2. leaders of these teams will not choose their members. Instead,
employees will be asked to choose between
managers Natalie North and Edgar East.
Natalie North takes the floor first. She explains that in her last
position, her team excelled. She says
she has a proven track record, and she has slides to prove it.
She explains how her leadership has
led to higher earnings in past positions. She has consistently
brought her projects in under budget.
She is clearly the most capable leader, she explains, and it is
likely team members working with her
will see their careers boosted by proximity to her success.
When it is Edgar East’s turn, he greets the assembled meeting-
goers and thanks them for their
attention. He explains that he has a sister who was born
paraplegic. The prosthetic design that the
company is advancing is of personal significance to him,
because he has seen what his sister went
through for years without the full use of her limbs. The
prosthetic project is one that will not just help
Mr. East’s sister, but will help countless other people afflicted
with similar problems. This is very
exciting for Mr. East, and he looks forward to the day he can
tell his sister that his work has
produced meaningful advances for her and others like her.
As he is speaking, Mr. East looks up at the clock. He asks the
attendees if they have any questions.
The length of Ms. North’s presentation has left the meeting-
goers pressed for time, but Mr. East
does not mention this. Instead, he thanks Ms. North for being so
thorough, and explains that he
would be happy to work on Ms. North's team if he was not
4. this. Edgar East made four moves while
presenting his case to the meeting that Natalie North did not.
These four are the supporting factors of
effective communication.
Edgar East:
1. Established a personal connection with his audience by
explaining why the project was so dear to
him, in a way that was relatable to anyone with family members
2. Demonstrated flexibility in his presentation, adjusting it to
avoid boring his audience or taking up
too much time
3. Handled his personal fears to give such a candid talk about
his personal values
4. Eliminated blame, focusing on positivity and benefit to the
organization
Establishing a Personal Connection
When Edgar East explained to you that he wanted to help his
sister, and that the project was of personal
significance to him, he immediately humanized his message. It
was authentic. It spoke to you and engaged
you because it was present.
Being present helps you connect to others. Colleagues,
subordinates, and superiors respond best to us
when we show we are focused and attentive. If, instead, we are
somewhere else, focused on something
other than the person in front of us, we appear inauthentic. We,
6. JWI 505 – Lecture Notes (1194) Page 3 of 7
business leader – an effective business communicator – cannot
afford to make their audience, be it one
person or an entire room of people, feel they are not completely
focused on them. Director Woody Allen
once said that 90% of success is showing up. In reality, success
is much more about how we act, how we
engage, and how present we are when we do show up. It is our
presence that brings us success.
When you engage with others, when you show that you are
curious about what they think, that you value
their contributions and that you are actively listening to them,
you are establishing a personal connection.
This demonstrates interest and trust. It also indirectly
demonstrates truth and integrity; people are much
more likely to perceive you as honest when you show an interest
in them. Nothing resonates with other
people so much as showing interest in them and listening to
them when they communicate with us.
Connecting with Groups
When you are delivering a monologue, connections aren’t as
easy to build. How do you establish a personal
connection with an entire group of people at once? It is much
harder than in direct interpersonal
communication. You cannot look your entire audience in the eye
individually, nor can you listen to them
individually. You can read their collective body language, but
7. multiple people will react differently to the
same speech.
Connecting with a group, therefore, means you must make a
connection through your words and your
demeanor. You must demonstrate authenticity and exemplify
truth, trust, and integrity in your speech – and
how your actions support your speech.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous I Have a Dream
speech, established that personal
connection. It’s rare, and difficult to do, but it does happen. The
I Have a Dream speech establishes that
connection because it speaks to an almost universal human
longing for equality and freedom, in which
people are judged on their merits.
The most important part of connecting with a group is
humanizing yourself. Your audience must see you as
a person. They must be able to relate to that person. What
Reverend King did with the universal longing for
peace and equality, Edgar East did by explaining his
relationship with his sister and his desire to help her.
These are emotions – human emotions we all share – to which
the audience can immediately relate. And
the act of sharing your inner dreams and longings with an
audience also helps them to trust you because the
vulnerability you show in sharing something of yourself is taken
as a sign of forthright sincerity and respect.
You are essentially building a personal relationship with the
entire audience.
