Communicate to Win and Influence

According to Michael Grinder there are many degrees of charisma. Most of us don't want to lounge on a Tahitian beach and paint. We want to have enough influence to ensure that our work is meaningful. Others of us are in positions where we directly influence the atmosphere where others thrive in. All of us are affected by our own and other's style of leadership and relationships.

Why are some people easy to form relationships with, to influence and to work with while others are not?

Max Weber defined charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, super-human, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are not accessible to the ordinary person but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.”

We often think of charisma as a special gift, the je ne sais quoi that makes someone starlike, when actually there are extensive studies that show it's not so much a gift as a learnable skill.

I'm sure you have come across people that you end up admiring and maybe even following? What traits did they have? These people usually carry a sense of style, flair, and confidence. They are excellent communicators, have certain maturity and character, they tend to be humble and compassionate, they talk the talk and walk the walk, are well aware of people around them, have great listening skills and positive body language. Great, all of the above can be learned because underpinning these skills and behaviours there are successful strategies (Module 1, Section 3) that we can elicit and replicate with our own adaptations, this is the art of modelling.

So, now that we know what we know about Charisma, let's look at some of its main elements as we begin our journey towards becoming charismatic leaders/communicators.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN TRAITS OF A CHARISMATIC PERSON?

• Empathy

• Listening Skills

• Eye contact

• Enthusiasm

• Self-Confidence

• Humour

• Curiosity

• The use of Metaphors

How many of the above are you applying on a regular basis?

If you wish to become more charismatic, I invite you to recognise charisma in the people you come into contact with. Then if you apply utter curiosity, you can begin to learn how they do it (Check out TOTE from Module 1 - Mindset).

-EXERCISE-

Pick 3 people at work and identify the traits that make them charismatic. If you find additional ones to what I've shared, please post them on a comment so we can all expand our knowledge.

Michael Grinder in his book "Charisma - The Art of Relationships", offers a non-judgmental way to understand people using the cats and dogs analogy.

What does this mean? Well, anyone who has ever owned a cat and a dog instinctively know the difference between their personalities. By examining people as if they are cats and dogs, we transfer our intuitive knowledge of animals to people.

One way to think about the differences between relationships with cats and dogs is to consider their degree of accommodation. When you call a dog it comes; when you call a cat, its machine takes a message and it gets back to you later.

A word of caution. To categorise an individual as either cat or dog is to be disrespectful of the intent and usage of the analogy. There aren't just cat or dog persons.

I personally like to use this analogy in the following scenarios:

• When running my training sessions, I can identify cats and dogs traits in the audience and adapt my delivery accordingly to assure every person benefits from what I'm teaching.

• When speaking in public, I can tell the cats away from dogs and interact with them differently. This has also helped me a lot because in the past I thought certain people weren't interested in what I had to say, now I know they are playing cats (remember that this is contextual).

• In my coaching sessions, every time clients speak about the relationship with their boos, I ask, is you boss a dog or a cat? An odd question, right? Well, generalising, people in positions of power are more likely to behave like cats.

-CHALLENGE-

Come up with your own applications for the Cats and Dogs analogy and share it with us.

I invite you to dabble and tinker with this new knowledge and to be sensible in your approach. Cats and Dogs is an extremely helpful analogy if used correctly and with plenty of rapport built upfront and maintained throughout the process. Always calibrate because a person can move from a cat to a dog position and vice versa in the same conversation. As I like to say, get curious, practise, experiment and notice the difference. The art of communication is a journey, not a destination.

-ALWAYS REMEMBER-

Charisma by itself serves little purpose. There are many who are charismatic that leverage it for selfish and foolish reasons. Natural charisma is a gift that can benefit those with positive intentions. Those who lack charisma can boost it with focus and hard work. Whatever your charisma levels, you will need to understand and develop it to achieve a successful preferred destiny.

As I shared, I moved to the UK back in 2007 because of a person with amazing Charisma and my life has never been the same since. His name is Alan Pearce, a great leader with the ability to create and lead high performing teams to impressive achievements. Apart from a leader, he became a mentor and my dear friend.

This is the power behind charisma put to good use. It can literally change lives.

The ability to build rapport is a distinctive quality of outstanding communicators and charismatic leaders. This ability to relate to others in a way that creates a climate of trust and understanding and where a feeling of comfort and commonality between people is established can and will change your human interactions.

