What if you can walk into any challenging conversation, throw away the script, stay grounded and get your points across?
Business Communication techniques in challenging conversations: Focus on the feeling
Some people freeze up when they’re about to do a presentation or have a meeting where they fully expect some pushback or some challenging conversation. You are not the thermometer. You’re the thermostat. A thermometer reads the temperature of the room and a thermostat sets the temperature of the room. This applies anywhere, not just on the career front. When you walk into a dinner party, a wedding or a new environment, you’re reading the temperature. Then you’re deciding how you want to feel and how you want to show up with other people.
The best gutsy strategy if you are facing a challenging conversation or meeting or presentation, is to consider how you want your listeners to feel. How do you want them to feel when they leave that conversation with you? What is the end state that you want them to take home with them?
You have all these points and slides and recommendations that you’re going to show them and walk them through. But if you’re not clear on that one end state – that one call to action, where before you end any conversation, whether it be a phone call, or in a meeting, you want to motivate your audience to do something.
Before I forget, I want to be sure you know about my Own Your Authority leadership podcast (it’s free) that’s designed to help you own your authority in your career based on my book: Own Your Authority, it works. It’s based on two decades of leading in Corporate America, (I’m a former Wall St. Executive) and those professionals I coach here at In Our Shoes. Now onto motivating your audience…
You will remain memorable with your clients and your audience. And they take you home with them. But you can’t do this if you’re not clear on their ‘Why.’ Why does what you’re about to present or speak about matter to them? Because their ‘Why’ has to be your ‘Why.’
I’ve been there. And as an attendee I’ve seen people come in talk about all the things that they want to say, but it’s really not relevant to their audience.
So if you’re dealing with a challenging conversation, after you understand their ‘Why,’ think about and imagine or visualize how you want your audience to feel. What do you want them to think about you when they leave the room?
Business Communication techniques: Give them a call to action
Maybe your meeting points shine a light in their head that they should enlist the support of some resources, because you’ve just outlined some major mistakes that they probably want to avoid before embarking on a new project or initiative.
Maybe you’re sharing a story from your lessons learned.
Focus on the feeling of how you want your audience to feel. You want to have a lot of knowledge and intelligence as that subject matter expert and that leader of influence. Having knowledge is great, but people want action, people want to know what to do next.
Essential Business Communication: Change how you show up
So when you draw the end state, work backwards. Pick your spot, get in all your points that you want to lead to that end state and focus on the feeling, especially if you’re dealing with a challenging audience.
The expectation is not that high if you can change how you show up. If you can change how you show up and in your response to similar reactions that you have had in the past, then they can change their response to you and whatever you have to share. Which at the end of the day is your value as a leader of influence and a business leader.
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