Every Voice Matters

SUMMARY

Do you sometimes feel like you're trapped in a lot of noise and no one's listening? Or does your communication bring mutual understanding and is effective, and you can get along with other people?

Hi this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the year, and Master Coach Trainer. Today, I want to start this conversation with you around the Emotional Intelligence area of Relationship Management by helping you understand that Every Voice Matters.

It's understandable why sometimes you might feel that no one cares what you're talking about, that you don't matter, and that no one's listening to what you've got to say. When you develop the competencies that I’m going to talk to you about over the coming weeks, you're going to have a mutual understanding where you understand that all of us matter, and effective communication will help you get the relationships that you want.

To do this, it all starts with awareness.

What I want to do this week is start the journey by unpacking with you five key principles that will help you understand the foundations of great communication.

Number one is people are different.

Number two is to celebrate diversity.

Number three is to expand your interest.

Number four is to find common ground.

Number five is to give to gain.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, as we continue this conversation and start to go deeper into this Relationship Management competency of Communication, by helping you to customise your communication. To be able to package it up in a way that will help you get that mutual understanding — to be heard and to have conflict removed and collaboration coming to the top.

I'll see you then.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you sometimes feel like you're trapped in a lot of noise and no one's listening? Or does your communication bring mutual understanding and is effective, and you can get along with other people?

Well stick with me because, in this week’s episode, we’re going to start our journey through the relationship management competency of communication by helping you understand that you've got something to say, and people want to listen.

Hi this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the year, and Master Coach Trainer. Today, I want to start this conversation with you around the Emotional Intelligence area of Relationship Management by helping you understand that Every Voice Matters.

It's understandable why sometimes you might feel that no one cares what you're talking about, that you don't matter, and that no one's listening to what you've got to say. When you develop the competencies that I’m going to talk to you about over the coming weeks, you're going to have a mutual understanding where you understand that all of us matter, and effective communication will help you get the relationships that you want.
To do this, it all starts with awareness.

What I want to do this week is start the journey by unpacking with you five key principles that will help you understand the foundations of great communication.

In the past few weeks, you’ve worked through the competencies in Emotional Intelligence around your Self-Awareness and self-management. Before the end of last year, you looked at Social Awareness and looked at being more empathetic, serving others, and working well in the social environment.

There is a lot of communication going on in the world, which is not getting the result we all need. There are things going on in the world for all of us. Yet, what I'm seeing is how people are reacting to the things that are happening, and to the other things that people are saying that are different to them is really going off the rails.

Now, I don't know about you, whether you see this as well, but I want to make sure that I can help you be a part of the solution rather than use our time together to speak about the problem.

Let's have a look at these five principles right now.

Number one is people are different.

“Wow, that's rocket science, Grant. That's something that I didn't know.”

What I'm talking about here is: not knowing it as cognitive knowledge, but understanding and realizing that one of the keys to effective communication is to realise that you are communicating with people who are like, or unlike you. And even those who are like you are different from you because your experience and how you have navigated your journey (however long it's been so far) are different.

So the first key in awareness around your communication, is to take a look and ask yourself when you’re communicating with others:

“Am I accepting the fact that they are different to me, that they might see the world differently to me? Because the experiences I've had a different to me.”

People are different. You are unique. You are not a carbon copy of everyone else.

Therefore you’re going to think, communicate and behave differently.

Number two is to celebrate diversity.

How boring would the conversation around the world be if everyone was the same as you— there would be no discussion. It would be just stating facts.

I like to look at it this way: I want to make sure that I look at the diversity, the differences there, as a positive rather than a negative.

“Hey, if there are people in my team, in my family, in my world who have a different understanding of something than I have, then perhaps there's something I can learn from that.”

Now I understand the root of human behaviour that is threatened by people having a different opinion (and I’m going to talk to you about those things as we go through the month). However, this is a foundational key. The awareness you need is to go, “am I celebrating the difference that this person or these people are bringing to this communication? Or am I seeing it as a roadblock for me to be heard, get my points across, and have that mutual understanding?”

Number three is to expand your interest.

I don't know about you. In fact, I do, because you're a human being and you are wired to be self-centered. But I find that I need to really be aware of when my interest is only self-serving. I need to be aware when I'm looking to communicate or have a relationship that will give me what I want without considering what others might want as well.

So, when you expand your interest. When you become curious and ask more questions than make statements.

When you want to find out more about the other person and what their experience is.

When you view things from the lens from which they are looking through the particular communication that you're having right now.

Then you will be able to go through some of the strategies that I'm going to teach you in the coming weeks and get a great result from your communication.

People like to hear the sound of their voice, and that's okay. So long as

The fourth principle is to find common ground.

A lot of communication that I see is people looking to see what is not the same as what they believe or think. Therefore, they go on the offensive and attack other people's points of view.

I don't know about you, but I've had times when I've had conversations with people, and I've not maintained my level of Emotional Intelligence. Then down the track, I realised, we're actually saying the same thing. We just come from a different angle, and therefore both of us are missing out on what we're saying.

But when you seek to find common ground and when you seek to find something that you agree on, the conversation can build. Therefore, when you need to introduce something that may be a bit controversial or may have a tendency to go against what the other person believes, it's more palatable. This is because you haven't started on the wrong foot or immediately looked at how you’re different and how you are thinking about something different, or it's against what you believe.

Common ground is one of the biggest nuggets of gold that you can find in every relationship and communication.

Number five is to give to gain.

Often, when you communicate, what you do is only seek to get your point across.

You seek to make sure that you are heard. Yet, you do it in a way that you need to be communicated with. Therefore, the person on the other side, or the people you're communicating with, may miss the intent, heart, and meaning of what you're saying.

By making sure that you give people what they need, you will get that understanding that you want.

So, how do you do that?

Well, over the coming weeks, I'm going to give you some practical strategies and tips to help you to be able to understand other people, to be able to understand how to give them the communication packaged up in a way that they need it so that they hear you, so they understand, and can actually have a mutually beneficial conversation with you.

Today was all about laying a foundation and realizing that communication is vitally important and for us to understand that every voice matters, not just ours and not just theirs.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, as we continue this conversation and start to go deeper into this Relationship Management competency of Communication, by helping you to customise your communication. To be able to package it up in a way that will help you get that mutual understanding — to be heard and to have conflict removed and collaboration coming to the top.

I'll see you then.