Rapport takes place when there is appreciation for one another's point of view (not always to agree with it), to be on the same wavelength, and to understand and accept one another's feelings. It is essential for any form of communication to take place, unless, you don't wish to make progress.

If you are in business, think about your customers, I guarantee that most of them deal and buy from you because of the level of rapport you have with them. As humans, we are more likely to stay with someone to whom we feel connected than we are when it isn't the case. For example, hospital patients who build rapport with the nursing staff have a greater statistical chance of recovery as a result of the superior care they get in return.

You can build rapport face to face, over the phone, via email, through WhatsApp and Zoom. You can do it over time, shortly after you have met, instantly on a meeting...No matter what the circumstances or the people with whom you want to build rapport are, it's the quality of the rapport that will make the difference.

Rapport is about joining people where they are in their style so that you connect with them in a way that supports all future communications. It can mean being hard on your approach to someone as much as being soft because it's not about accepting what anyone says or does. When you build rapport, you are creating an atmosphere where to discuss and influence those things that do present problems between you and others.

Let's now learn how to build and maintain deep levels of rapport.

Based on what I've shared in the video, what are you going to do next to start building rapport in your interactions with others?

Remember that during the first few seconds most of your communication happens through your physiology and tonality, therefore the 4-7 second rule, matching, mirroring and cross over matching/mirroring will be key.

I hope you enjoyed the Hot Dog Shop story. Now, I would like you to think about those situations in your life that could benefit from the skills you are learning.

How would these situations change if you created a climate of trust and mutual understanding?

-WHAT OUTSTANDING COMMUNICATORS DO TO BUILD RAPPORT​-

• Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

• They look to connect with the people they come into contact with.

• Whole-body listening.

• They appreciate and respect that we are all different. They respect the styles, values and beliefs of others regardless.

• Affirm what's good in others.

• Set the intention to leave others feeling a bit better, since they understand there aren't neutral interactions.

• Are aware of the degree to which they are similar (or not) in any of the following, recognising that significant dissimilarity probably indicates lack of rapport:

  • ​Posture: Position of the body, legs and feet, weight distribution, position of the arms, hands, fingers; shoulder tension or relaxation; inclination of the head.

  • Expression: Direction of the look; movement of the gaze.

  • Breathing: Rate of breathing; location of the breathing, in the chest, abdomen or low stomach.

  • Movement: Overall tempo of movement, fast, steady, slow, still.

  • Voice: Pace, volume, pitch, tone, type of words, intonation.

  • Language: Visual, auditory, feelings based. Values highlighted, chunk size (big picture vs. detailed), problem or desired state orientation, proactive or reactive, use of metaphors or to the point.

This is a comprehensive list and I wouldn't expect you to do them all at once. My advice is that you pick one or two every day and begin to build the muscle. Be curious and open and remember that there is no failure, there is only learning. Go and apply what you've learned.

Be like the third traveller and transform your human interactions for good. Without respect, there is no positive influence.

Let's practise

• Name at least five things you have learned in this section and how you will apply them. Feel free to share in the comments' box.

• From "0" to "10", how would you rate the level of attention you pay to the rapport you have with:

  • Your boss?

  • Best client?

  • Parents?

  • Suppliers?

  • A significant member of your team?

  • You life partner?

  • Children (if you have them)?

• What are you going to do to take them all the way up to "10"?

-SUMMARY-

By now I don't think I need to highlight again how important it is for you and your human interactions to be able to create a climate of trust where you can thrive in the company of others. Through your ability to build rapport you can help people to feel at ease with you because you are making it easy for them to be so. The rapport you manage to create with the people in your life will determine the lasting nature of your relationships. Always respect others and build around them an environment of trust and understanding.

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said".

-Peter Drucker-

Put simply, body language is the unspoken element of communication that we use to reveal our true feelings and emotions. Our gestures, facial expressions and posture, for instance. When we are able to "read" these signs, we can use it to our advantage. For example, it can help us to understand the complete message of what someone is trying to say to us, and to enhance our awareness of people's reactions to what we say and do. We can also use it to adjust our own body language so that we appear more positive, engaging and approachable.

