How to Reconnect with Your Team When Communication Feels Mechanical

Episode 77: How to Reconnect with Your Team When Communication Feels Mechanical

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Executive Leadership Coach & Corporate Relationship Consultant - shares with you...

• the essential role of effective communication in fostering a collaborative and productive team environment.
• the importance of understanding different listening styles to enhance mutual comprehension and reduce miscommunication.
• strategies for creating a psychologically safe atmosphere that encourages open dialogue and promotes individual contributions within professional settings.

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Transcript

Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to The Holly Hibbard Show.
I am your host, Holly Hibbard.
And today, the hot topic is communication.
How many times in your life and in our world have you heard when people are asked what makes a relationship the best?
What makes or breaks it?
How many times have we heard that communication is the key to all that?
Well, it is true, and it's not only reserved for our personal relationships.
Your ability to communicate or the lack of tools that you have to communicate in the professional setting will, in a similar way, make or break the relationships that are held professionally between you, your team, clients.
And I wanna be very clear here.
I'm not saying or combining professional and personal relationships happening in the same place.
I'm saying that if you want your organization, your employees, your team, the people that you are with every single day, your colleagues.
If you want to have a positive, productive, efficient experience as a company and also create a great product that does really well in sales and the bottom line, communication is huge.
And so many people I think have dwindled down what communication is to this is how we speak to one another.
And they're leaving out so much information.
So that's what I wanna do in this episode.
I wanna share with you how to reconnect with your team when communication feels mechanical or like it's not working.
And even if you're listening to this episode and you're thinking, well, Holly, my team and I are pretty connected, but maybe we're having some communication mishaps in or when it comes to what we do as an as an organization, this will really help you with that as well.
Because, like I said, there's so many different ways that we are communicating and we don't even realize it.
So let's dive into all this, shall we?
First of all, communication, yes.
Obviously, has to do with how we speak to one another.
And one of the things that people don't consider is we have different types of listeners in this world.
And depending on what type of listener you are, you're probably going to feel like you're being communicated to and with with a different come from.
So for example, there are people who, when they are listening to another person, they have this internal filter where they are sorting what the person is sharing with them into, yes, I like this.
No, I don't like that.
Yes, I agree.
No, I disagree.
And there's nothing wrong with that analytical style of listening.
It's a great practice of discernment and deciding with you and with your team what you are on the same page about and what you are not.
But if you are looking to have communication with your team where it feels collaborative and you also feel like there should be a back and forth between you and the people that you work with, then it's important that that person who does the sorting in their head, yes, no, agree, disagree, it's important that they also know how to communicate in a collaborative way.
That they learn that part of, great communication is not just learning or not just listening rather to agree and disagree, but part of communication is listening with the intent to understand, Listening with the intent to understand.
And oftentimes, if I'm listening to a colleague and I set the intention of I wanna understand them, really, that doesn't typically happen on the first try.
Sometimes it doesn't even happen on the second try.
If you have a commitment that you want to understand the person that's talking to you, we need to be aware of a few things.
As I'm listening to somebody, I know that I am bringing with me to the conversations a multitude of filters.
I am bringing with me to the conversation the filter of every life experience I've ever had professionally and personally.
I am also bringing to the conversation my own attitude and point of view based on if I had a great morning or a terrible morning.
What happens is I can't leave me out of it.
I am listening to the person.
I I set the intention that I want to understand the person.
But what happens is I have to pause and remind myself that I am listening to this person because I wanna understand their perspective, and I have to catch any moment in my mind where I notice I'm quickly dismissing them.
I notice I'm quickly thinking you're wrong and you can't prove me otherwise.
And then, and then there's no room for growth.
So when I come to the conversation and I am listening, I wanna have the commitment to understanding the other person.
I wanna recognize that I have some biases in my life, some filters in my life that impact the way I'm interpreting what they're saying to me.
And then the third component of this is I want to ensure that I am asking them questions because if my commitment is to understand them, I should be asking them questions for clarity.
Questions for clarity.
Who, what, where, when, how?
I'm not gonna ask them why.