Forming personal relationships helps you develop and grow
valuable relationships. Jack talked about the
need to get every brain in the game. He told a story of an
employee who said to him, earlier in his career,
9. listen to this resource – failure to build
collaborative relationships with your coworkers – is not the
mark of an effective business leader. Instead, it
flags an executive as arrogant, insecure, or afraid of being seen
as someone other than the boss, rather
than someone who wants to further the organization’s goals.
Connecting with groups of employees as a business leader
brings more perspectives, a greater set of
collaborative possibilities, and more right answers to the table.
This is something every organization wants.
Flexibility
Being present may require us to be flexible. Circumstances may
change in ways we have not anticipated.
Speaking from a prepared script is not always possible when
that happens. Operating from a preconceived
game plan might likewise be inadvisable when situations are
fluid.
Have you ever watched a presentation – or given one yourself –
in which you could sense that the audience
was already sold, but the presenter insisted on plowing through
the rest of their prepared presentation
anyway? This is called selling past the close. Sometimes, it’s
better to disregard your game plan if you
sense, in the moment, that you’ve already accomplished your
goal. In the context of a public speaking
engagement, if your goal is to persuade a group and you’ve
already done so, selling past the close risks
boring them or alienating them. “Always leave them wanting
more” is good advice. Never saturate your
audience with more you than they want, or they’ll express their
11. Interestingly, another very significant factor that detracts from
our ability to be authentic and present is our
own fears, which undermine those efforts.
Handling Your Fears
Fear is what bubbles up when we are not comfortable. When we
feel vulnerable, when we are not confident
in our abilities, we are afraid. This happens often in our work if
we are pushing ourselves to do new and
important tasks, or where there is a lot at stake. We rightly fear
the consequences of a mistake.
A little discomfort – a measured amount of fear – keeps us on
our toes. It keeps us present and nicely
anticipatory, if we permit it and work with it.
Too much fear, however, can paralyze us. Too much fear, with
too much judgment involved, can make us
unable to seize opportunities or even identify them. If we
freeze, if we concede to the fight or flight reflex, we
lose the ability to be present. This is the equivalent of walking
out to a podium in front of an auditorium full of
guests – and bolting from the stage, running out of the building,
and hiding in the car.
A big part of conquering your fears is learning to eliminate
blame from your thinking.
Blame Your Inner Critic
13. in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer
University.
JWI 505 – Lecture Notes (1194) Page 6 of 7
Recognizing our inner critic and knowing what triggers it helps
us to suppress it. We don’t want to eliminate
it entirely; some amount of doubt is necessary for proper
decision-making because, with no self-doubt at all,
you would quickly become arrogant and overconfident. What we
can do, however, is note when it appears
and then replace it with more productive thoughts.
That brings us back to blame directed at other people.
Eliminating Blame
Blaming others is not productive. It doesn’t just limit you. It
puts your assessments of others’ limits, which
are often arbitrary, on the people who might be best positioned
to help you solve your problems. Blame,
therefore, hinders effective business communication.
When we blame others, we adopt a victim mindset. This makes
us feel less in control of our actions, which,
in turn, makes us less present and less able to take the necessary
measures to improve our position. It
effectively shuts down our belief that we can make a difference.
14. Even when we don’t place blame on others verbally, we may
indicate it non-verbally. A CEO who glares at
the IT manager when the network crashes is sending a message
that they lack confidence in the IT
manager’s ability to do their job. They are also almost certainly
placing blame where it does no productive
good. An effective business leader might instead engage with
the IT manager, ask them what resources
they need to fix the problem, and express confidence in the IT
manager’s ability to get the work done. This
inspires the business leader’s colleagues and empowers those
working for them.
Refusing to place blame, and instead focusing on productive
solutions, builds better business relationships
and makes us more effective leaders. Would you rather be right
or effective? The less you blame, the more
possibilities and options you have. Dismissing others by
blaming them typically removes any input or
assistance they might otherwise offer. When we refuse to blame
others and instead empower them to help
us, we open the door to a win-win scenario.
Effective Business Leaders Connect with Others
When we support and respect others, when we establish a
personal connection with them and refuse to
blame them, we build more powerful relationships. This
supports the values of truth, trust, and integrity
because it shows that we expect the best, while coaching and
supporting, not blaming and demeaning.
