.
In fact, you might find you do this automatically just by paying close attention to the other
person.
You could focus on just one most notable aspect, for example, the eyebrows or corners of the
mouth.
Again, see if you can match the position, movement, and degree of openness or closeness
here, especially at points in the conversation when emotional content is being communicated.
You could say, I know how you feel, but when your facial expression matches theirs, you're
doing something more powerful.
You're showing that you understand what they mean.
Way to?
Match and mirror voice and language.
This is a rich area to tap.
Consider all the aspects of the voice that have nothing to do with the words used.
Tone, rate, or speed, volume, both loudness and simply the amount of speech, pitch, how
high or low, pace, inflection, and modulation.
How you deliver your sentences and the flow of speech, for example, with lots of variation
or with the steady, even monotone.
You can match and mirror on any of the five above aspects, or potentially all of them.
The key, however, is to do it subtly and naturally.
For example, if the person you're speaking to is talking quickly, fast rate, speaking
quite loudly, high volume, and in a high pitch, and talking with an excitable and highly
inflected tone, then you can signal your empathy and understanding of their frame of mind by
mimicking some of this yourself.
You could subtly raise your own pitch, talking a little louder than you ordinarily would,
and mirror that excitement back at them.
Overall, you're attempting to match the energy of what they're communicating.
Just remember that the voice is a part of the body, so every aspect of the voice is
essentially body language.
One thing you might not have considered is what communication experts call sensory predicates.
Basically these are systems of meaning that we use to explain our experiences.
We each have a system, whether we're aware of it or not, i.e., we might favor descriptions
and explanations that are visual, auditory, kinesthetic, feeling, auditory digital.
A few examples will show how sensory predicates play out in real life.
A visual predicate, for example, uses language, symbolism, and metaphors that are based in
the physiology of sight.
So you might pepper your speech with terms like, picture this, look, view, bright, reveal,
short-sighted, paint a picture, I can see, clear, dim, etc.
Similarly, more auditory to do with sound predicates will include phrases like, listen, tell,
clear as a bell, on the same frequency, lend me your ears, strike a note, loud and clear, etc.
Kinesthetic and feeling predicates may overlap somewhat and mix both meanings of the word
feel.
For example, I'm touched, concrete, solid, hot and bothered, get in touch, handhold, grasp,
make contact, etc.
So-called auditory digital predicates are more focused on the cognitive experience of
the world.
For example, with terms like, understand, know, think, process, figure it out, pay attention,
wonder, etc.
The point of understanding the predicates someone uses is so that you can match and
mirror these, too.
The result can be an instant connection of feeling and rapport.
For example, if someone consistently uses visual predicates, they may say, I like the
look of this idea, you've painted such a clear picture of the most important goals.
If you pick up on this, you can continue and expand the visual metaphors, or include your
own by later saying something like, I see what you mean, I'm glad we're focusing on
the same vision here.
Now this might not seem like much, but it's a powerful way to unconsciously signal that
you speak the same language, and even more than this, inhabit the same perceptual world
as the other person.
If you're not entirely clear which kind of predicate the person is using, it's no big
deal.
Simply prick your ears.
Use an auditory one to the kinds of metaphors they use, and repeat or expand on them, rather
than abruptly switching to a different metaphor.
So now you know, ditch the I know exactly how you feel, and start mirroring and matching.
It's a powerful tool for building connection, and remember, good communication is about
showing you understand, not just saying it.
Thanks for joining us on Social Skills Coaching, we'll see you next Wednesday.