Riza was losing the negotiation with a critical customer. The problem was, what the customer was demanding was utterly unreasonable. But, he was undeniably an important customer, and Riza couldn’t give up on him. 

Riza had just completed Causative Communication and was doing a decent job of executing the Communication Formula.

Using everything she learned, Riza persisted in explaining a better solution. She came at it from all different angles. They talked for a long time. There was no change.

The customer stubbornly held his ground, emphatically insisting on his initial demand.  Because Riza held her affinity high and kept acknowledging him, it didn’t degrade into something awful. They ended the meeting after a long day, and agreed to meet the next day.

The next morning, the customer walked in and straight away started the meeting by saying he’d “thought about it last night” and knew the course of action he now wanted to take. 

Then he proceeded, word for word, to repeat exactly what Riza had been telling him the day before, presenting it as if it were his own idea.

Riza, flabbergasted, went along and said, “Yes, that sounds like a great idea.” They shook hands, both enthusiastically happy with the solution.  Then Riza called me and said, “What the heck just happened?”

Here’s what I told her. 

What happened is not all that unusual. 

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.

Your communication has to travel through a maze of fixed ideas, confusions, beliefs, assertions that the viewpoint they’re holding onto is right in order to arrive and really land. 

If you keep at it (which Riza did), you see them get it.  It looks like it suddenly happened. That’s the moment you got through to them.  Sometimes it doesn’t happen when they’re right in front of you.  It takes the quiet of silent contemplation.  But if you’re good, it HAPPENS. And it happens sooner rather than later.

In my 30+ years of teaching communication skills, I have learned how much communication it takes for people to really get what someone is saying to them.  When the realities are far apart, it takes way more skill and more communication than people generally think it does. 

People who don’t know this give up, get frustrated or just start pushing for the other person to agree with them, which irritates the other person and jams the whole conversation.  You know what I’m talking about – you’ve seen it a million times.

A skilled communicator recognizes when the other person hasn’t fully understood what they said – not fully.  People frequently miss this and it’s the hidden source of many problems.  George Bernard Shaw said, “The problem with communication is the assumption that it happened.”

A skilled communicator observes not just that they haven’t been agreed with (that’s obvious), but that they haven’t achieved complete understanding. A skilled communicator gently persists until they are fully understood, like Riza did.  She didn’t give up, not pushing for agreement, but in creating understanding. 

It’s not always easy to persist.  You could be in a situation where the other person has more authority and they’ve indicated you should back off.  This happens in large corporations all the time and too many people do back off because they don’t have the skills to stay in the game.  It takes skill to persist without upsetting the other person or making them uncomfortable.

What I told Riza was that her communication skills were superior and they WORKED, they caused the customer to “get it” and in less than 24 hours.  A miracle that it happened so fast with someone that stubborn.  This is a person no one gets through to. But Riza did.

When your ideas have to travel through a maze of stubbornness, confusions and fixed ideas in the other person’s mind, the ability to skillfully persist and rapidly get through is a survival skill.

Be the cause!