Lessons

Lesson Info

What to Say to Get Your Way

(applause) So we've been talking about love and now we're going into the business section. This is day 21, Successful Communication. And I have three main goals for today. One, how to successfully reach anyone. Not deal with, but reach anyone. What to say to get your way. Three steps to effective communication. Speaking so that you are heard. Speaking so that people will listen. That's what we're talking about today. So when we talk about communication, you have to be very clear in your communication. And I thought I would show a little picture of a miscommunication that I had where I wasn't clear enough with my words. So my husband and I, we brought home leftover pizza, and I was like, hey babe, would you mind wrapping up the leftover pizza? And this is what happened. (laughter) What? I literally opened the fridge the next day and I was like, what? I pulled it out and I was like, technically it's wrapped. And he's like, I did wrap the pizza. And I was like, but it doesn't, it's harnes...

sed. It was to keep it... Anyway, so I show this picture because communication is all about communicating your needs effectively. Using the words so that you might think you're saying something clearly, but they don't always hear the same message that you think that you sent. So here's my warmup for us today. When do we miscommunicate? When does it happen? For you in your life, where do miscommunications happen the most? Allie, yes, tell me. When I'm rushed and I don't take through the time to think through what they need to hear. Yeah, rushing. When you're just assuming or I don't have time to address additional needs and then communication breaks down, absolutely. What are other times miscommunications happen? Yes, tell me. When I'm lazy. When I'm not in the mood to talk, I'll use a lot of words and I'm talking in short bursts of sentences and then it's not helping the other person. You can't clearly express the message and they don't hear anything anyway back. Yes, more times. Yes, Ariana. When I'm thinking too much. Overthinking. Yeah. And what happens when you overthink? Why does that cause miscommunication? Because there are so many possible versions of reality going on in my head that I can't pick out which one is the actual reality that I'm actually in. Yes, I love it. That happens to me more often than I would care to think. Lacey, I saw you raise your hand too. When I'm hungry. (laughter) My brain doesn't. I suffer from something called hangry, which means that when I'm hungry, I get really angry. And I have gotten to the point where I can usually recognize, usually recognize, that I'm getting hangry, and I'll just be like, I just need food. I'm not really angry, just feed the monster. Feed the monster, yes. Miscommunication breaks down a lot when that happens. I saw a bunch of other hands pop up, yeah. When I text message. I feel like there are a lot of times when there's a text exchange and then when we actually see each other, it's like, wait a minute, there's something here and it was a misunderstanding. Words alone were not enough. Somehow there was miscommunications with the words that were communicated. Digital people skills, I love it. What else, some other hands pop up. What's funny is I never know with warmups what kind of answers I'm going to get. And so what I was thinking when I wrote this warmup question was actually situations where there was miscommunications. I was thinking negotiation, clients, partners, friends, colleagues, partners. Oh, I have partners twice, because that important. (laughter) But what was interesting was, and I love this, is that you guys actually took it a step deeper and said miscommunication happens from internal misfires. Too tired, too lazy, thinking too much. And so yeah, miscommunication happens on two levels. It happens situationally, contextually, but it also happens in our own head, which I love that these warmup exercises cause different things. So in these situations, what happens with communication, miscommunication is ambivalence, frustration, differences in expectations is the big cause of miscommunication. Loss of business, missed opportunities, and fights. These are both causes and consequences of miscommunication just to get really focused on why we're doing this section. This is what we're trying to prevent against and stop using now. So what I want to suggest, take that all away, is something called value based communication. It is a different way of communicating with people based on values, needs, and motivations. And when you use this, you get trust, you get harmony, your communication is just easier. It just flows better. You get symbiosis where both people feel like they're benefiting. One of my favorite things is win win. Any time you can get win win where both people feel like, yes, I'm benefiting from this relationship, loyalty and clarity. Effective communication is the way that success happens more quickly. So communication paves the way for us to achieve things. It makes everything easier. It makes our clients loyal to us, and it clarifies what we need and what they need. This is skill number 26. I call it swing communication. Communicate to fit someone's matrix, motivation, and style. So in this course, we teach 33 different people skills. These are the skills that highly successful people use to communicate, interact, and build relationships. And swing communication, I mean, it's so big it should be five skills, really, that's how important it is. And today we're focusing all on this skill. We are going to use the matrix, or value based communication. I'm sure you're not surprised. When you use the matrix, you use the platinum rule and say, how do they want to be treated? It makes your communication flow much easier. To make this really actionable, to make this less not just theoretical, but really something applicable, I want us to think about one person in our life who we can communicate better with. Who's someone in your life, maybe your communication's already good, you wanna level it up. Or someone where communication isn't so good and you want to make it better. Who's someone