INsight/ Connecting Starts Here

Photo by young rc on Unsplash

Manila, 28 October 2020 — Three steps to connect better with your audience.

Over the past weeks, we have been exploring what holds you back from being a better connector with the people who matter in your work and life. 

We reviewed the Three Connect Gaps that can keep you at a distance from other people, and we saw how it takes Courage to Connect. We also discovered the underlying question for you as a leader which is about Checking Your Curiosity at times when you and people around you are encountering a surplus of fear and uncertainty.

Moving forward, the question is what you will focus on to connect better with your audience. In this post, I offer you three steps to put into action. Here they are:

1. Expand Your Conversations

The first step is for you to expand your conversations, and remind yourself that your leadership happens in relationships, one conversation at a time.

The key is to be less full of yourself and walk over to the other person(s) with space in your head and heart. Meeting other people with an open mind and an open heart requires practice because you’re human and vulnerable to the Three Connect Gaps.

Acknowledge it when you’re enthusiastic. Observe your own ideas and emotions for what they are. Then practice transforming them from the subject into an object so that you are in control and they no longer live and drive you.  

Armed with these insights, go and practice to consciously expand your conversations. Do this every day or at least once a week. In #Grow3Leaders, we practice this on #WalkingWednesday. 

What that means is ‘walking over’ to meet the other person(s) where they’re at, on their turf. Be like that business executive who said it makes no sense waiting for people to come over to meet you. You need to walk over to them. 

2. Research Your Audience

The second step is to spend time and effort finding out more about your audience, whether that’s a single person, a team, or a larger group of people.

Who are they? What drives them, both at work and beyond work? As a leader who wants to influence change with your audience, you are likely biased by what (you think) they need. However, you’re better off starting with understanding what they want. Can you see that answering this question is more about them than your ideas about them?

Imagine what it would feel like for you to stand in their shoes. Building your ability to do that starts by working to understand what their problems are.  And breaking that down into problems they talk about, and problems that remain unspoken, ‘under the surface.’

Your research along these lines will help you understand their language, which in turn opens the door for you to communicate effectively with them. What language does your audience use? What are some of the keywords and phrases that they use frequently and seem to motivate and make sense of changes happening in their work and life?

You can start practicing this second step before you ‘walk over’ to meet them on their turf and where they’re at.

To make sense of the languages people speak, it helps when you have a good framework. In #Grow3Leaders and in my practice to coach leaders and businesses through transitions, we use the Work In All Colors method to recognize and master seven languages that we need in the workplace.

3. Speak Their Language

The third step is to learn to speak the language of your audience so you can connect effectively with their minds and hearts and thereby open the door to build trust and make a collaboration for change possible.

Get a handle on what language they speak when they’re at ease and what language they use when they’re under stress suffering from uncertainty and fear.

As you set out to learn to speak their language, become mindful of the cognitive bias of your own language that filters how you see them. Working with my clients, we use a questionnaire, followed by a private coaching session where you get to explore the results and what languages you can prioritize in your learning process.

Lots of practice is involved in conversations with your audiences to learn to speak their language effectively. To do this well, you will need to learn several languages, not just one. Some will be outside of your comfort zone. And you need feedback in order to get better at delivering your message in their language. 

In my experience working on this myself and coaching others in their journey, I discovered that you cannot do all of this by yourself. The strategies work more effectively, and with much more fun and fulfillment for you, when you Collab-orate with colleagues and get support from a mentor and/or coach. 

That’s why we invest a good amount of time and effort into the skill of Connecting in the #Grow3Leaders community, a safe space for leaders to practice with peers. See if you are up to the challenge? 

You can also reach out to work with me on this in one of our coaching programs. To explore that, set up a call with me here.