The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [76]
MECHANICS AND FLUID DYNAMICS
Productive work conversation means not more meetings, those drains of enthusiasm, but rather making words work harder, coordinating brain and spirit, and saving time.
The instruments are no different from normal conversation, just worth using more stringently than down the pub. And while dialogues—interviews, sales pitches—have different dynamics from group meetings, the same basic principles apply in each. Primarily, that communication is a two-way transaction. Sender and receiver should feel equally responsible for ensuring that messages ring out loud and clear.
➺ Rule three: Make allowances for the blinkers of your position
The imbalances of power or information in most business exchanges skew perceptions further. For instance, sociologists find that those in charge are biased to perceive unequal outcomes as fair, and less powerful parties strategize far more for encounters, so will be, understandably, correspondingly less satisfied. As if we needed sociologists to tell us that.
Effective communicators compensate for these biases, as golfers account for the slope and swell of the green when they putt. The best go one better and find an advantage. Use these dynamics deftly and you may ensure that others emerge happy from an exchange regardless of whether the outcome is one they wanted.
Tony Blair once had a wizardlike ability, an awed civil servant observed, “to make people walk away feeling taller—having opposed them.” Friendliness is less effective, however, if a listening ear doesn’t appear to hear. Andy Duncan, formerly of Unilever, then Channel 4, impressed his previous chairman as “open and informal,” a great team leader. Yet cynical underlings saw Duncan’s “toe-curlingly” pally style as a rubber head, claiming he exploited it to bounce off dissent,
maintaining there will always be those who disagree.... His supposed inclusivity was equally disarming: people were invited to talk to him, about anything, to voice their opposition to something, then he did what he set out to do.
So an enlightened boss should go out of his way to engage staff loyalty, presenting tasks as exclusive to them—i.e., strategize as hard for encounters as underlings. Meanwhile, enlightened employees should appreciate that their boss likes feeling good, and deploy positive presentation to make rewarding them easy. Good news gilds the bearer....
➺ Rule four: Every communication is a chance to make business easier
Managing up, down, or sideways, the communication goal is identical: Keep channels open, relationships flexible, feelings positive.
Before anything else, we must manage ourselves, using analysis and planning to compensate for our self-serving inclinations to blame others instead of examining causes and, likewise, to personalize success when surfing a lucky break (like stockbrokers with Master of the Universe complexes, deluded that their success is down to unique investment acuity, rather than prevailing fortunes brought by fair economic winds).
Complaining that a boss is woolly is self-defeating; better to enhance communication, clarify what is asked of you, and be a joy to employ. The pious view is to see it as entrepreneurial conversation, able to catalyze difficulty into a learning opportunity.
The basic recipe for successful shoptalk, like successful relationships, is finding common ground, then stretching it. Its basic ingredients are tact, salesmanship, and a firm grasp of the mechanics of communicating and receiving a message.
DEAR PRUDENCE
By Machiavelli’s measure, prudence is analytical and stoical,
When deciding whether to communicate, let cost-benefit analysis be your guide. That is, ask, “So what?”
Say Hayley in sales is taking credit for a deal your contacts secured. Before speaking up, ask, “Is it worth it?” Nobody likes a sneak. So what is there to gain? Is your motive power play, to let off steam, or for mutual