Words, words, words.

Did you know that your words, the words you use specifically, are words that have connection, emotion and meaning in your brain. If someone uses your words in front of you, you will feel more comfortable in their presence than a person who uses words that are a paraphrase of your vocabulary. In the 80’s and 90’s there were active listening courses that had people repeat back others ideas to them using paraphrased words and we now know this is a miss match an actually brings up people’s defenses because it appears we don’t relate if you don’t use the words that match our brain patterning.

If you are marketing to a particular group, you want to know what are the words are to access that group. For example, you are going to get an entirely different group if you market to “body workers” versus “holistic practitioners.” Similarly, individuals will buy an entirely different brand of toilet a paper based on the marketing words used for marketing that toilet paper.

The power of your words

A couple nights ago I finally got a chance to attend my first Ladies Who Launch networking session run by Allie Covarrubias. Being unfamiliar with the electoral process I asked the 2 women I was talking at the end of the event, if they knew what the result of the Proposition 8 vote. One of them said as a result of the vote there would be a change made to the US constitution.

One of the 2 women I was speaking to admitted to voting “Yes” on this ballot issue. I was shocked hearing this from someone who is a woman and lives in San Francisco. She voted for changing the constitution – the agreement in which this great country was founded on! The other woman chatting was equally perplexed at her response and that she even would admit it in this forum we were having.

The woman who voted “Yes” even admitted she understood that whether or not she agreed with same-sex marriage that minority rights means rights for all people no matter how you differentiate yourself and it is imperative for a our democratic society to advance. In a woman’s group how could one of our members be vehemently apposed to same-sex marriage that they would vote to change the constitution?

She admitted to have both gay and lesbian friends but she said the decision was based on the word “marriage” NOT on the act of marriage. To her, “marriage” was sacred word used to describe the union between a man and a woman. In the country she immigrated from, they had legalized same-sex marriages but they used another word to define a same-sex union.

Sometimes an issue is so charged that we can’t even see what we’re fighting about and as a result there could be split between people and our connectedness to each other.

We don’t live in reality. We live in our interpretations of our reality. This means that each of us has our own unique definitions and meaning for the words that create our reality. No two realities are the same. If we don’t take the time to listen and really understand what another is communicating, what their meaning and definition behind their words then we will definitely loose out to misunderstandings that can elevate our disagreements to possibly violent proportions. In this case, because we got wrapped up in our interpretation, because we couldn’t see the real issue we may be permanently scaring a document that founded this great country.

Tracy Slotin
Corporate Culturist
The Executive Sandbox Innovation Consultants

Drop Confusing tones and Will Create Clear Communication - Part 5

Albert Mahrabian found that 37% of our communication transmission is made up of tone. Now there is a little glitch in our genetic code to make this a little more interesting. 37% is a considerable amount of communication to be tied up in tone alone if you happen to be half of the population that doesn’t hear all of the tones. It has been found that on average women hear 5-8 tones in communication whereas men hear 35 tones.

We mostly received examples of tonal errors when we were scolded by our mothers as children for our tone of voice and not quite understanding the reprimand. How many times then did you say ‘sorry’ and have the result of the individual responding you didn’t mean it? As adults we have all used the word “fine” to mean that “later, you are going to pay dearly that I’m not happy” without really knowing if the communication was received.

Now communication is usually slated into to forms – indirect and direct. Women are reportedly to speak indirectly while males are reported to speak directly. What this is trying to account for is historical adaptations in communication that have taken form since the days of Hunters & Gatherers. In the Hunter-Gather days women tended to be the gatherers and men tended to be the hunters. The adaptation was created something like this...

Hunters spent most of their time with groups of other hunters or men going to hunt. Going to the hunt was similar to the ways today’s men currently go fishing or attend or watch a sporting event. They quickly work out a plan of attack, where they are going to go, when they get to the area of the hunt. Once they get to the area of attack they stop talking using words for directives and instruction – straight to the point – so to not scare their prey away. This type of emotionless, less tonal communication is prevalent in business. Male brains adapted the direct type of communication because of their tasks during the course of history (Remember Anne Moir found that 80% of males and 10% of women have focus brains which also supports this theory).

Gatherers spent time with other women, children, and the elders of the tribe. They couldn’t just relay on directive communication because some of the individuals they were dealing with didn’t speak. The Gatherers were responsible for taking care of the community when the Hunters were going out getting the kill. They developed ways of seeing and hearing emotions and developed tone references. As with the Hunters, the Gatherers developed adaptations in their brain to deal with the world they dealt with.

