Alistair came to me for coaching because his evaluations were filled with words like “Dry”, “Dull”, and “Not inspiring”. They thought Alistair was a smart technical geek with no leadership ability. The “Loyalty” scores in his division hit the bottom.
It was very quickly clear to me that Alistair had tremendous leadership ability and was an exceptional strategist. He was tripping up on his ability to communicate, and so the outside world never saw it.
When you trip up on communication, you will trip up on leadership. They go hand in hand.
I coached Alistair on many skills. The continuing monthly evaluations from his All-Hands told us whether he was winning.
Watching Arjun’s initial presentation, I could see he was rational, professional, very corporate. But it was not compelling. You might walk away liking Arjun, but not much moved or influenced by him.
Virtual presentations had always thrown Arjun off, especially with people that he didn’t work closely with and didn’t see that often.
We worked on many skills. I’m going to talk about two that really made a big difference. They both have to do with your state of mind.
A well-loved and successful Vice President recently came to an in-person Causative Communications class we were delivering for their company to talk to the students about how she utilizes the skills she gained from our classes to create real success in her daily life and her career.
The students loved her talk. She was supposed to talk for about 20 minutes, but they were so enthralled it went on for about an hour and a half, with question after question, each followed by her giving them practical advice that inspired them. Their faces were glowing listening to her.
One question she was asked was, “How do you prepare for a challenging meeting or big presentation?” This was a particularly good question for her because she goes into many very difficult negotiations and conversations, as well as gives many important presentations. Her answer will surprise you … (read more)
Tuesday was the first day of the Causative Communication course. Prasant had just learned about affinity and the difference it makes to communication. He learned that he actually needed to feel it if he wanted to be successful, and that finding something to like about the other person was the key to feeling it.
That sounded “great in theory”, but Prasant said it was “impossible” for him to find anything to like about Martin. However, Prasant knew only too well that what he was doing wasn’t working. He’d reached the point of being willing to try anything.
A number of years ago, my father called and told me he was going to be in San Francisco giving a talk. He said, “Let’s have dinner afterward!” I was thrilled, and said I’d love to also see his talk. I’d never seen my father give a presentation. He was a trial attorney who won a lot of cases, including one in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. I knew he did a lot of public speaking, but I’d only ever seen him be a father.
Following signs in the hotel lobby leading to his talk, I walked into the glittering ballroom in the Mark Hopkins, a grand 5-star hotel high atop ritzy Nob Hill, and found my father speaking … to hundreds of attorneys who packed the room to listen to him.
What?????? This was my father??????
“We don’t need a reorganization.”
That simple sentence changed the fate of hundreds of people.
Bill came to me for coaching, but not with high hopes. His first words were, “I’m interested in anything you have to teach me, but I want you to know that I’m realistic and I know that there are many situations where communication doesn’t work.”
I’ve handled many difficult situations. Many difficult conversations. And I’ve spent my life helping others do the same.
I’ve seen people turn their losses around rapidly. I’ve also seen people who take a long time to recover.
The fastest, simplest and most effective way to turn around a bad situation, a bad conversation, or a bad relationship is this.
First, face the situation as it is. Don’t get drawn into “How it should have been”.
If someone is being difficult and you can walk away and not deal with them, I'm all for it. If you can go around them, or above them or go somewhere else, why waste your energy dealing with a difficult person if you don’t have to?
But there are times you can't choose to end that relationship, even though you may be able to walk away for a couple hours.
Sometimes you have a difficult boss, but no other job. Until you find another job, you can't afford to walk. Sometimes it’s immediate family that you can’t leave. What do you do then?
This article is about how to make other people’s faces light up when they see you.
At my farmer’s market on Sunday, the farmer where I buy broccoli every week, a man who is normally sullen and glum, lit up and started grinning when he saw me walking toward his vegetable stand.
Why did he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.
The staff of a senior executive in a major corporation complain he never makes time to meet with them. After my first meeting with him, he told me to always stop by his office to talk when I’m in the building. His face lights up when he sees me and he always makes time. He gives me his full attention. Our impromptu meetings often stretch to 30 or even 45 minutes.
Why does he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.
A Vice President known for never answering his emails always answers mine within hours.
Why does he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.
I haven’t even begun to tell you the results my clients get. Every day I get emails from our students about what happens when they apply the Communication Formula. They get equally spectacular results.
Real communication leaves you and the other person feeling really good.
One of the foundational, skills students gain in the Causative Communication course is the ability to BE THERE COMFORTABLY. This sounds insignificant to the untrained ear. Yet, without this ability as a base, no other communication skills function.
This is illustrated by an email I received from one of our students, Mariela. Mariela has a “Lioness” boss who crushes the spirit and destroys the self-esteem of all.
Mariela emailed me this after the course:
Sometimes my students write the best articles. I think you'll be inspired by this success story.