We have already covered certain elements of body language in sections 1 and 2, and now we are going to dive deeper into what these nonverbals reveal about ourselves and what thoughts and feelings might seat behind them. Learning to be aware of body language and the differences between one person and the next, creates a marked improvement in how well we understand and influence other people and they us.

-MIND READING GAME-

• Find a partner and ask him/her to think about a happy and a sad memory. One at a time. The person will think about the memory and without telling you, you have to guess whether it's a happy or a sad memory just by looking at their body language. Remember, no words allowed.

• Notice any subtle changes and swap positions if you like.

-CHALLENGE-

Start paying attention to the body language elements next time you speak to your boss. What do you notice that you didn't before?

As always, you are more than welcome to share your results in the comments' box.

Have you ever noticed that our eyes move as we talk and think? Together with language and physiology, we show our thinking process through our eye movements.

As you know from module one, we all store information in a certain way (visually, auditorily or kinaesthetically), so imagine our mind as a big filing cabinet and our eyes as the means to locate and access this information.

Important to remember that although the way we use our eyes indicates the kind of thinking we are experiencing, these are not facts but tendencies (we are all unique). It is vital to calibrate to the individual rather than to apply the following universally.

Please remember that patterns are only clues, not absolute proof. It's our awareness of patterns in body language, verbal language and our knowledge of a person over time that enable us to get closer to what is really going on in their thinking. However, the more we spot the signals, the more we are likely to choose the way of communicating with each person we encounter that will allow us to relate to them effectively.

I bet you can't wait to go out there to start experimenting with this new knowledge. But wait, there is more.

Body language is everything in our behaviour with which we communicate other than words. So in detecting whether we are thinking in a visual, auditory or feelings way, not only we can use eye movements as clues, we can also detect clues in our other nonverbals.

Note: Even though words are not part of our body language, as I shared in the video, pay attention to them for additional confirmation.

-PRACTISE-

Next time you are in a meeting, look for body language clues that help you identify the preferred thinking styles of the different participants. Do it often and turn it into a habit.

As you learned in module one, we apply filters to the information we perceive from the environment to create our own reality. Now we are going to take a closer look at the domain of perceptual filters and how we mainly unconsciously apply them in different ways to make sense of the world around us. An example of this is where we decide to pay our attention. There are simply some things we do and some things we don't pay attention to. The key here is that we learn to recognise the filters we and others are applying and most importantly, are they serving us in reaching our goals or what we want out of the current circumstances?

I hope you have enjoyed this super bonus around filters in our communication. Any thoughts on when and where you can begin to apply this knowledge?

It is powerful stuff, isn't it?

Take your time to digest the information, revisit as many times as needed and use the manual to support your learning process.

-GET CURIOUS-

• Watch someone talking in a regular conversation on a TV program. Notice where they put their hands and where they look when they speak. Just be aware of it.

• In your next meeting, pay attention to the filters people are using:

  • Associated /Dissociated

  • Problem state/Desired state

  • Match/Mismatch

  • Past-Present-Future

  • Procedure/Choice

  • Internally or Externally Referenced

-GAIN FURTHER UNDERSTANDING-

Next time you are with someone from a different culture, adopt as much of their nonverbal behaviour as you can. When you do this, ask yourself, what has to be true for that person to behave in this way? (You can do the same for a person you don't get along with or that you don't fully understand).

-SUMMARY-

How much more do you know about body language now? As usual, take one step at a time because there is a lot to take in. Revisit this section as much as you like while you get into the habit of noticing what people communicate with their bodies. It's very important that you don't assume and instead ask questions and share with them what you are noticing. On this occasion, I wrote the summary before the exercises, so get ready to train the muscle and see you in the next session entitled "Discovery Questions".

"I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions".

-Lou Holtz-

To complement the above quote, I would say that I also learn when I get asked questions.

Henry Ford once said: "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right".

I agree that we are responsible for how we manage our thinking and perceive our reality, so that's it? Is there anything we can do about it or that we can do for others?

I still remember a very shy Rebecca saying that she couldn't put herself out there. Those used to be her words. And I remember my first question, what if you could?

I'm not going to say that the one question changed her whole perception, it was just the beginning of her journey. One thing though, that one question was significantly more powerful than any advice I could have given her.

Are you catching my drift now?

