Unlocking Impactful Conversations
Bridging the Gap Between Intention and Impact
Did you know that 9/10 conversations miss the mark?
In the first two weeks of my first leadership role, I found myself having a conversation with a team member who had had a complaint against her.
I did not know what I was doing, but I knew this was a high-stakes conversation I needed to get right.
Stanford University, a renowned institution, undertook a comprehensive study on interpersonal communication. Their research, which focused on the alignment between conversational intentions and their actual impacts, revealed a staggering 9 out of 10 conversations suffer from miscommunication. This study underscores the complexity of interpersonal communication, highlighting the importance of cultivating self-awareness, empathy, and adaptive communication skills to bridge the gap between intention and impact.
Make no mistake! High-performing middle leaders are vital to organisational success. They are the engine room of any successful organisation, operating at the interface between vision, strategy, and implementation, turning ideas into reality.
Imagine your business if you had high-performing middle leaders and managers.
I recently worked with a business owner who found himself managing an underperforming team. He was exasperated with his middle managers and constantly had to cajole, encourage, challenge, and inspire performance from his direct reports.
We worked together to make small but mighty shifts to how he approached and carried out conversations with his team that completely transformed the impact on their performance.
Our work together elevated his team’s performance. By focusing on key performance habits, we were able to elevate his influence and impact.
In today's fast-paced workplace, simply informing and advising others is no longer sufficient to drive meaningful transformation. The old approach of telling people what to do lacks the potency needed to inspire lasting change and improvement. I completely understand the frustration of constantly pulling people along, seeking buy-in, and motivating them to embrace new ideas and initiatives.
A key part of the work was to unpack conversational habits and then learn different strategies to elevate each habit into a more influential space. Informed by research into the high-performance habits of influence, the focus is on key areas such as active listening, empathy, understanding emotions, and influencing others. By evaluating and enhancing skills in these critical areas, people gain insights into their conversational strengths and areas for growth, empowering them to navigate conversations with ease and confidence.
Here is why improving conversational habits is important for elevating performance through influence.
Influencing Change: By mastering high-performing conversations, you'll gain the ability to influence change effectively, inspiring others to embrace new ideas and initiatives.
Encouraging Improvement: Elevating your communication skills enables you to encourage continuous improvement within your team or organisation, fostering a culture of excellence and innovation.
Optimizing Ownership: Effective communication empowers individuals to take ownership of their roles and responsibilities, driving accountability and commitment to achieving shared goals.
Catalyzing Change: Transforming your approach to communication can catalyse meaningful change, leading to enhanced collaboration, productivity, and performance.
To unpack conversational habits, I am developing an online quiz.
I am looking for a select group of individuals to try out our new assessment and provide valuable feedback. Please note this is in the early stages of development.
Your insights will help us refine and improve the tool for future users, ensuring it delivers maximum impact.
I would love for you to take a look and let me know what you think.
