Paula was a young “Early in Career” engineer, her first job out of college. She was excited to land in a successful corporation filled with 80,000 employees.  As a new member, Paula was at the very bottom of the towering command chain.

While her position was small, her vision and her dreams were big. More than anything, Paula wanted to do good in the world around her. 

She came to Causative Communication to learn how to communicate effectively with the whole world where everything was new to her. She was young and wide-eyed and innocent, no accumulated failures pulled back her confidence. She was driven by her dreams, not by her fears.

Paula knew she had no command power over anyone, but she could already see that communication is a powerful force, and had concluded by watching others that the ability to communicate is the most powerful ability she could have when it came to working with a whole lot of people.

Paula was part of a small team that was part of a larger team that was part of an even larger team. Paula often attended meetings with 40 others from her division. Everyone had seniority and experience over her.

With the communication skills she developed in the workshop under her belt, Paula spoke up with confidence in these larger meetings. She voiced her thoughts, she acknowledged others, she participated. She didn’t try to control the meeting. She just wanted to be a part of it.

Paula came back smiling, super happy to the beginning of the third session of Causative Communication where everyone reports back on how they’re applying what they’re learning and the results they’re seeing.  She said,

“I changed the energy of the whole team. I noticed it change the first time I spoke.  Then I noticed that as I spoke more, the energy in the room changed even more. Someone told me later that ‘the dynamics of the whole team changed.’ I have no idea what that means.  But I could see I changed the energy by what I said, and especially how I said it with affinity and intention. I also kept acknowledging others when they spoke, especially if no one else acknowledged them. As I did all that, everyone was getting along better and we were getting more done. They looked happier too.”

One person. One young person. With no official power.  Not in a “leadership” role. She changed the entire team.

Where do power and leadership come from?  From status or rank? From others who anoint and give it to you?

Or does a person’s power and leadership come from the power of their communication?

Paula knows the answer to these questions. Not because she read them in a book or learned them in college, but because she lived them.

If something is holding you back, your ability to communicate can get you to the other side.  There’s no such thing as “too young” or “too old” or “too far down the chain of command” or “too anything”.  There’s only your ability, despite all perceived or imagined obstacles, to make yourself understood, to reach others with your ideas, to uplift a room.

Being causative is a superpower. It allows the impossible to become possible.

Many of you reading this have already taken our classes and love reading these stories because they inspire you to keep developing and keep applying these skills to the world around you.  They are magic.  Whether the world around you is using them doesn’t matter – you are the one who does have them and who can make the difference.  And it’s a big difference you do make.

Many of you reading this, for various reasons, haven’t taken our classes.  This in no way is a reason to stop you from applying these principles of causative communication, or keep you from having the wins Paula had.  I’m not trying to sell my classes, they sell themselves through word of mouth.  I’m making a world of great communicators, and lend my support to all who are striving.

For all of you, I am always here for you.  Feel free to email me any questions, I will read them and reply.  And I love reading your wins, big and small.  And, frankly, there’s no such thing as a “small win”.  Every win is big because it leads to a world based in understanding.

And always remember, it doesn’t matter where you’re at in the organization, your ability to communicate will make any factors that could hold you back completely irrelevant.

Be the cause!