Recent studies of male and female brains reveal that the communication areas for a females to be larger in volume with many more communication centers than their male counterparts.



This brain picture shows the communication centers in the male brain (designated by the blue areas) and the communication centers in the female brain (designated by the red areas).

One of the final frontiers is the human brain. Current research reports that we change our brain with every conversation, every action we partake in. Our brain keeps changing and developing well into our 80’s (current research states 80’s but it could be longer). Just because your biological hand may have dealt you a certain brain style doesn’t mean you can’t change, build, and reconstruct your brain. If you communicate indirectly you can practice communicating directly with a direct speaker. If you are a direct speaker you can work with an indirect speaker to build up your ability to speak indirectly.

Tracy Slotin, BSc, BA, MBA (Leadership)
CEO and Grand Sandmaster
The Executive Sandbox® Change/Innovation Consultants
www.ExecutiveSandbox.com

Proxemics and why you want to know how to use it to your best advantage in your communication – Clear communication Part 4

Proxemics is the study of the human use of space within the context of culture. In Edward T. Hall’s 1966 book The Hidden Dimension he argues that human perceptions of space are created through our sensing (seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, feeling/touch) of the culture in which we live. He also states that the differing culture structures for defining and organizing space are internalized at an unconscious level and can lead to serious miscommunications and misunderstanding in cross-cultural settings.

In animals we see this space phenomenon through marking of territory. Animals are concerned with an imaginary ring, which marks a zone of threat. If another animal crosses that unseen line the animal will flee. Beyond that circle is an inner circle where that animal will defend against an intruder. If an intruder manages to penetrate that inner circle through deceit or speed most animals will instinctively attack.

Humans are similar. We mark our territory through walls and furniture. We have boundaries that mark our personal space. If an individual approaching is intimately related, they will be able to enter the space without harm to either party. Any over step of the boundary by another can cause distress or anger. Personal boundary zones vary from culture to culture. Even within cultures there are wide individual differences.

Judee Burgoon –(Arizona Communication professor) believes there is a culturally appropriate distance at which one should interact and any departure from cultural norms may be harmful or beneficial to our communication. In her Nonverbal Expectancy Violations Model she states that minor deviations in space from expected will tend to get lost in the shuffle of competing non-verbal cues. But, when the distance chosen by the transmitter does not match the one predicted by the receiver the violation causes arousal and distraction. Instead of being able to concentrate on the message of the transmitter the receiver will be wondering about the nature of the relationship. Physical closeness is translated into psychological closeness. This fosters a greater understanding, trust, attitude change and other positive payoffs that are often sought after through communication.
If a greater gap is created than expected by the receiver the receiver will search for social context for clues that will help create understanding of what the distance means. Both standing too close and too far away from another in a conversation will pull the attention away from the message.

Tracy Slotin, B.Sc., B.A., MBA (Leadership)
CEO and Grand Sandmaster
The Executive Sandbox® Change/Innovation Consultants
www.ExecutiveSandbox.com

Body Language – Clear Communication Part 3

Communication is so much more than the words we hear. Every time I teach body language I am amazed at how we come pre-wired with this information in our brains. Body language is instinctual. When I teach body language it is teaching people something they don’t know that they know. It is something their brain already analyzes subconsciously I’m just bringing it to their consciousness. The importance behind body language is this: if you don’t know what you’re projecting to another you might be telling them the opposite of what you’re saying. Since body language makes up large part of the message you project it is very easy to create a misunderstanding.

In my seminars I have my participants run through this one exercise to demonstrate the body language – communication connection. I pair two people up and have them sit facing each other looking in each other’s eyes. One is designated the leader and the other is the follower. The leader recites colors (red, green, blue, yellow, etc....) continuously in random order. The follower repeats the colors as soon as each color leaves the lips of the leader. The follower’s aim is to say the color as fast as they can after the leader. After a couple minutes of doing this, the leader appears to become the follower. The follower seems to be able to read the body language of the leader and predict which color the leader will say before the words leave the leader’s mouth. I, myself don’t know what the body language indication is for the color red, but I can assure you it exists.

In our quest for creating clear communication knowing we have a specific body language for colors doesn’t really help us in business but knowing what our stance, posture or sitting position is communicating could be the difference between obtaining contracts, jobs or influencing others.