When we ask people questions that start with why, it can set off a defensiveness that either is easily recognized by the person, they know they're being defensive, and it also can be triggering to people subconsciously because the word why has a tendency to, put that ball in motion of putting you on the defense.
So asking questions: who, what, where, when, how?
And leave out why whenever possible.
So when it first comes to communicating with your team, recognize those things about your self.
Sometimes when we have a breakdown in communication or a team or colleagues feel really disconnected, it can be so easy for leaders and management and decision makers or even employees to sit back and say, oh, they're a terrible communicator.
It's all their fault.
Yeah.
That's the easy way out to say that they're a terrible communicator.
But I can't control, for example, how that person over there communicates.
What I can control is how I communicate, also how I listen, which is part of communication, and I can seek to improve upon it.
So maybe that person isn't very clear with their communication.
Maybe they don't give a lot of detail.
Maybe they take a lot of pride in keeping things brief and efficient, but you need detail and description.
Well, then that is something you know about you.
So as a listener, it's up to you to ask those questions to gain that clarity and get that detail from the person if it is something that's going to support you in doing your job better.
So don't put it on them.
This is something that you need to consider for yourself first.
The circle of control.
You can only control and work on yourself in this instance.
Now if you are in a leadership role or a management role and you are in charge of a team of people, then all then definitely I mean, give this episode to everybody because it can start to create a cohesive experience, a cohesive understanding amongst the team of this is what we're committed to when we are communicating with one another.
We're not only going to be mindful and careful with the words we say, but we're also gonna begin to learn individually how we each listen, how we misinterpret things, mislabel things.
We start to notice our ability to ask clarifying questions or not or our unwillingness to ask questions.
And we also in this can look at what is being communicated with each other nonverbally.
Nonverbal communication, oh my goodness.
There are it gets completely skipped over.
Especially today when we have so much of so many industries and so many workplaces are in virtual settings or hybrid settings, we can forget that even in a virtual setting, you are always giving away nonverbal signs of communication.
People don't really pay attention to what their face looks like when they're sitting on Zoom.
And your face, for me example, I know for myself, my face is a terrible, terrible liar.
I don't like I can't lie anyway.
I'm a terrible liar in general, but my face reflects what I am thinking and what I am feeling.
I have to pay attention to my face because my face in a virtual setting is going to show whether I am listening, whether I am not paying attention, if, my eyes have glazed over and I'm no longer really focused on what the person is saying, my face gives me away.
It tells people if I'm bored, if I'm engaged, if I'm excited, if I'm, you know, if I'm really present.
So pay attention to your face in virtual settings and nonverbal cues when you are in person with people can be something as simple as, yes, noticing the expression that you make on a regular basis, but so many times it's your body language.
It's the way you are standing.
Do you look at people in the face and in the eyes?
Are you not willing to look a person in the eyes?
Is it uncomfortable?
Does it make you uneasy?
Another thing I see often with nonverbal communication is someone can be speaking to me about what they're troubled by and how I am standing or how my arms are even when I'm sitting.
If my arms are at my side, that's what we call And if you're on watching this on YouTube, you can see it.
But if my arms are at my side or even just on my desk, relaxed, that's what we call an open body posture.
And that is a nonverbal cue that I, as a person, as a listener, am open to what you have to say.
However, subconsciously, what a lot of us do, because we don't know what to do with our hands and at our sides feels awkward for a lot of folks.
So what we do is we are crossing our arms and when we cross our arms across our body, it gives the nonverbal cue to the person talking to you that you are not open to what they have to say, that you are on the defense or trying to get them to go away in some capacity.
Other things we do with our body are we'll fold our hands and put them in front of our, like, lower extremity area, either in the front or in the back.
And even holding your hands in the front or in the back like that.
Again, if you're on watching this on YouTube, I'm, like, showing you.
It gives the nonverbal subconscious communication to the person talking to you that you're covering something up.
I know.
I know.
You might be thinking and saying, Holly, this this is a stretch.
Like, this is really a stretch that you're mentioning all this.
But these are things that day after day after day, if your team is feeling, completely is feeling disconnected in some way or communication has only been based on how we are talking and verbalizing, yet we can't quite figure out why that is not working.
We think we're being clear with our words.
We think we're being clear with our message and our directives to the people that we are working with day in and day out.
But you may be saying something to them or showing something to them in your facial expressions, in your posture, in your in your hands, in your arms, in a way that you can't even imagine.