in your life, and I actually want everyone to answer this question at home. I want you to think of at least three people that you would like to communicate better with. Leveling up or just improving the communication relationship. Lee, would you mind starting? I know that I'm giving you no prep. But who's someone you want to level up? I want to say my mom. Yeah, she's the one who popped in my head. Where is she on your relationship hierarchy? Is she intimate, personal? I think she's a riser. Riser, okay, awesome. I love it when we can pick our risers as someone to communicate better with, awesome. Do you have someone in mind? Yeah, my dad. He's a riser and even though we have so different opposite personalities there, we both love each other. I will call him, but after two or three minutes, I have nothing more to talk. And I know he wants to talk and I want to talk too, but we don't really have much to talk. You can use this, killer conversation starts. Actually if you have someone like your dad or someone who you're like, I know that we want to talk, but I don't know what to talk about, that's where you hone that master communication, master questioner skill. Because you're like, the motivation is here. The mutual respect is here. What can I harness, how can I harness that curiosity? That's the way to hone it if you really want to challenge yourself. Who's someone that you want to level up or communicate with? I think actually a partner of mine who we work together on certain projects and would love to make, we are definitely at two different communication levels. So I think I would love to better able to clearly express what it is that I want him to understand and the other way. Same thing as Babard is my father. I really love and appreciate him and all that he's done, but I hardly really talk with him, only have about two to three minute conversations, and then it's a dead end. But I would really love to get to know him a lot more better than I do now. Is he a riser? Do you have another riser? Yeah, he's my riser. I think my sister, because ever since she's had kids, that's all we talk about is the kids. So it's broadening the communication. Ah, okay, so not necessarily deepening, but broadening. I have two teenage children, and it's such a time of transition that we are, I think, on a monthly basis even having to reinvent how we communicate with each other. So this will be good stuff. Good for you, by the way, for reevaluating communication every month, most people we forget that we actually have to reevaluate. So that's awesome that you know you need to re-check in with that, yeah. I have two, I guess. My mother, she and I are just very different and it can be a problem very often. And then also one of my childhood friends. She and I also communicate, I think, very differently and I'd really love to be able to just connect better. Yeah, be on the same level. Terry. I think for me it would be my youngest son, who's 19. It's fumy, because my older two boys, we've always gotten along good and been able to talk, but this one's different. I've always just never been able to click right. So he just puts up with me, basically, whereas the older two would be good. Okay, I like it. Jason. I would say my wife. Just because we're very different, which makes us a great couple, but that's also the reason we have disagreements. Absolutely, Maggie. There seems to be a parent theme because mine is my dad. Yeah, there is a parent theme, which I love. It surprises me. We actually have a lot in common. And I think because of that, we oftentimes don't communicate because we just assume everything is fine. It'd be nice to open that. Lacey. I'm very similar. I feel like I know, when it comes to my parents, I know my mom well. I don't know my dad as well and we're both acts of service, either a primary or secondary, which means we both don't reach out to each other, because we think the other one should do that. And then we don't talk. But when we do, it's so great, and I want to know and learn more about him. For me it's a close personal friend who's also very much into the psychological stuff. I already have a very good connection with her, but sometimes because she's very low neurotic and I'm medium, it causes different expectations and then friction. Got in, so we're going to be talking about the personality matrix specifically, and that will be really helpful for that example. Kim. For me it's a prospective client. And it's someone that we have an in person meeting coming up, we've just exchanged emails, and he is interested in working with me possibly for himself but also with his company. So I'm feeling a little bit of, yeah, just anxiousness around that communication and wanting to do my best in that setting. I'm glad that we have some professional ones too. Erica. My mother-in-law. She lives in another state, so when we're together, we're close, we talk, but she's really bad at calling back. So when we're far apart, and I actually think there's some anxiety there about that. And so it just dawned on me like, whoa, how important this matrix is going to be for that. And you can validate, maybe that will change the pattern of the calling. Last but not least. So for me I think it would be parents too. Both parents, both parents. And are they risers? No. But communication is a big one for them. So the reason why I ask us this is because I want us to really think about keep this person top of mind for this lesson. So here's the formula for how to communicate to get your way. Step one is understanding motivation. We understand what motivates someone, it's much easier to get on the same page. Now, in the work environment, usually when you say to someone, what motivates people? We typically think about money, salary, financial rewards first. But the problem is actually that's not usually what motivates us best. That's a common myth that we think that our primary motivation is that. Really it's very different. Dan Ariely, he wrote a book called Predicatively Irrational and in his book, he talks about we actually act in very mysterious and irrational ways, but it's predictably so. So here's a study he did about