To appear interested in a conversation we want to make sure we are in a receptive position. Using a closed posture such as having our arms are crossed over our chest indicates we are not interested, we are impatient, don’t believe what another is saying or we are dominant. In our history, for kings to appear dominant they would stand with their hands on the hips. Placing your hands in your pockets is a modified version of this dominance stance. If you are standing having a conversation with a female you will not persuade her if you stand with you hands in your pockets because in this position you will be dominating her and putting her at disadvantageous position. A better position is to hold you hands clasped in front or behind you and you will get better results. This works because female communicate in a linear way (1) and by clasping your hands in this way you are equalizing yourself to the position of the individual you are communicating with. On the converse if you are dealing with a male audience you want to express dominance - males communicate hierarchically (2) in this way you might use your hands in the conversation, invade their space by standing closer to them, or have you hands in your pockets.

When standing you need to look at your leg and feet positioning as well. If you are facing the person transmitting the communication and your feet are positioned facing toward the communicator it shows you are interested. If your body is diagonal to the person you are indicating dominance by showing you are open to an alternative conversation if another person approaches. If your legs are crossed with your feet facing forward (something like the position a child would hold themselves if they had to go to the bathroom but without the bouncing) you are indicating you are comfortable in the conversation and not ready to leave the conversation. If you hold your weight on one foot with the other foot pointing out you are ready to leave the conversation and head in the direction of the outward facing foot.

When sitting you want to show interest in the person speaking by sitting at the edge of the seat, leaning forward toward the conversation. I have been a witness to many meetings where I introduced contacts to each other to forward business and the person who would have received a great bounty sat with their hands folded across their chest and in a reclined position. In doing so they indicated to the individual referring business that they new it all, that they were not open to any contribution and they were in charge when in fact they weren’t. The person that sat with their arms folded had no idea why they were never referred business.

The way your legs are positioned while sitting can indicate dominance or submissiveness in the conversation. Kings would sit on their thrones with their legs wide open because they were not afraid someone would attack their most vulnerable areas. The position takes up the most room of all the sitting positions. Less dominant to this open leg position is the open legs with the ankle crossed at the knee. This position also takes up room but is considered less dominant than the first position. The third position is less dominant that the ankle knee position but still takes up room. It is the legs in an open position but elongated and crossed at the ankles.

Submissive positions are sitting positions that have the individual conserve space with the knees and the ankles close together. Either the position with one leg over the other or sitting with legs side by side – both are considered submissive. What’s interesting is, that dependent on how your brain is wired you will gravitate toward one sitting style unless placed in particular position where you feel the need to express dominance or submissiveness – it is both situational and preferentially based as to how you will sit at any particular time.

I have had the experience where a consultant is surprised the company we are both working for has obtained another consultant and the surprised consultant starts rolling up their sleeves as if they were preparing for a fight. Knowing this posture always prepares me beforehand that anything I might say in front of this consultant will be challenged and to maintain the confidence of the client I need to remain guarded during the meeting of my credibility.

In a meeting you can read who is the most important person by figuring out who is doing most of the speaking – or who is directing the conversation. Sometimes it is not the person that is in the leadership position and figuring this out is as complex the individuals themselves. I was working with the government and attended a meeting with a council group who were approving the project I was working on. During the presentation on one individual challenged the speakers presenting the projects then if he liked the speakers answers he would advocate for that speaker’s project. The remainder of the group did not respond and seemed to be satisfied with this individual’s choices. After analyzing this group for a while it was discovered the leader was really not the leader. There was a silent leader (you could see because this individual was checking in with the leader continuously – sometimes this looks like eye contact between two individuals). Often the silent leader would discredit the presenter’s work enough times until the perceived leader would change his mind. None of the silent leaders issues would be brought up or taken care of by the presenter because the discreditation would happen privately between the perceived leader and silent leader. In meetings like this it very important to know the players and how they communicate – what they’re language is so that if you have to, you provide some damage control. In this situation to have our presentation be accepted we needed to deal with the silent leader’s concerns first before we even presented to the group.

Body language is very important. What ever positioning you use, make sure yours fits the message you are trying to convey to your audience but also be willing to watch the language and see what others are really saying too. If you are unsure of another’s messaging this where you can stop them and ask for clarity.

Tracy Slotin
CEO and Grand Sandmaster
The Executive Sandbox ® Change Consultants
www.ExecutiveSandbox.com

(1) Tannen, Deborah Talking 9to 5: Men and Women Talking at Work
(2) Tannen, Deborah Talking 9to 5: Men and Women Talking at Work

Clear communication - Part 2 – masculine and feminine communication

Some individuals call habitual forms of thinking – mental models. Another method or clearing our communication is by learning how to speak to our receiver’s listening. Although we don’t know instantly from looking at a person what mental models they hold in their conversation we can look at a number of stereotypical factors to help us transmit more effectively.

