Elena, one of the Vice Presidents I’m coaching, came in laughing.  I’ll let her tell you why in her own words:

“Our corporate office has been making us do the wrong thing with customers.  We know it’s wrong and we’ve been complaining, but nothing’s changed, we don’t do anything about it.

My boss, Andrew, and I took a trip to corporate headquarters for a meeting with the senior execs.  Andrew went on a rant about how it was wrong (he was right about everything).  The senior execs listened but looked stone-faced.

Normally, I would go in combative.  Normally, we come in on the defensive, ready to defend our position from corporate.  It was clear that “Normally” wasn’t working.

This time, the same meeting was playing out again that always plays out, about how wrong everything was – it was “Groundhog Day” all over again.

But this time I came in with the mindset, “I’m not coming in to combat you.”

I came in ready to create a real dialogue. I came in with the mindset, “This is an opportunity where we could do something different …”

I let the conversation play out.  I came in ready to listen … and I did listen to everything.

Then I took my time and really acknowledged what they said.  I made sure they felt I really heard them.

Suddenly, they were ready to receive – I saw a willingness there.  And I said, “We know the problem.  This is a time we can change direction.” 

I saw this difference in them. They were open to it. 

It happened so quickly – took less than 10 minutes.

Today we got an official email telling us to go ahead. 

Andrew emailed me with, “What just happened?” 

It happened so fast, he couldn’t keep up with it.  In his mind, he was in “complaining mode” so thoroughly, he couldn’t keep up with it.

It was magic.

It was the Communication Formula that I learned from you working, but very fluid, it was fluid, it just flowed, very light touch, almost effortless.

Magic.

I had to help Andrew understand what happened.”

When you have real communication skills, you’ll have the ability to transform others and you will see the transformation happen before your eyes.

When you are masterful, that change in others happens fast.

This is a high degree of skill.

Everyone communicates. Everyone has some degree of success with it. But it’s the degree of skill that distinguishes a great communicator. And that you can tell by the quality and speed of your results.

Why this is important is because many people achieve a level of success in their communication that they’re happy with, so they don’t aggressively pursue more. They’re comfortable.

For example, Andrew is comfortable with his current level of skill.  He thinks he’s a good communicator.

What he’s uncomfortable with, however, is the results.  But he never ties his results to his ability to communicate.  It’s much easier to explain it away as “You know how they are.”

Your ability to communicate defines your results.  In every area of your life.  Ordinary or extraordinary.  Slow or Fast.

Are your results where you want them to be? If not, then taking your communication skills to a new level is something you can do to change that.

That’s how you create the magic. You develop the skills to take full control over your results.

Others will look at your magic and wonder how you do it.

Only you will understand that it’s simply the product of your decision to stop settling for anything but the best you can do.

Don’t settle for less.  The magic is worth it.

Be the cause!