Better Communication for a Better Life - Blog

If you deal with people as a part of your job or business it would benefit you to use all the means at your disposal to understand them better. Knowing how to identify non-verbal cues and communication can make a huge difference. Depending on your goals, what you look for differs. With each facial feature or expression there are gifts, and there are challenges that you can clearly identify. If you want to make comfortable small talk with a client, the side of their gifts is where to look. When working in customer service such as in a dental or medical office, as a hairstylist, esthetician, or staff member at a gaming table in a casino – you are not trying to counsel, coach, problem solve, or resolve conflict. Your goal is to make your client feel comfortable – so comfortable that they want to stay longer and come back often. Really seeing them – who they are, and being a great listener – available to them – and not triggered by them, is what you need. If you are in sales ...

Our brains are hardwired to look for body language – non-verbal clues – even though we may not even consciously be aware of what is triggering us. Then, other times we make conscious choices to believe something without truly checking if it's true for you.  I chose to believe, for a while, that crossed arms or crossed legs mean that the person is closed. Closed to us, closed to the topic, closed emotionally – I now don’t believe this is true. Often crossing our arms is just a comfortable place to put them! Crossing our legs is a habit – not an indicator of receptivity. I can remember many times when I would look in the audience and my heart would drop – crossed legs and arms = they hate me! Just as often these would be the same people who gave me a great evaluation or came up and spoke to me about how they agreed with, or were touched by what I said. We, people in general, are meaning making machines. We love to interpret, may have superstitions, see importance in coinciden...

Call it what you will – instinct, intuition, gut-feeling or spidey-senses – sometimes we just get a feeling... you know what I mean. These feelings trigger us in certain ways – positive and negative, towards something or away from it. There are a lot of reasons for these feelings: reminds us of someone or something that made an impact on our lives an old fear we had is triggered by a current circumstance there is something not congruent about a person, place, or thing So our mind sends out an alert. When we are moving towards being a more relationship-based leader sometimes we will be triggered. There is a path through that became clear as I worked with these triggers when they arose in me. I call it The Straight A Progression . At that time I was managing others, and sometimes I would wonder what had control over me as I was overpowered or undermined by certain of my direct reports. I was unable to be a leader to them. Yet most of the time I had good boundaries, cont...

   Relationship-Based Leadership Caring, intentional and responsive relationships are at the heart of businesses that people want to work for. You can create deeper and more meaningful relationships with your colleagues, and employees, as well as your clients!  Modern leadership needs to be more than a shift in technique:  Leaders need to truly know and understand their managers and staff. Leaders must provide a sense of safety, acceptance, and belonging. Leaders need to be able to recognize the early signs of mental or emotional struggle and provide effective support. When we move more towards relationship-based leadership it is no surprise that this includes all of peoples’ vulnerabilities – their anxiety, defenses, and their emotional triggers and struggles. This can seem to be more than a business leader should have to deal with! There needs to be a fundamental shift in how leaders approach the HR challenge. Relationships must move from be...