One of the first things we recognize on meeting an individual is their sex. If we can’t determine this difference we instantly have difficulty in concentrating on our conversation. We can use this partly for our advantage. Communication differences exist between whether you have a masculine (focused) or feminine (multitasking) brain.

There has been quite a bit of controversy with this research so let me set some of the facts straight up front. The researchers use the terms “masculine” and “feminine” brain. A “masculine brain” is a brain that in structure has fewer connections between the right and left hemisphere and typically less grey matter. This type of brain is great for focused work. It likes to concentrate on one thing at a time, can sense directions, is very effective in accomplishing tasks and typically has few communication centers. A “feminine brain” is a brain that in structure has more connections between the right a left hemisphere and typically more grey matter. This type of great is great for multitasking – it is more effective doing more than one task, it cannot sense directions it has many communication centers.

Neither your sex nor sexual orientation determine how masculine or feminine your brain is. Anne Moir’s (a Geneticist) has found that 90% of women have “feminine” brains and 80% of males have “masculine” brains. A later blog will go into the details of how this helps shape communication. You got the brain you did as a result of how much testosterone you received in your mother’s womb.

These brain differences create differences in our communication and particularly how we see the world around us. If you have a multitasking brain you are never working on just one thing at one time, which means that your transmission is going to be on many different levels at the same time. This is why many females seem to communicate indirectly. They are communicating in many different ways and through many different forms. If you are on the receiving end of this and you expect the message only to be contained through one medium (i.e.: words) and the message is in various forms - the body language, tone, proximity, speed etc. then you might miss the complete message.

If you have a focus brain, you will only be working on one level at a time and this will be reflected in your communication. Your transmission will be direct and to the point providing information for a purpose. If a multitasking brain is receiving this message they are expecting a transmission to contain many different types of transmission and may feel like something is missing in the communication. This might cause the multitasking brain to not trust the message because something feels like it’s missing or alternatively the brain automatically fills in the missing pieces. Again the message is disrupted.

Knowing these differences before any transition or receipt of transmission can give us the edge in understanding what we need to add or listen for in our communication.

Tracy Slotin
CEO and Grand Sandmaster
The Executive Sandbox ® Change Consultants
www.ExecutiveSandbox.com

Creating Clear Communication

Communication is made up of a transmitter and a receiver. For the receiver to receive the communication they must first speak the same language and a similar dialect to the language and dialect the transmitter is using.

What we rarely realize is that our communication is riddled with unique dialects and that complete understanding of a single transmission rarely occurs. Our unique dialects come from our biases, intentions, experiences, biology, sociology and psychology. Real communication only begins when we stop projecting our biases, intentions, experiences, biology, sociology and psychology into our communicating and listening and start to create and listen to reality freshly.

When we receive outside information our brain takes that information and compares it to what it already knows (1). Then the brain alters the information and stores the altered information. It is as if our brains are playing the childhood game Broken Telephone -where one child receives an whispered word and passes it to another child. Then that child passes it to another and so on until the last child informs the group of the incorrect word. Each individual’s experience of the word alters the word.

To be able to communicate and listen without our habitual form of communicating and listening Senge et al (2) suggests we need to learn how to suspend or remove ourselves from our habitual systems of thought. To accomplish this takes quite a bit of personal change and commitment. If you are committed: here are some steps I have found that work:

1.) Make a commitment to observe yourself – to make any change one must figure out what needs to change. A great way to do this is to journal situations, experiences, and interactions with others every day.
2.) Once you have them down on paper you want to look at each incident – it doesn’t matter whether it was a good or bad experience (“good” or “bad are judgments based on personal bias) and examine them in detail. Where in your life (what areas, who with, what time period) did you experience a similar experience? What about the conversation was familiar? Trace your experiences back as far back in your memory as you can. Be willing to re-examine each experience as sometimes it takes a while to find the first incident of an experience.
3.) Once you’ve traced the incident back as far as you can, figure out what feelings this incident created for you. What did you make up about yourself as a result of that conversation?
4.) Bring your first experience back to the current situation. How did the decisions you made about yourself in the earliest instance affect the outcome of the most recent situation.

