Chapter 3 - Connecting Goes Beyond Words
1.THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF CONNECTION
She backs this up with the following evidence indicating how people today are more visual than ever:
77 percent of all Americans get about 90 percent of their news from television.
47 percent get all their news from television.
Major U.S. corporations have their own television studios.
Video and Web conferencing are replacing on-site face-to-face sales meetings.
Digital video recording systems are becoming commonplace in homes and offices.
Children now log about twenty-two thousand hours watching television by age nineteen, more than twice the time spent in school.[3]
We live in a visual age. People spend countless hours looking at YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, PowerPoint, video games, movies, and other media. You can certainly understand the importance of what can be seen in our culture. People expect any kind of communication to be a visual experience
You’ve got just seven seconds to make the right first impression. As soon as you make your entrance, you broadcast verbal and nonverbal signals that determine how others see you. In business, those crucial first seven seconds can decide whether you will win that new account, or succeed in a tense negotiation.
Are you confident? Comfortable? Sincere? Glad to be there? In that first seven seconds, you shower your audience with subtle “cues.” And whether people realize it or not, they respond immediately to your facial expressions, gestures, stance, and energy. They react to your voice—the tone and pitch. Audiences, whether one or one hundred, instinctively size up your motives and attitudes.
People can perceive a lot in seven seconds. They can decide that they do not want to hear anything a speaker has to say, or they can be struck by how much they are attracted to someone.
If you want to increase your ability to connect with people visually, then take to heart the following advice:
a. Eliminate Personal Distractions: If you’re well groomed and wearing the right clothing for your situation, then that’s a good start. Countless numbers of people have lost sales opportunities, ruined job interviews, or been turned down for dates because their appearance didn’t match someone else’s expectations.
b. Expand Your Range of Expression
c. Move with a sense of Purpose
I selected Steve because he walked to the back of the store briskly and with more energy than you did.”
d. Maintain an Open Posture
When I first started speaking to audiences, I usually stood behind a lectern and didn’t move. As a result, I felt separated from my audience. When I began to walk around the stage and got out where people could see me, my connection with people improved greatly.
e. Pay Attention to Your Surroundings
Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
The proverb “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” really is true. That comes across and impacts the way others react to you. People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. That will either enable you to connect with people and win them over, or it will alienate them and cause you to lose them. In fact, your attitude often overpowers the words you use when speaking to others. As Jules Rose of Sloans’ Supermarkets points out, “The exact words that you use are far less important than the energy, intensity, and conviction with which you use them.”
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.
Here’s the bottom line on charisma. You don’t have to be gorgeous, a genius, or a masterful orator to possess presence and to connect with others. You just need to be positive, believe in yourself, and focus on others. Do that, and there’s a good chance you will connect with others because you make it possible for others to feel what you feel, which is the essence of connecting on an emotional level. That’s true whether connecting with an audience, a small group, or one-on-one.
Don’t just give them the facts, but include your emotion and perceptions, make them feel what you felt.”[7] That is your goal anytime you want to connect with people. Help them to feel what you feel.
communication goes way beyond words
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The words we choose to speak to our spouse or children can either build them up or tear them down. They can make or break a deal. They can turn a boring talk into a memorable moment.
2.PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The best professional speakers know themselves and their strengths— often learned through trial and error(????)—and they use them to their greatest advantage. So do the best stand-up comics, politicians, entertainers, and leaders. Each has his or her own style, but they all share the ability to connect visually, intellectually, emotionally, and verbally.
word for word ??? Needless to say????,???
3.CONNECTING WITH PEOPLE AT ALL LEVELS
CONNECTING ONE-ON-ONE
People often overlook the importance of the nonverbal aspects of communication when trying to connect with one other person. They don’t go the extra mile to connect beyond words. You improve in this area if you:
Connect visually by giving the other person your complete attention. The eyes are the windows of the soul; see the other person’s heart and show your heart.
Connect intellectually by asking questions, listening carefully, and also paying attention to what isn’t being said.
Connect emotionally through touch (being careful to honor boundaries and remain appropriate with members of the opposite sex).
CONNECTING IN A GROUP
Connecting with a group is an excellent way to learn how to think and communicate like a coach. It’s an interactive environment where you can actually show people what to do, and then you can ask them to demonstrate while you give them feedback. In group environments:
Connect visually by setting the example. People in the group will do what they see.
Connect intellectually by investing in people’s growth. Build on what they already understand so they can develop to a higher level.
Connect emotionally by honoring the group’s effort and rewarding its work.
CONNECTING WITH AN AUDIENCE
Speaking to an audience is the most difficult of the three settings when it comes to communicating beyond words. Why? Because almost all of our communication from a stage is in words! However, you can still make immediate improvements to your nonverbal communication by doing three things, especially at the beginning of a presentation:
Connect visually by smiling. This lets people know you’re happy to be communicating with them.
Connect intellectually by pausing strategically to give the audience time to think about something you’ve said.
Connect emotionally through facial expressions, laughter, and tears.