As you already know, we are literally inundated with information that comes through our five senses, information that gets filtered to create our version of reality. Can you imagen how complex our words would be if we attempted to describe our rich sensory experiences (everything absorbed and processed at an unconscious level)?

In order to reduce the overwhelming amount of information we receive and to keep us sane, the mind: Deletes, Distorts and Generalises the information.

Then the mind repeats this process when we communicate verbally, which means that by the time we share our version of reality verbally, it's been filtered twice. No wonder why our words on many occasions don't convey the real meaning of our experience.

So in this section, we are going to learn the type of questions we can ask to help ourselves and others connect the words we say with their real/deeper meaning.

Great, thank you, Jose, can you now provide me with some real-life examples where I can use Discovery Questions? Of course!

YOU CAN APPLY DISCOVERY QUESTIONS TO:

• Gain clarity about a request from your boss.

• Motivate a friend, partner, work colleague, employee.

• Help yourself and others overcome limitations and barriers.

• Change the way we interact with one another.

• Manage both internal and external dialogue.

• Encourage others to do business with you.

• Create a culture of giving and receiving feedback in your organisation...

Linguist Noam Chomsky speaks about 2 levels of language. A deep structure, our pure experience that exists at an unconscious level. And a surface structure, a transformation of our deep structure into a form that we can communicate our verbal and nonverbal behaviours.

The fundamental purpose of these type of questions, also known as Meta Model, is to reconnect our deep and surface language structures, basically, taking abstract into specific.

As mentioned in module 1, there are three main ways in which we shape our perception of the world. These are by deleting some of our experience, by distorting and by generalising.

Deletion occurs when we overlook, tune out or omit. When we delete parts of our experience, either they fail to register or we discount them as unimportant.

Distortion is a personal prejudice that twists our perceptions. We amplify or diminish our experience, seeing it differently, as in a hall of mirrors.

Generalisation occurs when we reach a global conclusion based on one or two experiences, taking them as representative of a whole class and paying no attention to exceptions.

-PAY ATTENTION TO THE 'THEY' SYNDROME-

Start with yourself. From now on, every time you catch yourself blaming others, challenge your language with the following questions:

• Who are they?

• How do they do it?

• When did I/you decide that?

• How can they make me/you feel anything?

Make sure you have plenty of Rapport before you ask these questions to another person.

Remember that the whole idea behind Discovery Questions is to narrow the gap existing between the surface and deep structure of the speaker's language by challenging deletions, distortions and generalisations.

It's super important that you make sure to build enough rapport before asking discovery questions and also to set a positive intention to help and support the other person as opposed to just asking the questions to prove a point or just for the sake of challenging. These questions are powerful, so use them wisely.

-BUILD THE MUSCLE-

• I want you to think about how you would like your life to be different in a year's time. What would you like to achieve, what is that thing you dream of or want the most? Now, write it all down together with the things you believe might stop you from getting there. Next, use Discovery Questions to challenge any deletions, distortions and generalisations that might have emerged.

• See page 41 of your manual for more.

-IMPORTANT-

You may have noticed that these questions can seem a bit abrupt, so here is a bit of sound advice to help you on your journey to becoming an outstanding communicator.

• Make sure you gain and maintain rapport.

• Pace the person you are speaking with. This can be in the form of feeding back to them what they have just said before asking the question.

• Soften the questions by beginning with:

  • Hmm

  • I'm wondering...

  • That's interesting...can I ask you something...

  • I'm very curious...

• Ask the questions with a soft, gentle, curious tonality and physiology. Remember to smile and enjoy the process because there is no failure, only learning.

-SUMMARY-

Imagine the impact you can have on your team, employees, customers and your relationships overall if you can positively influence them with questions like these. Manage and gently challenge your internal and external dialogues and notice the change this will bring about in your life.

"Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains".

-Steve Jobs-

A bit of background info:

In the early 1980's David Grove studied transcripts of celebrated therapists like Virginia Satir and Carl Rogers and noticed they continually shifted their client's frames of reference. He realised they were introducing their own model of the world by subtly rewording what the client was saying. David wondered what it would be like to fully preserve and honour a client's experience with minimal interference by the therapist. He achieved this by identifying a number of very simple questions with a particular syntax and a unique delivery method. These questions contained a minimum of presupposition and were therefore called 'Clean Language'. What he discovered was the more he used Clean Language, the more clients naturally used metaphor to describe their symptoms.