I've worked with MANY people who wanted to get promoted. They have tremendous technical expertise and many other abilities and fine qualities. The key differentiator that always ensures true recognition and significant success for them is gaining the ability to communicate at the high level of skilled communication that their lives require.
One gentleman, whose name is Krishna, perfectly illustrates this.
What happens between childhood and adulthood that makes adults so uncomfortable and tense about looking into each other’s eyes?
This is a question I ask myself often. In our Causative Communication Live! Workshop, I help the grown ups restore their lost ability to really LOOK at another person. And I always wonder how we let ourselves get so mixed up with so many confusing ideas about it.
What a group of successful execs will learn in Causative Communication, are the rules. Not the rules that I dreamed up, but the rules that are common to all human beings, crossing every border reaching every culture, every generation, rules that determine the winners and the losers, timeless rules deeply baked in to human nature, powerful rules that will still be active 500 years from now.
The first one they learn is unexpected. It’s foundational.
As I was teaching the concept of affinity, Bridget very bluntly told me she doesn’t have time for it. I told her that I understood, and with her busy schedule she certainly doesn’t have time to do anything additional that would add time. But I explained to her that affinity is not something you do in addition, it’s HOW you do what you’re ALREADY doing. It doesn’t take any time.
Liza: “I’m leaving you.”
Matt: In shock. “Oh no you’re not.”
He was at home in Silicon Valley. Liza was calling from Boston. She was in a hotel room with the man she was leaving Matt for. She was on a business trip, but now she was telling Matt she wasn’t coming home. Matt just found out that their affair had been going on for months.
He knew things had gotten distant between them, and he felt responsible because he had been working too hard and had stopped really being present in their marriage. “I wasn’t there for her.” He suddenly realized what a mistake that was. But he loved Liza and he didn’t want her to go.
Matt was on the phone and thinking fast. He felt he was losing everything, his mind was a blank. He had just done Causative Communication and the only thing he could remember was intention.
Many people don’t know what to do when they run into push-back, hostility, opposition, or resistance. Especially when it comes from groups. There are so many wrong ways, but there are also many right ways to transform it. They all rely on outrageously great communication.
This isn’t something you can do “half-way” and expect to generate extraordinary outcomes. This type of result requires an ability most anyone COULD achieve but one that few ever will.
I take many candid screenshots during the virtual training, and a number of videos with small enough groups when the workshops are in person. A candid photo is a photo where the person is not posing, they don’t even know a photo of them is being taken.
As people go through the workshops, and they see their faces change in their screen shots, especially when they see the anxiety replaced with affinity, they almost can’t believe how good they look.
Your face alone has 42 muscles. Some sources say it has up to 60. Every single one of them reflects your attention and your affinity.
How do you teach the principle of dignity? Most people wouldn’t know where to start.
I start with the word. People don’t know what it means. And if you can’t define it, you can’t do it.
Think to yourself, do you have crystal clarity on dignity?
I use a revolutionary new process called Word Clearing to teach extremely powerful concepts, including executive presence.
People make a huge mistake thinking that just because they said something, that the other person “got it”. That it registered.
When the person you’re talking to is solidly stuck in a particular viewpoint, when they have an obstinately fixed idea, there can be a time lapse between the time you say something and the time it registers. Why?
Your communication hasn’t ARRIVED.
He was a hard-driving senior executive everyone was terrified of. His criticisms were plenty, immediate and penetrating. Even so, the people in his division were fiercely loyal. He demanded, and they achieved.
Yet even the ones who had worked with him for years trembled with fear when they were called into his office. Most of his people don’t know what real listening is. They are too terrified of him to really listen, too terrified to really be there for him. You’re not hearing anything when you’re terrified. You’re focused on your own survival. You’ve got to really be there for someone for them to open up.
Some of the people that have come here for training have no authority and they’re being influenced by the people at the top in ways that block them from doing what really should be done. Their goal for the training is to learn how to influence their leaders, especially when the leaders don’t have the communication abilities needed for others to find them easy to talk to. Especially leaders who don’t listen.
When do you give up on someone? That’s something only you can answer, but when the answer to this question affects tens of thousands of people, it’s worth pushing the limits of not giving up.
I’ve seen communication succeed despite all odds, and this is where REAL skill comes in.
Intention is an invisible wave that carries your communication across and causes you to be successful in being fully understood.
Learning how to create this carrier wave is a game-changer.
People often try a variety of different approaches before they land on the precision it takes to create pure intention.
If you would like a little more magic in your life, raising your affinity for the other person is a super effective and rapid way to create it.
It’s not something that needs to happen only once in a while. You can do it in every conversation you have. Even in horrible, terrible, hammered situations with “difficult” people. Especially in those.
Amy came to Causative Communication thinking she had to learn to “be more forceful”, but that made her feel defeated because it was so far from who she really is, and it wasn’t who she wanted to be. It meant sacrificing too important a part of herself.
I loved her immediately.
The problem wasn’t that Amy was soft-spoken. The problem was that she had absolutely no intention when she communicated.
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