And one of the things I've not mentioned yet that truly is going to bring your team back together is creating an environment of psychological and emotional safety.
Psychological and emotional safety.
This is why I talk all the time about the importance of emotional intelligence.
Part of emotional intelligence is your ability to communicate effectively.
And as I've already said today, listening is part of how you communicate.
And another part of emotional intelligence is how well you how skilled you are at creating an emotionally and psychologically safe interaction with other people so that they feel comfortable enough to come to you and talk to you about certain scenarios, especially scenarios that they could potentially look bad in, that they could potentially say something wrong, that they potentially would be vulnerable in or put feel like they're vulnerable in a situation.
And you, without even saying a word, can create an environment of psychological or emotional danger for them that can cause them and then their mind to think, oh, I can't share that with them.
They're gonna be really judgy with me if I say that.
They don't look like they're in the mood to really hear me right now.
They don't wanna deal with what I have to say right now.
Psychological and emotional safety doesn't mean that you need to be everyone's therapist and that they're gonna come to you about their personal life and their problems.
What it does mean, especially in a professional setting, is that they know that when they come to you with something, even as difficult as that topic or that question might be, they know that you are going to receive what they have to say, that you are going to actively listen to what they have to say, that you are going to be committed to leaving your filters and those interpretations to the side and being as present with them as possible so that you you 2 can then focus on what actually matters, which is the task at hand, the problem at hand, the solution at hand, and not putting all this personal life dramatic issue on top of it.
We wanna make sure that people know that we are approachable and not just approachable because, Oh, they're friendly and everyone gets along with them.
Approachable because even if you 2 typically don't see eye to eye, you can still be approachable because they will come to you with the difficult conversations, the difficult decisions.
They know that you're going to hear them out.
That is psychological and emotional safety in a professional environment.
So when all of these components are in place, your team is going to feel more connected and also your communication is going to be more successful.
Meaning, the result that you are after, meaning the project turns out the way that you want it to, the deadlines are met, the attitudes of people in your office space, all those things are going to begin to trend the way that you want them to when these communication components are honed in.
So let's recap this.
Communication to bring your team closer together.
If you feel like the communication is just too mechanical and maybe it is more than just the words we speak, You're right.
Communication, yes, does involve the the words that we use, but communication also includes the way that we listen to people.
Can we listen to people with the commitment to understand what it is they want to communicate?
Asking better questions, removing personal biases and interpretations, and asking, you know, and really seeking out clarity on what it is that you need.
Communication with the words you speak and the way that you listen also involves your nonverbal cues.
How you stand?
What your arms are doing.
Are you looking them in the eye or at minimum in the face and not off to the side or staring at your computer still when they're in your office and they're talking to you?
Pause what you're doing and look at the person.
It goes a long way.
Because stand standing or sitting with an open body posture, looking at someone in the eye, being mindful of your facial expressions, especially when you're in a virtual setting, all of those add up to the final piece of great communication and that is psychological and emotional safety.
And that then goes into corporate culture.
It creates a culture that is collaborative, where people are allowed to share their input and disagree.
It creates an opportunity for, as an organization, you to try something new, make mistakes, and get faster at it so that you learn new things even very quickly and then you become more efficient as an organization.
So this isn't just about having, you know, fluffy feelings and sunshines or rainbows, psychological and emotional safety.
This is going to permeate your culture in a good way and that increases productivity, increases retention, increases a sense of belonging and respect, and that impacts your bottom line every time.
So I hope this episode today was supportive for you.
I want to I wanted to really give you some simple things to try if you feel like communication is the best way to improve things, if you feel like it's just gotten too mechanical and we wanna humanize it again.
And so that's gonna lead you to reconnecting with your team and, again, generating the results that you are after in your organization, with your people, in your company, in your business, with your product.
And you can also take all this info by the way and use it in your personal life too.
I didn't even get to that today.
But it's true.
Leverage this info and practice these communication skills with your family, with your friends, with your kids because practicing it everywhere makes you better everywhere.
And that's all I have for today.
So until next time.
Thank you for tuning in and I'll talk to you next time.