Communication skills
Improving your own and helping others
I often get complimented on my communication and presentation skills, and whenever something really specific is complimented I always find myself thinking back to when I learned that, and SURPRISE it’s 100% from doing two Arts degrees.
Would you like fries with that?
So, I did a B. Arts of Japanese Studies and Linguistics, then I did a Masters (coursework) of Applied Linguistics. If you’re not across how masters work, (coursework) just means I did not write a thesis or paper, I just attended classes - I wasn’t special enough to get a supervisor to do a paper.
It’s not that I’m confident in presentations because Arts degrees make you do a lot of presentations, it’s specifically the Linguistics classes where we learned the theory of communication. Why the word choice matters, how to string a coherent and convincing argument together, when to pause for the audience’s brain to process the information that was just delivered.
By no means am I a perfect presenter, sometimes I get lazy, sometimes I speak too fast or not fast enough, I say “um” every now and then. But I try to make sure every word I say is necessary.
I’m going to introduce some of my favourite pieces of knowledge (and trivia) from my two Linguistics degrees.
Gricean maxims
Basically, a guy called Grice had four rules; quality, quantity, relation, and manner.
Quality: don’t speak in fluff. Choose words, sentences, and paragraphs of quality. This is not saying insert lots of literary flourishes, it’s saying don’t waste the listener’s time.
Quantity: follow the goldilocks rule - not too much, not too little, just right. Say what you need to say, and end it there.
Relation: only bring up relevant information. If I tell you it looks like it’s going to rain, and you reply that your favourite colour is pink, it’s not relevant at that time and it doesn’t help me or the situation.
Manner: this is how you say it. Your word choice, your tone, your delivery of your thoughts and opinions.
Probably the most common compliment I get is that I’m really direct, and it makes me easy to understand (i.e. what you get is what you see, I don’t ask people to read between the lines) and if I compare that to something like “you’re really direct and it comes off as standoffish or arrogant” it would come down the the Manner maxim. In one, the manner is cooperative, in the other it’s terse or annoyed.
Direct communication is good. It means you’re hitting quality, quantity, and relevance. Manner is where it can go from great to “I never want to speak to that person again”.
Related reading: Here’s the wikipedia page
Identifying communication preferences
Probably my favourite class in Linguistics was intercultural communication, as it was really practical and hands on with solving problems. Most classes we’d come in to some sort of scenario and have to identify where and why communication broke down - and usually the scenarios were pretty high stakes like in a negotiation or something.
Now, whenever I am speaking to someone who I feel is perhaps not receiving what I’m saying well, I’ll try to sit back and observe them for a bit to identify their communication preferences, and re-strategise what I’m saying in the way they’re most likely to receive well.
Hofstede’s ‘Five Dimensions of Country Variation’ are a little bit “painting with broad strokes” when applied to whole cultures, but when applied to individuals I find them really helpful. They’re five scales with these at either end:
Individualism (loose ties between individuals who give priority to their own need) <> Collectivism (strong ties within cohesive groups who give priority to the needs of the group)
High power distance <> Low power distance (the extent to which less powerful members of a group expect and accept that power is distributed unequally)
Masculinity (clearly defined social gender roles) <> Femininity (overlapping social gender roles)
High certainty avoidance <> Low uncertainty avoidance (the extent to which a group feels threatened by uncertainty)
Long-term orientation <> short-term orientation (whether the focus is on the future or present)
If you can identify where someone falls on each of these spectrums, you can start to frame whatever it is that you’re communicating to them in ways that they best understand.
On the Masculinity <> Femininity scale, I hate to say it but it really does work. For all the women that read Mehdeeka, this doesn’t mean acting ditzy or weak, but instead it could be framing something in a “how can I be of help” way or “please tell me what the best case scenario is” and taking more of a listening approach, with the action taken once they’re out of the room. What they don’t see won’t hurt them, and the ends will justify the means.
There’s a number of cultural communication spectrums just like Hofstede’s but I’d say he’s kind of the top dog in this area of Linguistics. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck have a ‘Cultural Orientation Framework’ if you’d like to look that up as well.
Related reading: ‘Culturally speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory” Edited by Helen Spencer-Oatley was the textbook we used with all the scenarios in it, would highly recommend if you’re looking for a meaty theory book on communication.
PR training and power phrases
First a shout out to Harrison Polites as he taught me some great ways to answer questions when you don’t want to answer the question during some press training. You can see his Mehdeeka interview here!
Knowing how to say something while saying nothing at all and not looking like a dickhead is a true art. If you get it wrong you piss a lot of people off, but if you get it right people cannot justify being mad at you.
For an example, if someone asks you a question and you don’t know the full answer (or cannot give the answer to that particular person or in that situation) these phrases are really helpful:
I don’t want to give partial or incorrect information, so if you don’t mind I’ll double check that and get back to you
I’ll be honest, I don’t know the answer to that, but I will look into it and find out and let you know
Basically, promising some action and admitting you cannot answer is much better than trying to waffle on to cover it up. And try not to mention anyone else’s name unless they are actually the expert in residence otherwise it can look scapegoat-y.
Being able to end a conversation or topic is also another communication skill that comes in handy quite a lot. I somewhat recently had someone say in a fairly large group setting that they didn’t have confidence in me or my work and my response was, “well I’m confident, but if I end up being wrong I will admit it and work to find a better solution”. There was nothing they could have said after that other than “ok” and the conversation moved on.
Steering conversations, even if you’re not the one doing the majority of the speaking, is also a communication skill that can be mastered with a few choice phrases, e.g. “we’re veering off topic, let’s get back to the main issue” or “thank you, I’ve made a note of it”.
It’s disingenuous to memorise a bunch of phrases, so I would encourage you to keep an eye out for people you think are good communicators, and see if they have any go-to phrases they repeat a few times. Find your favourites that you think fit within your own natural language use, try them out, and then start building a phrase library either in your head or in a notebook.
Last tip: saying “I don’t know” is not a weakness. And it’s ok to not know something. If it’s in the context of “what’s our CAC” and it’s something you should know that’s a different problem, but can still be answered with “I don’t want to give inaccurate information, will you give me a second to run a report and get the most up to date number”.
The most important thing when you defer these questions is that you actually look it up afterwards and send an email or message with the follow up (which by the way, can be something along the lines of “I’m unable to give you the full answer but what I can share is xyz”)
A couple of links
It’s been a while since I added links to the end of an issue, here’s a few!
I can’t remember if I have already sent this, but it was in my Google Keep note of links to send - Hot Streaks in Your Career Don’t Happen by Accident. As an ambitious person, I often find myself thinking I’m not going far enough fast enough, so this was a reassuring read.
I would couple that article with this podcast episode, Our Workplaces Think We’re Computers. We’re Not. It talks about the environment that our brains work best in, and there’s a section on having intense periods of social interaction (e.g. brainstorming, interviewing, doing the parts of work that requires collaboration), followed by extended periods of isolation where you actually get the work done.
Another podcast rec, I recently listened to the most recent episode of Klue’s podcast, which for once I found a marketing podcast to actually be good??? I’m tossing up on getting Klue for work as well, so if you have used it please let me know if you would recommend it!
A bunch of new Google Fonts have been released, here’s a summary of the new ones.