motivation, which I think is the underlying thread through communication. He did a study where he asked people to complete a task. And he offered them two different financial rewards. If they completed it, they got $4 or if they completed it they got $40. Both groups had the exact same output. So no matter even if they changed the reward, even if they offered more money, it didn't actually change how people did on the task. But this is the cool part of the experiment. He did a third trial where he offered $400. Those people did worse. So offering more money actually demotivated them. Now, this is a crazy way to think about motivation. Because when we think about motivating our colleagues or partners or clients, we think money. Get them more money, offer them more salary, offer them a bonus. But in a weird way, offering more money somehow shuts down our progress. And here's why. It is all down to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Once you meet the basic needs of food, water, shelter, and security, lack of danger, those have to be met, but after that, offering financial reward actually shuts down our relational, our esteem, and our self actualization needs. It confuses our brain to think, well money is about providing food, water, and shelter and keeping out threats, money isn't related really to creativity, living to potential, confidence, or belonging. And so it crosses wires in our brains and we don't know how to be our best self. So I want to introduce something which is, perceived self interest is the most significant factor in predicting dedication and satisfaction towards work. It accounts for about 75% of personal motivation. Now, this is a big mouthful of a quote. But perceived self interest, what do I mean by that? There is something called the motivation hygiene theory, which basically says that typical motivating factors aren't what you would originally guess. They're not just salary and bonuses. There's hygiene principles of motivation that actually is what drives us. And Frederick Herzberg is the one that came up with this motivation hygiene theory after researching what makes people perform better. And he found that the top factors in motivation, especially when we're talking about work environment, is job security. Job security is actually number one, so that's actually, where does that fall on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs? That falls on the bottom with lack of threat. Status, mission statement, working conditions, harmonious office. Not salary, not bonus, not your payment package. Then we have salary, challenging work, recognition, responsibility, and growth potential. When we're thinking about what motivates people, it's not always the obvious choices. It's actually offering them challenging work and meeting their self esteem needs, letting them live up to their potential. It's giving them a grander purpose, a mission statement. It's harmonious office environments, giving them a sense of belonging, a sense of intimacy, relationships. So when we talk about motivation, yes, we have to meet Maslow's basic needs. We have to make sure the people want to communicate with, they have their security and their basic food and shelter and water met. But after that, it's about tapping into goals and value language. When we're speaking to parents, we're speaking to colleagues or friends, if we can speak to what they value, they hear us more. So I want to show you a quick video of Stacy talking about what she likes about her job and a couple of other factors, and I want us to talk about how this fits into how we would motivate her. My biggest fear definitely would be just being alone, I think. I think just I really feed off a lot of people's energy, so when I'm alone sometimes I feel just not there, I guess, just sort of disconnected, and I don't like that disconnected feeling. I like being able to have energy around me. And I know that sounds a little weird. I feel like being by myself is a little, I would do terrible on a desert island. (laughs) So we saw this video before but it was in a different context. So we know that her value language and her intelligence, just from this video, is interpersonal skills and relationships, which means that when we're talking to her, what she values in her workplace, in her personal environments, is spending time with people, having a sense of belonging, building teamwork. So if we were her boss or we were her colleague, the way that we would motivate her is by providing and meeting those needs. I have a question. Sure. This is going back a minute, but with the $400 example, just to make sure, because I didn't quite get it at first, but I think now I have it. So the larger amount of money, people were focused on that larger amount of money and not the growth and those other values that they would have otherwise been, is that true? Basically it kicked them into fear mode. So it made it so that you have the potential to have a huge amount of money that you could get. And so I think it's a combination of their low road fear, so it made it so that their high road couldn't go into creative thinking to complete the task, as well as I can't just enjoy the task. I can't just enjoy succeeding and achieving the end of the task. There's a monetary need that I could possibly get. I think it's a combination of both. So how do we find out what motivates someone? So in your workbook, I have what I call motivation solicitation questions. So these are questions that will help you figure out how to motivate someone. And a lot of these have to do with work, but some of them are personal as well. So what did you love about your last job, work. Personal, what do you wish was different? That question, when asked in a personal relationship, it could be what do you wish was different about our relationship? What do you wish was different about the way we communicate? That question can unlock a lot, because it resets someone's brain to think about potential future. So when you're talking about those people that we mentioned, your parents or your friends, asking them, what do you wish was different about our relationship? What do you