Getty Images/iStockphoto
Recently I sat down with my friend Mike Carr to talk about communication skills. Mike has been studying communication for decades, and he just earned the title of 2020 World Champion of Public Speaking. He prevailed over 30,000 contestants from 145 countries, and was the first champion in the 82-year history of the contest to win in a virtual format.
Mike credits his father with providing the foundation for his success in communication skills when he was young. He then honed these skills through years of practice in Toastmasters meetings, through his professional growth to Partner in a financial services firm, and in his personal life as the father of eight children.
When most people think about “communication skills,” they think about how to speak persuasively or deliver a poignant message. While Mike does both of those things, his advice on being a great communicator turns that conventional wisdom upside down. He says that the path to becoming a great communicator is to focus not on speaking, but on listening.
infiniteviewimages.com
Communication and Attention Management
As a trainer and speaker on attention management, I couldn’t agree more with Mike. One of the steps to mastering control over your attention is to learn to control your habits. A common communication habit is to multitask when someone is speaking to us—we try to listen while also formulating what we will say next. This undermines productive communication because it prevents us from being present. And this creates an obstacle to really hearing the other person and fully understanding their point of view.
Over the last several years, this has been reinforced by what Mike referred to during our conversation as “selfie culture.” He says, “Social media has created such a ‘look at me’ environment, and it leaves a gap of focusing on others. Filling that gap helps to make you a stand-out communicator. If we stop worrying about the way we are viewed, and put the focus on viewing others, this is the most effective way to communicate, and ultimately help to make the world a better place.”
Another attention management practice is to seek depth and embrace nuance, which have become casualties of our harried lives. Most of us receive a distraction every few minutes. This constant distraction chips away at our patience, and our growing impatience means we tend to read the summary instead of the book and the headline instead of the story. This impatience also shows up in the way we communicate. We hear the first sentence, assume we fully understand the other person’s point, and immediately start developing our response.
When we focus primarily on giving information, we only exercise surface-level attention. And when we never go below the surface, we prevent presence, and miss out on a lot. We miss the opportunity to create the rich exchanges that build connections with others, generate empathy, expand our thinking, and boost our creativity.
Mike shared with me five insightful communication strategies based in listening. These strategies align with my experience that managing your attention improves your success, including your success as a communicator.
1. Embrace the Silence
Since the advent of radio, television, and other mass audio communication technologies, “dead air” has become something to avoid at all costs. This ultimately helped create an environment in which we have become uncomfortable with silence. Sometimes people are even viewed as less intelligent if they don’t have an immediate response constantly at the ready. But some topics are too complex for off-the-cuff responses, and this discomfort with silence often leads to unproductive exchanges.
Silence is a key to presence. Both silence and presence are powerful tools embraced by master communicators. Silence can make people tune back in to you if they get distracted by what they were going to say next. It can create tension when you’re telling a story to an audience, and also resolve tension during one-on-one communication.
I’ve personally observed Mike’s skill in using silence. When confronted with disagreement, most people prepare to defend their argument. But Mike’s response is often to pause, allow for a beat or two of silence, and then reply by saying, “Hmmm, let me think about that.” This makes the other person feel heard, and facilitates a productive conversation instead of the adversarial “I’m right and you’re wrong” posture that is so common in our current polarized climate.
Don’t be afraid of the silence. Instead, practice letting questions (and answers) sit and “soak.”
2. Vulnerability Builds Trust
Mike’s second communication strategy is to be brave enough to be honest, even when that makes you feel vulnerable. Being vulnerable and honest gives others encouragement to do the same.
Mike remembers watching his father share stories about being scared and making mistakes, and seeing others open up and let down their guard as a result.
Sharing honest exchanges builds trust, but only when you can manage to be fully present in the conversation. When someone is trusting you enough to be vulnerable, anything less than your full attention will violate that trust. When people feel that you aren’t paying attention to them, it erodes your connection with them.
3. Be Curious
Mike’s third listening tip for powerful communication: turn something interesting about yourself into a question you pose to others. For example, Mike is full of stories about being the father of eight children. Many people in that position would share those stories, with the goal that others might view him as an interesting person. Instead, Mike uses that fact about himself to come up with questions he asks other people, like, “Tell me about your family?”
This question is never posed as a set-up for Mike to talk about his kids. He uses his own interests, and things that others find interesting about him, as catalysts to learn about others and allow them to share stories that are meaningful to them.
4. Look for Opportunities to Learn
Mike applies this professional development strategy to helping him be a better communicator. He remembers his father telling him, “Everyone in this world is much better than you at at least one thing. Your job in life is to discover that thing, and learn it from them.”
If you remember this when communicating, you’ll enhance your ability to help others feel seen and heard. Mike says that his dad “had friends from all walks of life because he had a genuine interest in other people and recognized that their unique experiences were learning opportunities. He actively looked for unique skills in others, and created opportunities to strike up conversations about them.”
5. Ask Questions You Don’t Know the Answer To
Questions are not only a tool to learn but also a useful communication technique. But often, we’re afraid to ask questions because we fear looking stupid. To become a great communicator, be brave enough to overcome this fear. Ask questions, especially when you don’t know the answers. Ask questions even if you think you do know the answers. If you’re afraid of others’ judging you, you’ll limit what you learn, and you’ll never give others the opportunity to teach you something. Asking questions and sincerely listening to the answers is a great example of communicating through listening and putting the focus on others.
I’m not surprised that Mike’s successful approach to communication is based in listening. Becoming a better listener supports attention management skills like being fully present, seeking depth, and embracing nuance. And those attention management skills help you become a better listener. Mike employed all of these skills on his journey to World Champion of Public Speaking. Start practicing them today to communicate like a champion! Learn more by watching Mike’s winning speech here.
