Have you ever heard someone say: “It’s not what you say – it’s how you say it”? Your employees and the people around you listen to not only what you say but also how you say it, in order to get clues about your level of trustworthiness. They listen for missing bits of information, assumptions, leaps in logic, voice tone and wobble, breath depth and voice tightness.
They analyse your behaviour and words for consistency – and when in doubt, they plump down on the side of your “actions speaking louder than words”.
Yes, there are different levels of skill in interpreting the clues, but every person constantly tracks how other people are communicating to work out what actions they will personally take as a result of how you have communicated with them.
Now comes the more complex part. Have you ever heard of words having “the ring of truth”? It is as if the words vibrate on a deeper level – you can feel them as coming from a space of truth. What makes that happen?
Words tend to come from two different places. We have words that are spoken from our head or logic, and words spoken from our heart.
Words that come from our head tend to be logical, factual … and to be blunt cold, unengaging, and dry. You can tell when a business report, web copy or marketing material has been written from the headspace. It is as if all emotion has been sucked out of it (and all the life force in the process). If you listen to words spoken from the head, they tend to be spoken more quickly, in a higher voice pitch and often come out in convoluted stories.
Words that come from our heart tend to be harder won. If you listen to the voice tone of the person speaking them, the tone is deeper in pitch, the pace slower and the sentence construction may not be as “neat”. Speaking from the heart, you can feel the emotion behind the words and you tend to connect more with the speaker.
But how does this head/heart stuff relate to trustworthiness? If all the words come from just one end of the spectrum – all logic or all emotion, then people have less trust in what is being said. To build trust, you need a balance of both head and heart. You need to speak from both the logical and the emotional space.
If you just communicate from one of the “h’s” (heart or head), you are limiting the perception of your trustworthiness. If you want to build trust – you need to communicate from a balance of both. In your business, you want to be trusted, so you need to find a way to communicate from both your head and your heart.
The challenge is that it is easy to communicate from our head only. Communicating from your heart is harder. People find it easy to escape into a world of logic, as it feels safe and free from messy emotional stuff. But real change and connection comes from communicating emotions.
So what do you do to communicate from your heart? Well, as one of my favourite quotes from the movie Finding Forrester says. “Write your first draft with your heart. You re-write with your head”.
First bring to mind the person or ideal client you want to communicate with. Imagine them in detail – what they think and feel about life. Then feel your truth and what you really would love to say to them, and begin by writing from that space.
Let your first draft be messy, flowing, and saying whatever needs to be said. Once you have allowed your heart and emotions space, only then do you edit your words with your head.
Make decisions about how much you are willing to disclose. Work out the best way to communicate what you want to say and reframe the emotions in a way that the other person can “get”. Only then, edit for flow, facts and format and check for internal consistency.
You can use this process for business reports, emails, performance reviews, marketing material … in fact anything where you need to communicate with another person. The bottom line is communicate from both your head and your heart and you will increase trust in you and your business.
One of the more interesting things to measure on employee attitude surveys and 360 degree feedback processes is the level of trust employees have for their manager. When teams trust that their manager has their best interests at heart, they tend to be more productive and more forgiving of manage's mistakes.
So how do you build trust with your team? The same way you do with your "significant other".
Do what you say you will do, when you say you will do it. Saying you will do something and then forgetting, or just not doing it because something else came up is a recipe for broken trust.
Be open and honest in your communication - if you don't know, then tell them you don't know. Don't make stuff up just to fill in uncomfortable silences.
Communicate regularly and often. If in doubt, communicate more.
Don't run hidden agendas.
And the hardest one - be personally congruent. By this I mean, don't try and lie that you are "fine" when it is blatently obvious that you are steaming inside. It is OK to tell people that you are feeling angry or upset and just need a few moments to gather your thoughts. You will gain more trust by being congruent than by telling lies.
You already know that Ingrid provides powerful and effective copywriting and HR advice to businesses and people, but you may not know that Ingrid also works with a small, select handful of individual mentoring clients.
These people range from CEO's, business owners, HR Practitioners, copywriters and solopreneurs - basically anyone who needs a "push" or who wants to tap into the experience of someone who has been there, done that.
Each mentoring arrangement is totally customised to you and may include:
Real time help on business or leadership issues and concerns
Strategies to grow your business
Review of documents for maximum impact
Leadership development and performance enhancement
Strategic, tactical and operational skill development
Facilitation of planning workshops or retreats to set clear direction and strategy
Open access to Ingrid in time frames that meet your needs
Through mentoring, you can build your technical skills or your personal skills (or both). It is entirely up to you. Ingrid can help you find your uniqueness, polish your brand or unblock your personal roadblocks.
And mentoring can be as simple as a two-hour "troubleshooting" session, or as complex as a yearlong process of sustained growth. Mentoring can happen no matter where you are in the world - you don't have to be in Brisbane to be mentored by Ingrid!
And the results?
"We felt very happy with the outcome of our session. Full of things we can use - not just to prompt further thought. The information and session outcomes were exactly what we needed. Can't imagine where we would be without it."
One micro business who was mentored by Ingrid initially averaged 18 clients per week. As
a result of their new website, revamped marketing materials and a new client acquisition strategy, they now average 41 clients per week. A 127%
increase in business which added over $110,000 to their bottom line in their first year alone.
If you are interested in being mentored by Ingrid, then either drop Ingrid an email or call her on 07 3351 8844, to discuss whether mentoring would suit you and your situation.
Legal stuff: This newsletter is intended as only a general guideline for Australian businesses. You should seek specific advice for your situation rather than relying only on this newsletter
Earnings disclaimer. Some of the content may include advertorial information, which means I may receive financial compensation for the products I recommend. But - unless I know and trust the product, I will not recommend it.
So simple and obvious when you read it. Explains why our radio ads work so well as they work on both head and heart and have been great at building trust and people feeling like they know Don and I, owners of Air and Water
i read all your posts Ingrid as they are nearly always relevant to us as a SME.
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