» Communication

The business does not exist in which there is too much communication. Too much noise and shouting at one another, maybe. And what communication there is is often sub-optimal because many people don’t understand what’s going on when we communicate with other people. The mistake is to think that communication is just the transfer of information—it isn’t, which is why emotional intelligence is essential to good communication.

Communication

On communication and media

Marshall McLuhan’s work was characterised by two things: an extraordinary prescience and a capacity for a remarkable turn of phrase.

Attitude

Attitude is not a negative word. It’s true you can have a bad attitude towards something; but equally you can have a good attitude towards something, for example business

Full steam ahead

Newsletter 117 : 19 july 2016

The intergenerational communication gap at work

That there is an intergenerational communication gap shouldn’t come as surprise. Many people experience it directly. And, ’twas ever thus:

Perception is projection

Perception and projection are two psychological processes. They are values-neutral, neither good nor bad in themselves. We repress stuff in our minds which we find hard to

Setting the right intention

Accept 100% responsibility for your outcomes and accept that there’s another person in the discussion with their own set of needs, wants, desires and outcomes

Resistance

To handle resistance to your ideas and influence during negotiation, you will first need to know why there is an objection. Typically, people object or resist because they:

A short piece about how we interpret communication

The meaning of a message is what the recipient makes of it... The outcome of any communication is what we intend it to be

A short piece about being assertive

Being assertive means respecting yourself and other people; seeing people as equal to you, not better than you or less important than you. The goal of assertive behaviour is

Building rapport—1

Rapport is the ability to relate to others in a positive and constructive way which emphasises the humanity and ‘otherness’ of other people.

Chunking up and down

‘Chunking up’ refers to moving from specific, or small scale ideas or pieces of information to more general, larger ones. ‘Chunking down’ (obviously) means going the other

Saying ‘no’: 13 tips

Sometimes you have to be able to say 'no' and not leave yourself open to influence or manipulation. When we just take on everything thrown at us, our bosses and colleagues

How to improve your business website—1

Stay with this. Although what I will propose may sound radical, it doesn’t need much work now; you can add to it later (and for search engine purposes, should be built up

Behavioural flexibility

Sometimes we get on instantly with another person, sometimes there’s a clash. The clash arises because one or both people have insufficiently considered the needs of the other.

Noticing body language: 14 tips

Humans are the only animals to communicate using words. The rest of the animal kingdom manages very well with non-verbal signals. Your body language releases lots of subtle

Metaprograms

Metaprograms are ways in which people choose to approach life and their relationships with other people

A short piece about disputes

The problem with disputes in relationships is that they are never about what the people in dispute think the dispute is about.

A short piece about making the other person more important than you

This means : Think and feel about other people, behave towards other people as if they were more important than you.

Why you can’t teach soft skills

You can’t teach “soft skills” because they aren’t skills, and the only things you can teach are skills.

Another shiny red car

A few years ago, it was time to replace my car. Off I went to Bristol Street Motors in Stroud, where I had already bought two second hand cars, in search of a third.

Stop selling!—1: Two barrels

Imagine you have two barrels. One is full of expensive wine, the other is full of urine.

Fresh fish sold here daily

I once came across a fishmonger in the high street (in a bygone age when we had fishmongers and we had high streets). He was proudly displaying a large message board on which

How to transform a relationship in twenty minutes

The client of a colleague reported difficulty being a parent to his middle child. The child was clearly unhappy. The father was unhappy because he did not know what to do

The best way to make decisions

Note, this article is not called “the way to make the best decisions”. However, the best method of decision making goes as follows.

Short story

Superb concision.

The coaching conversation

Well formed outcomes are essential in defining or gathering requirements with a client. In fact, they are (or should be) the requirements. An outcome is the answer to the

Being right

Being right can be a big problem for people in charge—and indeed for people whose quality of service relies on their capacity to give good advice: accountants, financial

On eyes and looking

Look before you leap?

On women and men

"If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him." Chekhov

Shiny red car

One day, a driving instructor wrote in and asked for comments about his website. Could we think of any ways to improve it?

On silence

...nine quietly effective quotations

What does it all mean?

People are forever asking "what do you mean by...?" The following glossary is what we mean by key words.

Being a hypocrite

It's easy to be hypocritical, but you need to be a national politician to do it spectacularly. More examples (from any era) welcomed.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EI) was popularised by Daniel Goleman in his book, Emotional intelligence. In it, Goleman cites five domains of EI...

Thinker, feeler, knower, sensor ?

In 1928, Carl Jung identified that people receive and process information in four ways: thinking, feeling, intuition and sensing (in a kinaesthetic sense)

Purpose and outcomes

Whether it is a meeting, a conversation, a business, a job, a holiday—absolutely any human activity—it is worth asking: “What is the purpose of this meeting, conversation,

On truth

Personally, I am not sure there is anything called "truth". There are true statements but, just as there is not a concrete thing called "greenness" even though there are

Twelve principles of effective communication

The outcome of any communication is what we intend it to be.

Don’t push—be curious

My company is called Jeremy Marchant Limited. But that makes it too much about me, so I decided to trade under the brand emotional intelligence at work

Drill

Apart from a few odd individuals, people don’t buy power tools so they can slip into the garage and caress them. They buy an electric drill because they need a hole in the wall.

The perfect ten minute presentation

In ten minutes, you can say a lot. What you say depends on

Elevator pitch

What do you say in thirty seconds about your business? There are two answers to this question: the conventional one and the useful one.

Influencing others

To help us understand how to be more influential it’s useful to understand what generates our and others’ behaviour.

Well formed outcomes

Well formed outcomes are essential for any service provider in defining or gathering requirements with a client

Talking about your business

It is essential to be able to give a statement of what your business does that is brief, comprehensible and useful to the particular person to whom you are talking.

Tying up the cat

When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them.

The meaning of a communication is what the recipient makes of it

The outcome of any communication is what we intend it to be

We can only understand what someone says to us in the context of our own experiences and attitudes. We cannot import the other person into our minds.

Assertiveness

Being assertive means respecting yourself and other people; seeing people as equal to you, not better than you or less important than you.

Expecting a response

"I seem to have a problem when I congratulate people for something and they don't say anything in return ..."

Two cars

Two yuppies were out one sunny summer day, racing around the country lanes, each in their open top sports car.

Oasis

Two people are wandering, lost in the desert. They are dying from hunger and thirst.

Tears before bedtime

"A TV boss has been embarrassed after an email she sent to colleagues was belatedly leaked..."

Communication

Further reading