wish was different about the way that we communicated? That gets them out of the social script, the canned responses, that same old, same old conversation that you have, to think about what could be, not what is. So I have a whole list of motivation solicitation questions in your workbook. Step two with communication is to focus on skills. So intelligence type, tapping into their intelligence type to make sure that we're using their innate skills. And the second aspect of intelligence type is improvement. So we've learned that the fixed and growth mindset change the way someone feels about themselves. And I wanted to share an interesting study done by Robert Wood, where he split groups up by fixed and growth mindset. He had some groups with all fixed mindset people and he had the other groups that were all growth mindset people. And he wanted to know, would they run a furniture company differently? He had them work on a software that simulated running a furniture company. And he wanted to see over the course of an entire semester, would fixed growth groups and would growth mindset groups do differently? And he wanted to see if they would turn a profit. Here's what he found, fascinating on communication. The fixed mindset groups were very concerned with credit. They would say an idea and be like, that was my idea or whose idea was that? They also worried about good ideas versus bad ideas. I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if that's a bad idea. Whereas the growth mindset people, they had more creative ideas, even possibly silly ideas. And they just threw them out there. They also were willing to try and fail and try and fail again. They kept trying new things in the software. The amount of trials they did in the software was almost double the fixed group. There was a 50% difference in revenue by the end of the semester. So what this shows is is we're communicating with people, trying and failing, trying and failing is the way. The reason I wanted you to bring that person on top of mind is because I hope, I think every person mentioned, I hope it's the same at home, is a safe person. I heard parents, I heard friends. That's a person where you could try using the master questioner technique. You could try using the Ruck technique and see what happens. Because that is actually where most growth happens. You can also use the personality matrix, of course. Using our five different ocean personality types. And I just wanted to briefly go through how to do that with communication. This is a theory developed by Dr. Pierce J. Howard. He has a book called Personality At Work. And I think that he nails the communication styles for each type. Extraversion. This is his nicknames, by the way, for low and high. Low extraversion introvert. They prefer quiet work spaces, solo projects. They tend to be observers. High extroverts, they prefer teamwork, open office space, and they are the best cheerleaders. Do you guys know, the person that you mentioned, do you know where they fall on the scale or do you have to find that out? Give me thumbs up if you think that you know. Perfect, if you don't know, you can go into the questions, the killer conversation starters, that solicit how they prefer to communicate. Conscientiousness. So he calls low conscientiousness flexible people. They are great with change and high volatility. They are incredibly flexible, which means that when you communicate with them, you can try out different styles and they actually love it. That feeds them, they're like oh, kind of interesting. I'm happy to be flexible with you. Focused people, if you have someone who is high in conscientiousness, they like goals, detail oriented, and multi-part projects. They are typically drivers. So if you want to communicate with someone who is high conscientiousness, you might want to tell them your goal. You might want to tell them, hey, I took this people skills course and I listed you as someone I wanted to communicate better with. Can I try a few things? You are speaking their value language. You're actually showing them, yeah, I want to achieve with you. I want to drive with you. I have a goal for you. Agreeableness. So he calls low agreeableness challengers. They're very analytical, they wanted unbiased opinions and research. For them, you might want to share the science on communication. You might want to go through the matrix with them and say, which part are you? Let's look at the science. They really appreciate that because it feels like, ah, we're being analytical, we're doing research together. High agreeableness, adapters. Team builders, win win, cooperation. Highlighting we're on the same side. Work or personal, we forget. We forget that sometimes we all want it to work. I even find this, with my parents definitely when I call them, we're very far away, and so I forget that we actually both want the same thing, even though they ask me the same questions every week and I tend to ask them the same questions back. I need to challenge myself to get out of that mindset to know that we're on the same side. We both just want to get to know each other, we just don't know what to ask. Neuroticism. Low, resilient. This is what Dr. Howard says is low neuroticism. Stable, negotiator, low drama. Being really direct in these communications. Tell them exactly what you want from the call. That's what they appreciate the most. High reactive. So this is when you want to give controlled environment, schedules and deadlines, and stable tasks. Now in the work environments specifically, I want to address this. If you have someone who is high neuroticism that you work with, a client, a colleague, a boss, the best way that you can respect them is not throwing them any curve balls, giving them and sticking to deadlines and schedules, and being very transparent with your tasks. They will rise to the occasion. That is actually giving in the Pygmalion effect. Lastly, openness and originality. Low, preserver. Practical, logical, specified tasks. High, explorer. Idea person, creativity, visionary. So it's helping showing them that they are on an adventure with you. This course is an adventure. You're on