A Plea to Professional Communicators - Don't Be Microphones

 Social media - as a business conversation - has been around now for a number of years. It's not new anymore, at least conceptually.  There are still a lot of operational details to figure out in terms of how it integrates with an organization's current processes, structures, and resources but unless you've been under a rock, you've been hearing a lot about it for a while. You may be tired of it.

If you are a professional communications person and by that I mean you are in a role explicitly responsible for ensuring communications happens (that could mean you are in PR, marketing, customer support, project management, executive management, HR, etc.) you would be crazy by now not to be at least experimenting and educating yourself on how social tools and methods are changing the fundamentals of your job.

One issue that I've noticed that is a risk if you are a communications professional, is these new 'social' methods will expose your communication style pretty quickly and, frankly, for many that communication style is not particularly effective. It may be time to take a good hard look at how well you communicate in general (forget Twitter, etc).

Let me explain.  Over the last few years I have interacted with a large range of communications professionals who are exploring this new social landscape (kudos to them). However, many immediately expose the fact that they could care less about who they are speaking with because they are on a mission to educate themselves and then figure out how to get their message out. While their focus may be admirable their efficacy in making an impact is very low.  They use others for their own needs without offering anything in exchange. I've personally had a few experiences of spending hours of my time with groups and not even receiving the most basic 'thank you' in return. This leaves me feeling used and thinking they are extremely rude and don't understand the basics of good conversation - i.e. asking the other person questions, giving others recognition and thanks in exchange for something they need. The sources of these poor communication skills have been downright shocking to me.  For those of you who know me, you know I love a good conversation, I love to help people, and I love seeing new technology so I'll talk to just about anyone but I don't really love being talked at or spending a lot of time only to feel like it went unrecognized. And it's a pretty good way of ensuring I won't come back to the table later.

The other interesting thing that I've noticed about many people who are professed 'communicators' is that they have very little ability to pick up on others' cues whether that consists of arm crossing, staring at the ceiling, or shifting their body weight in physical interactions or their completely dead silence from the other end of the phone, IM chat, or Twitter conversation. It is actually fascinating to me because part of the hallmark of a great communicator is an intuitive understanding of the reaction they are getting and the ability to adjust their own technique to that. This is admittedly a hard skill to learn in a classroom and it requires a level of self-awareness that takes time to attain but it is absolutely critical if you want to be an effective communicator.  The irony is that for the last few decades, communications degrees can be earned without really being a good communicator, leaving people looking like great communications professionals on paper who don't have the skills necessary to be effective.

So here is my plea. Please consider the following when trying to influence someone:

• If you ask for someone's time or attention, say thank you.
• Before you start speaking about what you do, ask others what they are interested in.
• Tailor your conversation to the other person's interests.
• Pause occasionally to check in and get reaction... if they don't have much, they are likely not that engaged... so ask again what they find most interesting about the topic and adjust.
• Ask the other person about their business/goals.
• Don't ask for more than is reasonable to get for free. If you use someone's deep expertise, pay them for it either in exposure, money, or referrals.

And yes, some of these lessons we should have learned in kindergarten.  Thanking people takes time. Build that in to your schedule. And yes - all of us occasionally get pressed for time, forget, etc. There have been times that I forget my manners too so we are all responsible for giving each other the occasional hall pass but generally, try to care about the people you ask to do something and try to give something back to them in exchange. While it's the right thing to do... it's also the only way to really be influential.

Comments

[mwallcomm]

Hi Rachel:

Really great post this morning. I couldn't agree with you more. Social media or not, communication skills are something we should all work on regularly if we want to have professional and personal success. How many of the intros or sales outreach communications start with "I want to speak, or I want to let you know" flunking sales 101 of putting the customer first. How much more time does it take to add simple words to an email or notification - words like hello, please, thank you? Don't we all buy from people, and products, that we like and seem to connect with...?

Thank you for writing up what so many of us are thinking.

Mark

[Rachel Happe]

Hi Mark -

Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Great example of starting communications off on the wrong foot. I think we all do it occasionally but trying to constantly orient ourselves to what the other person in the conversation is looking for is such a critical aspect of most business functions. Seems so fundamental and yet, it often seems to be the exception not the rule.

[Evanhamilton]

Fantastic post! This isn't just about communication skills, but about coming at this with the right mindset. I see this all the time as a musician - people who want to be cool stepping up in front of a (literal) microphone and singing things. Only without a true love of music, good songwriting, musicianship, etc it still comes out badly (just louder). Get passionate, understand the space you're in, and most importantly understand the people you're talking to or you'll just be amplifying the bad stuff.

[Steven Safran]

An excellent piece. I would add, as a helpful suggestion to our PR friends, that I don't want to "friend" the company you are repping. At least, I don't want to without a damn good explanation as to why I should do so.

[MiChmski]

Wow, I have to thank Valeria (@ConversationAge) for bringing me to your blog, this is my first time reading, but I loved this article :)

[Rachel Happe]

Thanks for the comments... one thing that I didn't point out in the post is that the size of the acknowledgment needs to be appropriate to the size of the 'ask' - if a company is asking you to be their friend (and thus add your reputation to theirs), they need to provide a compelling reason to do so... and everyone has different barriers for what that might be. I think plenty of people will do something for a free Whopper although you've then established a tit for tat dynamic that's not likely to incent them to do much more without more free gifts.

MiChmski - thanks for letting me know how you found my blog - Valeria's blog is great although I can't keep up with her!

[Gin Kazama]

Hi Rachel,
Thank you for your excellent post. What you mentioned made me reaffirm that writing is such an influential task that I need to "tailor my conversation to the other person's interests".
I'm a struggling scribbler in Japan. I write mainly in Japanese, which is my mother language. What I have in view is that someday I could hopefully compose substantial writings in English as well.
Could I make myself clear so far in my poor skill of English...?

[Alan]

From the Social Media Skeptic's Corner:
Ahah! Rachel you are a closet social
media skeptic. When you said:
"It may be time to take a good hard look at how well you communicate in general (forget Twitter, etc)." I
could sense an oncoming discussion of
the importance of physical proximity
in human communicative exchanges.
Well yes, Second Life avatars can make
gestures, and you can have a simulacrum
of a tete a tete on your iPad, but, well, ...oh well.