When Clean Language questions were then directed to the metaphors and symbols, unexpected information became available to the client, often with profound results. He found that the less he attempted to change the client's model of the world, the more they experienced their own core patterns, and organic, lasting changes naturally emerged from 'the system'.

Jose! I don't wish to become a therapist or a coach:

That's absolutely fine because that's not my goal either. From the above text, I'd like to highlight that we can use a type of language that respects the other person's internal representation of reality by avoiding assumptions that may not add value to the interaction.

It's also a great way to connect with the creative side of the person you are communicating with as they come up with metaphors and symbols that represent their experience.

As great communicators that have respect for the difference, using a language that follows the natural direction of the conversation instead of leading it, it's an amazing skill to have. In many occasions, we tend to know what we want but not necessarily what we need, and by asking clean question, we provide the other person with the opportunity to find resources that they have within themselves.

You tell me, is this an outstanding way to positively influence others or what?

Sometimes just go with the flow and remember that less can be more.

It doesn't look grammatically correct, right?

-REMEMBER-

Next time you are starting a conversation with a client, friend, work colleague, ask them: what would you like to have happen today? in the meeting, at the end of our session...Let their unconscious mind answer and then make sure you meet their expectations as the communication process develops.

Many of my meetings begin with this question and it's a great way to frame the session upfront and set some outcomes.

The structure of Clean Language is peculiar and may sound a bit strange at first. When used in normal conversations, I advise building enough rapport and using softening frames before and after the questions. I sometimes get people saying to me, is that a trick question? and I like to say, yes, a trick for your conscious mind, or no, it's just that I'm very curious and would like to know more.

A classic, sorry, I don't understand and I say: It's fine, just answer what comes to mind.

In occasions, we are so focused on understanding and providing an answer that's logical and makes sense that we miss out on the knowledge available for us at an unconscious level. No wonder why many people say they are not very creative. Well, of course, you are blocking your creativity.

-APPLICATIONS-

I'm sure you've already come up with a few applications yourself, so let me just give you a couple more:

• When you want to show respect for another person's experience and knowledge.

• When managing people.

• To understand the other person's needs, even when the person is not fully aware of what they really need or want.

• When collecting information about the style in which a person would like you to communicate with them.

• To find metaphors.

• When somebody comes with a situation they would like to run by you. Using clean language may help them figure out a solution by themselves.

• When in doubt about what the other person means. Remember, instead of assuming, ask.

• When you wish to delegate and encourage independent thinking and working.

• To encourage and motivate others by allowing them to find out that they have all the resources they need within themselves.

• To spark creativity.

-TIME TO BUILD THE MUSCLE-

• Boost your creativity. Ideally, work with a partner and take turns to ask each other:

  • What is creativity?

  • What words do you associate with creativity?

  • When you're being creative, you're like what? And after that, think about what you would like to have happen in relation to a creative project.

• Now do something similar for communication:

  • What is communication?

  • What words do you associate with communication?

  • When you are communicating at your best, you are like what? Then, think about what you would like to have happen in relation to your communication with others.

• Do the same for:

  • Public Speaking

  • Your career/profession

  • Relationships

  • Business...

BE NAIVE, PRESENT, OPEN, NOT KNOWING, ALERT, AWARE, FASCINATED, EAGER TO LEARN AND SELFLESS. BE CLEAN!​

"Influence is about going back to our humanity, to our essence, and reaching a deep connection within ourselves that creates a magnetic field around us that impregnates others and enables them to transcend the boundaries of what they thought was humanly possible".

- Jose Ucar -

-REMEMBER-

• Before you begin, set the intention to learn from this experience in a way that will positively impact your future interactions with this person. Get ready for a unique and transformational experience.

Important note:

In order to complete the final exercise about influence, download the Levels of Influence and Clean Questions Training Cards. They represent an important resource that you can use from now on.

Congratulations!

You have just completed the second module (Communication 1-2-1) of my signature training program. Module 1 is all around Mindset and Module 3 Public Speaking. Check them out.

I really hope you've enjoyed this training experience, where I've shared some amazing tools and knowledge that have had an incredible impact on my life and the lives of many people out there.

Wish you the greatest success on your journey to becoming an outstanding communicator, leader and positive influence to the world.

With much love,

Jose Ucar