Talent is Hard to Find #90
Only 7% of your communication is the words you choose, yet we spend our time crafting the perfect words for our presentations, pitches and difficult conversations. Don’t get me wrong, the words are important. They’re just not as important as we make them.
93% of what matters is not the words. It’s the other “stuff” that creates meaning for our listeners. It’s your body language, eye contact, intonation, emotion/conviction, and voice. All of these things create context for the message you’re delivering.
When you have a challenging message to deliver, a sensitive conversation to have, a crucial conversation waiting to happen, it’s better to ask yourself how much trust you have in the relationship than plan the right words to say.
If trust is high, you can use the wrong words, muck up the details and basically enter into it unprepared because you are afforded the opportunity to make mistakes.
If trust is low, you can prepare, do everything right, have all your proverbial ducks in a row and you have very little room for error. It could be a one and done opportunity that makes or breaks that conversation and/or relationship.
So this begs the question, what can you do to build trust every day with those people you interface with so when the time comes, you can enter into your conversation authentically and worry less about the words?
Food for thought…more on this in next week’s blogs. I’m doing a lot of work with teams on building trust, team health and communication right now. It’s a winning strategy that pays off when talent is hard to find.