A young man whom I had known since he was in high school stopped
by to see me and proudly display his new MBA.
“I know a master’s degree alone doesn’t guarantee success,” he
said. “What do you think is the most important quality for
someone who wants to become a business leader?”
I answered without hesitation: The ability to communicate.
Individuals who communicate effectively with people at all
levels, of both genders, and from a variety of cultures and
backgrounds are today’s pacesetters.
In the old-style hierarchical, authoritarian setting,
communication is relatively simple. The top person tells the
underlings to jump, and the underlings need only ask, “How high?”
In a modern organization, communication requires more finesse.
The leader is not a transmitter of commands but a creator of
motivational environments.
The workers are not robots responding to switches and levers,
but thinking individuals pouring their ingenuity into the
corporate purpose.
The corporate ideal is not mechanical stability, but dynamic,
innovative, continuous change.
The leader who can’t communicate can’t create the conditions
that motivate. The genius who can’t communicate is
intellectually impotent. The organization that can’t communicate
can’t change, and the corporation that can’t change is dead.
The good news is that anyone can become an effective
communicator. The door to effective communication will open to
anyone who uses these five keys:
(1) Desire. Human infants have an inborn desire to communicate,
and that desire enables them to pick up words quickly and to
enlarge their vocabularies continuously.
That same kind of desire can enable you to enlarge your stock of
words and improve your skill in employing them. Demosthenes, the
Greek orator, had a desire to achieve eloquence after he was
hissed and booed off the platform in Athens.
He cultivated the art of speech writing, then went to the shores
of the Aegean Sea, where he strengthened his voice by shouting
into the wind for hours at a time.
To improve his diction, he practiced speaking with pebbles in
his mouth. To overcome his fear, he practiced with a sword
hanging over his head. To clarify his presentation, he studied
the techniques of the masters.
Today, more than 2,000 years later, the name Demosthenes is
synonymous with oratorical eloquence.
(2) Understanding the Process. Reduced to basics, communication
consists of sending and receiving messages.
Language is the primary conveyer of thoughts and ideas. It turns
abstract concepts into words that symbolize those thoughts.
Those words take the form of spoken sounds or written symbols.
If the mind can immediately translate the sounds and symbols
into mental pictures, communication becomes much more vivid and
much more meaningful. If I say “I want a desk for my office,” my
listener has only a vague and general idea of what I want. If I
say “I want a brown walnut desk,” the listener has a more vivid
mental picture.
The more skillful you become at conveying images, the more
effective your communication will be.
(3) Master the basic skills. Some people think the first
requisite for good communication is an exhaustive vocabulary.
Some people think it’s impossible to communicate well without
first absorbing a heavy dose of grammar, then memorizing a
dictionary of English usage.
Words are important. Good grammar is important. And yes, it
helps to know which words and expressions are considered
standard and which are considered substandard among educated
people.
But slavish allegiance to the rules of grammar can actually
impede communication. People will sometimes go to great lengths
to avoid usage that somebody has pronounced “ungrammatical” or
“substandard.” In the process, they forget the most important
rule of communication: Make it clear and understandable.
The vocabulary you use in every-day speech has probably served
you well. You use the words that you understand. Chances are,
they’re the words your friends, colleagues and employees
understand.
If you try to use words beyond the vocabularies of the people
you’re trying to communicate with, you’re not communicating;
you’re showing off.
Read the Gettysburgh Address, the Sermon on the Mount or Robert
Frost’s poetry. The communications that endure are written in
plain, simple language.
(4) Practice I remember a story that gave me inspiration. A
young musician had listened with awe as a piano virtuoso poured
all his love and all his skill into a complex selection of great
compositions.
“It must be great to have all the practicing behind you and be
able to sit down and play like that,” he said.
“Oh,” said the master musician, “I still practice eight hours
every day.”
“But why?” asked the astounded young man. “You’re already so
good!”
“I want to become superb,” replied the older man.
I teach communication skills to thousands of people each year,
through seminars, audio tapes, videotapes and books. Most of the
people I reach are content to become good. Few are willing to
invest the extra effort to become superb.
To become superb, you have to practice. It isn’t enough to know
what it takes to connect with people, to influence their
behavior, to create a motivational environment for them, to help
them to identify with your message. The techniques of
communication have to become part of your daily activity, so
that they are as natural to you as swimming is to a duck. The
more you practice these techniques, the easier you’ll find it to
connect with people, whether you’re dealing with individuals
one-on-one or with a group of thousands.
(5) Patience Nobody becomes a polished, professional
communicator on the first try. It takes patience. A few years
ago, William White, a journalism and English instructor, edited
a book of early writings by Ernest Hemingway. The young
Hemingway was a reporter for a Toronto newspaper, and this book
was a collection of his articles written between 1920 and 1924.
The writing was good, but it was not superb. It gave a faint
foregleam of the masterful storyteller who would emerge in The
Old Man and the Sea, but it wasn’t the Hemingway of literary
legend.
What was lacking?
Experience. The genius was there all along, but it needed to
incubate. The sands of time can abrade or polish. It depends on
whether you use your time purposely or let it pass haphazardly.
Acquiring skill as a communicator requires constant, careful,
loving attention to the craft.
The cub reporter didn’t transform himself into a successful
novelist through one blinding flash of literary insight. Like
most people, he progressed from the “good” to the “superb”
through hundreds of tiny improvements from day to day.
You can use the five keys to effective communication in many
settings, under a variety of circumstances. You can be a
virtuoso at inspiring your work force, at negotiating business
deals, at marketing your products and at building a positive
corporate image. All these are important communication skills.
But always remember: Whatever communication task you undertake,
your objective is to connect with people.
