I invite you to visualize one of your favorite communicators, somebody that you would label a great communicator. That might be a family member, a friend, a current or past manager, or a colleague. It might even be a public figure, a celebrity. In fact, President Ronald Reagan was known as “The Great Communicator,” he’s often who I picture when I think about that.
So visualize, go through the checklist, what is it that makes this person that you’re visualizing a great communicator?
And most of the time, it’s the things that we see in the delivery; that forward-facing communication package, the words they’re saying, their body language, all the non-verbal cues, their expression, their tone, their volume, all of that package in the delivery. And that’s exactly it, that’s often what we think about is the delivery – but that’s what we are missing.
Great communicators are not just about the delivery of that communication package, it’s so much about what they’re doing beforehand. And the biggest piece that they’re doing beforehand is that they are listening. They are listening! Now, they might be listening through asking great questions, and they’re listening to the responses. It might be that they’re doing reading, research, and they’re listening to that output, that data, that information.
But great communicators, it’s not just about that communication package that they deliver that we all see. It’s about what they’re doing beforehand through listening, through reading, researching, asking questions, so that they gain that valuable knowledge. It’s what makes their delivery so impactful – because they did all of that listening, they’re able to connect the message, connect with the audience.
Whether that’s an audience of one or many, they’ve listened so they know how to curate and craft that message in a way that the audience is going to understand and connect to. So as you are working on your better communication skills, as you’re putting together that communication package that is the delivery piece, I challenge you to say, are you listening?
Are you doing the reading, the researching, the asking the questions? Are you truly bringing in that information, listening to what it is, in order to be the best communicator that you can?