People ask me about my talk/training program CommFix quite a bit, so give me three minutes, and I’ll explain it. And I’ll also explain why I think that more than anything else I’ve studied during the forty years I’ve been machete-ing my way through the jungles of human communication, that this has more power to change lives than anything else I’ve chopped.
I’m going to start by suggesting something, and I encourage you to have absolutely no emotional response to it.
It’s not going to be easy to not feel an emotion here. The normal responses to what I’m going to say range from positive feelings like curiosity, openness, even eagerness, and excitement, or over into way more negative feelings, like anxiety, shame, defensiveness, offendedness, resistance, anger, even outrage and vicious rejection of the concept -- "How dare you!!!"
It’s up to you where you land.
Here it is, my launch statement --
You may not be a perfect communicator.
You may have -- wait for it -- “flaws.”
There. Sorry. I know, it’s a lot to take. Just sit and breathe for a moment.
You also do many, many things incredibly well! (You do. We all do. Humans are amazingly good at communication. If you unpack all that we do in a single conversation it's almost magical.)
But we're not talking about amping strengths just yet. That would be CommAmp, which we can also do. But not yet. Right now, it's CommFix.
Now try this statement on for size.
You may even be a horrible communicator. You may have communication habits embedded in the very fabric of how you talk that almost everyone universally hates.
People may not actually enjoy talking to you.
They may -- wait, this is going to hurt -- not like you because of these flaws. (Flaws of which you probably aren’t even aware.)
See? Way more inflammatory. Now we’re getting somewhere.
What kind of flaws am I talking about? Oh, they are legion. Maybe you interrupt people a lot. Maybe you take way too much talk time when you get a turn. Maybe you only talk about yourself. Maybe you never ask people about themselves. Maybe you look at your cell phone while someone is talking to you. Maybe you mumble. Maybe you’re aggressive. Maybe you’re bad with logic.
Maybe, maybe… well, maybe a lot.
There’s no way around the fact that we all have communication weaknesses. Things we don’t do well. Skills we’re missing. Tactics we’ve never even heard of.
You may have inherited dysfunctional communication techniques from your family of origin. (Remember how your Dad barely talked? Eh? Yeah, that guy. It affected you.)
Your psyche may be hanging out inside your head telling you to communicate one way, even if that way of communicating may not serve you well (it might even get you disliked, avoided, ostracized, fired).
You may love the way you talk, but the people around you may be way less enamored of it. (If you asked them, in a safe way, what they don’t like about how you talk, you’d probably get some feedback that might change your life, and your relationship to that person. You might. Or they might just avoid the possible danger, and lie to you.)
So I’d like you to accept as fact that you might not communicate perfectly.
This doesn’t make you a bad person. This isn’t a reason to feel shame, or embarrassment, or guilt, or defensiveness.
It’s just who we are as a species. Communication is very, very complicated (even though we seem to do it so easily). We all have areas of limited function, or outright dysfunction.
We can’t be great communicators in every situation. For every communication type. For every different person we talk to. In every culture.
I am so, so sorry to bring you that news. We all love perfection. We all love the idea that we are really, really good communicators. We all love us. Ourselves. (Generally.) And we usually love the way we talk.
But -- and this is another biggie -- you cannot keep communicating in dysfunctional ways. Love yourself, but you have to stop talking dysfunctionally. You have to.
You have to see your issues. Acknowledge them. Understand them.
And change them.
Because if you don’t, you will forever continue to partially be the cause of your own problems. And failures.
You will fail when failure could have been easily avoided.
If you never fix your communication flaws, and you continue to expose others to those flaws, you will lower the quality of your own life. Because your comm flaws will push people away. Your flaws will keep you from getting rewards (things like promotions, invitations to parties, second dates -- you know, the good stuff).
And that doesn’t have to happen.
Because the goodest of news is that all communication flaws are fixable. They’re mechanical issues. If you are made aware of them, if you get some training to reset them, you can turn your flaws into fabulousnesses. I’ve seen it happen. Many times, in fact.
Maybe one of your flaws is that people say you don’t listen very well. Great. Highly common flaw. People “hear” that one a lot.
And it is highly, highly fixable.
Because it’s actually many sub-flaws all gathering up under “doesn’t listen.” And each of those -- once isolated -- can be fixed.
One way people judge you as a bad listener is that you don’t seem to focus on them, you seem distracted by “other things.” But you may have a brain that wants to think about nine things at once, and so listening to one stream of stimulus -- a human being, right in front of you, talking -- is a big challenge.
So fix it. Tell people, “I promise I’m listening. My brain just jumps around, but I’m here. I’m with you. Give it to me. Keep going. I’m just going to trim these seven bonsai trees while you do.”
That’s a tactic of giving people overt explanations about how you communicate. So they know what’s going on. They don’t assume you aren’t listening.
Overtness is a wonderful fix. Gorgeous. (And so rarely used.)
Or learn to do the effective “I’m listening” signaling.
Verbally backchannel -- say the little stuff -- “Got it. Interesting. Huh. Tell me more.”
Nonverbally send “I’m interested” signals -- head nod, eyebrow raise, make eye contact, keep your face turned toward the person.
Ask direct probe questions -- (like clarifying questions -- “Tell me more about that. Explain that to me. Why would he do that?")
Finally, you can “prove” that you listen by remembering what was said. Even if you have to consciously force yourself to remember. Even if you have to sit down and jot a few notes. Maybe you don’t remember verbal details well. That’s okay, make a shift, add in a new technique -- take some notes.
What you can’t do is just continue your flawed behaviors and not expect people to hold it against you. We need to see that you are putting out effort at getting better. We need to see you work to fix your flaws.
“Aw, you remembered. I love that.”
(That’s the response you’re after. Not -- “Seriously? How could you forget that? How little do I matter to you? Unbelievable!” That’s the response you don’t want.)
It really doesn’t matter how you fix a flaw. There are hundreds and hundreds of alternative communication tactics, techniques, strategies, and fixes.
What matters is that you fix the flaw.
Fix the flaw. Fix the flaw. Fix the flaw.
And I promise you are going to get rewarded for that fix.
That's CommFix. And we all need it.
(I mean, some people might even say I overload blog posts with tons of info after saying I only want three minutes of your time. So guilty. I am so, so guilty.)
(Of course, the big reward of letting go of flaws is that people love to talk to low-flaw, highly skilled communicators. Heck, maybe you can even add in some of the super-positives and become a “super communicator.”
Then things really get good.)