a people adventure where we're exploring discomfort and awareness. If you can highlight the exploration. I totally set you up there, I'm sorry. Setting them up to be on the exploration with you is the way that you can drive them. I want to do one quick video where I want to show you John and I want to do his matrix together. First he says, I set goals for myself consistently and failing to complete those goals to me is not an option. This is the quote directly from him. What does it say? Conscientiousness. Yes, you're actually skipping ahead. What mentality does he have? Fixed or growth mentality? Growth, absolutely. So just by that one little phrase on what he does on a daily basis, we know conscientiousness we're going to get to, as well as the growth mentality. Can you know his value language from this quick quote? Anyone can try to guess. Maybe perfection control. You got it, I wanna throw you a kiss. That was really good. I think it's really amazing that just from a short, short quote, we are able to guess a value language, which helps us with motivation and skills, as well as a mentality. For skills in your workbook, I also have skills solicitation questions. These are to add on to if you're talking to someone you want to know what their skills are. I have a couple of different questions for you in the work and personal environment. Last one is step three. How do they like feedback and communication? How do they handle praise or criticism? In the personality matrix, I wanted to point out a couple of specific things for certain personality types. High neuroticism, they're detail oriented feedback. The more specific you can be able what you're doing and your goals are, the better. It takes down their anxiety. For high openness, suggesting new approaches and ideas. Going through the exploratory exercises with them. For low extroversion, keeping it in their safe space. So it's hard to guess someone's thrive, survive, or neutral locations and places. But the best way you can respect a low extrovert is by trying to pick their thrive locations. And here are a couple of communication solicitation questions for you that I have also in your workbook. So in action, you can do this formally or informally. Obviously if it's a personal relationship, you want to do it informally. Or you can say, hey, I want to sit down and do some personality exercises with you. In the work environment, you can also do it informally or formally. You can ask them casual questions or you can ask them to take the tests with you. And you're welcome to use those as much as you want. Here's what coming up. 22, brand personality. I'm really excited for this one, guys. We're going to deep dive into how brands work. How to reach your ideal customer, the psychology of branding, and how to create avid fans. 23, we're going to talk about how to inspire. We're getting into our leadership section, which is increasing your influence, the six inspiration styles, and the art of infecting others, which is not as malicious as it sounds. Infection in a good way. Here's my challenge today. I want you to identify one person's motivation, skills, and feedback needs. In your notebook I have a bunch of extra credit prompts for you on how to do this. Not only questions, but also scripts for you to use on how to talk to someone and identify their motivation skills and feedback needs. And of course, I want you to keep this in your back pocket. So actually, this is one of my dog eared sections, because when you're talking to someone you're like, I am at a loss. I am at a loss for things to say. This is a dead end conversation. You can literally just pull it out and pull it out of your desk and look up those questions. So keep it in your back pocket. Lastly, let's do our what was the most important thing you learned today? We're going to do them real quick. At home I want to hear yours @vvanedwards and the hashtag #peopleskills. Yes, Lacey. Sometimes I cop out because I just think, oh, I don't know what to say or I wouldn't know what to ask or they aren't asking me. So I guess the biggest thing I learned is just that there is no excuse. I mean, we have questions. They're here. And it's worth it. When I think about my relationship with my dad, that's worth taking time and knowing him. I have a learning actually from today that I learned. So my two warmup exercises were figuring out miscommunication and were asking who you wanted to communicate with. Your answers totally surprised me, which I love. I did not expect you guys to think about the internal side of miscommunication. I also did not expect so many personal relationships. When you were talking about who you wanted to communicate with, I thought you were going to give me a lot of work people. I thought you were going to give me clients, bosses, colleagues, and so I learned that I need to up my game on the communications side on the personal stuff. So hopefully I can add more a little bit later. I want to add more on the personal side for you. So I had a learning today as well. I want one more, if there's one more aha moment or most important thing. Yes. Just the fact of thinking of people's motivation at all. I often just, yeah, just doing that. And thinking about where they're coming from. Yeah, and what they really want to get out of it I don't think about much. So I want to hear your answers as well. Please tweet me. I want to hear where your miscommunications come from and what your aha moment was from today. And use that hashtag #peopleskills. We'd love to hear from you. Do you remember, Vanessa, so many weeks ago when we started this course, so many people who were live with us in the chat room said they mentioned all their family relationships. Mother came up so many times. And here we are three weeks alter and it's still family. It's a good learning experience for me. And that follows Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that the closer the person, the more we think about them. So it's a good learning experience for me as well. Yes, our online and our in studio audience are very much in sync. We will see you back for our next segment. Hope you can join us then. (applause)