Better Communication – Why won’t she pick up my call?

Here’s an NLP principle that has given me much success in life over the years.

“The meaning of communication is the response you get.”

What this speaks to is that if you want to understand the impact or how your communication was actually understood you look at the response you get.

If you get a response that is totally not what you expected, then it’s actually your job to change and adjust your language until they receive the message that you intended. And again the evidence is in how they respond.

So many times we expect others to simply know and understand what we intended or what we meant. But that’s the root of miscommunication.

If you want to be a good communicator than take ownership of the response you get.

And where I found real value in this is when I started applying the reverse approach. Before communicating I always ask myself well what response do I want. I then speak to the result rather than simply speaking.

Let me give you an example.

Back when I worked my corporate job, we would ship orders out to customers. I was in sales. And every now and then, there would be an issue and the order would not get delivered to the customer for one reason or another.

Many of my coworkers would call their purchaser and ask “what went wrong?” or “why didn’t it get delivered?” Or (oh God…) “you messed up my order, fix it!”

On contrast, I would pick up the phone and say to my purchaser, “Hey this order didn’t get delivered. Can you please look into it and use your best judgement so that the customer gets their delivery as soon as they can. They are down and need it desperately.”

One line of communication focuses on the problem, the other line of communication focusses on the solution. One line of communication blames, the other asks for help. One line of communication creates tension, the other empowers and acknowledges.

The results? My purchaser fixed what needed fixing and my customer got their order. I also gained more loyalty and trust with my purchaser and over time my purchaser would take extra care of me and my orders.

So the next time you get a response other than what you intended, take ownership, ask yourself did you communicate with the intended response in mind, and YOU adjust your communication accordingly.

Also,an interesting aside, is that whenever I would pick up the phone, my purchaser would always pick up. But they wouldn’t pick up my coworkers calls. And this was even after the company implement a no-call, email only policy. ????

Please like and share if you found benefit in this!

    Mohammed Sheikh

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