Planning Your Communication

Later on in this post, I'm going to tell you what really effective communicators do to make their listeners sit up and pay attention. I'm going to tell you what they do to ensure their listeners respond as they are intended to. And you'll be surprised at how obvious it is.

Really effective communicators plan their communication.

That's it? Yes, but that doesn't mean that they sit down and write a script, it means they tell their audience what they are supposed to do with the communication. Here's an example. I'm going to ask you a question. In a moment, I want you to make a choice. Here's something you need to decide on. You may have found that paragraph a little confusing, as it directed your attention in many different directions without closing any of the opening statements.

Before you say what you want to say, tell your audience what you want them to do. This is really just another way of directing people's attention, and it's very effective for managing the way people respond to what you say.

Here are a few more examples of this simple yet effective tool:

“I'm going to ask you a question now that I want you to think very carefully about before you answer”

“In a moment, I'm going to ask you to stand up”

“Here's a really important point for you to consider”

“This is what I want you to do”

“Before you fill out your feedback forms, I'm going to ask you a question”

“When we get back from lunch, I'm going to have you do some really creative group work”

“Before you finish reading your handbook, I would like you to think of at least three new ways you'll use all the great stuff you're learning.”

If you tie this simple concept in with the goal setting exercises that you'll read about later on, you will quickly become a very powerful and congruent communicator, because the people you speak to will be able to understand easily and quickly what you want from them. It may be agreement, it may be an answer, or it may just be their attention. Whatever you want, you're more likely to get it if you tell people what it is!

In organisations, people often launch into transmission mode during meetings and then wonder why their colleagues pull their project updates apart. Sometimes, decisions go round in circles forever and never quite get made. We have come to learn what to expect from meetings, and if you are invited to a meeting then there may be an implicit expectation that you'll contribute. Meetings everywhere would be far more productive if people applied this simple principle. For example, saying “Here is an update on my project, I don't need any advice or feedback at this stage, it's for your information only” tells people exactly what is expected of them. Conversely, presenting a huge volume of facts and figures and only then asking people to make a decision is simply asking for trouble. If you tell people up front what you expect, they will pay attention in the right places and be able to make a decision when you need them to, instead of saying they need more time to think.

So, this is what I'm suggesting you do. Whenever you want a specific response to what you tell people, first tell them what you want them to do.


This post is an extract from my book NLP - Skills for Learning which you can download for FREE from Bookboon. How marvellous!