Most conversations we have over and over again. It may be with different people, under different circumstance, in a different area of our lives, but it is the same conversation. Our communication is the only way we interact with the world around us. If we want to change the outcomes were getting – for example getting to understand what we’re saying and understanding others we need change our habitual way of interacting with the world and this is one way to accomplish this.

To create clear communication we must remove these hidden aspects. We’ve all experienced holding a conversation where we were instantly put at ease or a conversation where we were not heard at all. When we felt understood it was easy to hold a conversation when we weren’t understood we felt depleted or even frustrated. We also experience that in reading articles. Some are hard to read – while others are easy read and fast flowing.

Tracy Slotin
CEO and Grand Sandmaster
The Executive Sandbox® Change Consultants
www.ExecutiveSandbox.com

(1) Edward T. Hall – The Silent Langugue
(2) Senge, Peter, C, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society Random House, New York, NY 2004

Financial Communication

In our past we developed techniques for measuring the growth of companies. That was when our economy was certain. It was in a growth mode. Somewhere before the 3rd wave (Alvin Toffler) or the information age had turned our markets on their heads we were in the industrial age - where everything was increasing, interest rates were increasing steadily and that is when we created most of the financial metrics available today. Now that we are well within the eye of the storm of the in information age we are still using those same measures. That doesn’t make sense to me. I see us as a financial society effectively doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result – we are living the definition of insanity.

How long has it been that we can’t use the rule of 72? Yet we still hold out for the day when we can use that metric again. The truth of the matter is that our markets won’t stabilize into the same pattern again and we will never be able to use that rule. All the metrics we have created to control and compartmentalize our world are quickly becoming defunct without valid replacement. They are becoming extinct and we are behind in our replacement of them hurdling toward crisis. What is really going on is that no one is willing to admit is that we are not embracing the change we see in our economy.

We, as habit-forming beings, prefer to build on our previous knowledge rather than start anew. When we are looking and assessing analyzing our companies (for investment purposes or to assess financial health of the company we’re working with) we are using old technology – we are using structural thinking, we are using analytics that are no longer describing the same picture. Yet we as humans, even though we know this intuitively, we still do the same thing over and over again. We would rather excel at doing something we know than suck (a technical word) at doing something new. This is very apparent any time even a small transformation (either personal or organizational) needs to take place.

Financial metrics are very interesting. I understand not every one holds a fascination for numbers so I’ll break it down how I see it. Financial metrics or information is really a language in itself like the language English we speak to each other. Financial metrics are used by individuals outside an organization to assess what has taken place inside the organization during predermined periods of time. If you understand how to read the financial information it provides you with a picture (not a complete picture) of what has taken place during the year or period. This is past information or old information that in our habit to date we look at and predict the future. Thing is, the present is a better prediction of the future than the past. However we have no way of measuring the present – or do we?

Let’s look at a skill we all seem to take fore granted: Communication. If I were to only communicate to you using my words I would sound much like a computer. There would be no tone fluctuations, you wouldn’t see my hand gestures, or know if I were joking or arguing with you. This is what the communication is like using the current financial metrics. It only gives part of the picture. If we listen to the communication of the corporations we can get a better picture to figure out the future possibilities with respect to financial metrics.


Being a financial auditor for many years has taught me well about listening to a company and integrating the information. When I walk into a company I listen to everything it has to tell me. What are the people saying and who are they talking to? Are they tired, stressed, over worked, bored, etc. All these things will signal you what is the present situation in the organization and helps predict the future of the organization and can be seen as soon as walk into the organization.

For example, I walked into a company to just in time to hear one of it’s sales people say it could get a customer their merchandise 5 days after the order was placed. I already knew the company was a manufacturing company and could not produce the order within the 5-day window. This told me there was little communication between the production and sales department, which is a sign of poor leadership within the entire company. Right away I wondered how cash-strapped the company was due to leadership disorganization.

The first thing we learn in life is how to communicate. How to speak a base language and that forms our method of being able to interact with the world. With further growth and development we learn different dialects based on our experiences and the backgrounds we are exposed to. We all may be speaking the same language but we all speak different dialects of that language. In school we learn how to read and write but not to bridge the gaps between all our different dialects.

If we make the effort and become proficient in understanding the communication of human beings we can use this as a method of accurately measuring our organization’s present giving us a more complete picture of the future. We will be using dynamic measurements to measure dynamic forces.

Tracy Slotin
CEO and Grand Sandmaster
The Executive Sandbox® Change Consultants
www.ExecutiveSandbox.com