Have you tried to make a change in your personal life? A change can look like changing your diet, starting to go to the gym three times a week, or quitting a habit like smoking.
Most of the time, making changes in yourself is difficult because you're fighting against the current: against habits, customs, and routines. If making a change in your personality, in yourself, and in your individuality, which is supposed to be something you control, is difficult, how hard will it be to create change in another person?
Creating change in another person has a double layer of difficulty. Those who have children know this: trying to create a behavior change is a challenge.
There are people who have dedicated themselves to studying the process of making change. Change theory is a theory very present in organizational change. Maybe you've heard news about an organization called Just Stop Oil, an English non-profit organization that originates in London with the mission to stop what they consider to be the threat of climate change.
Maybe you've heard of them because they do loud activations where they go, for example, to museums, and they bring a can of Campbell's-type soup, stand in front of a painting, and splash soup on the artwork to make media noise.
They also go to avenues, apply very strong glue, and stick their hands to the pavement to stop traffic and say they won't move until their message is addressed. Not all means justify all ends, but this example helps us see an attempt to generate change.
Change theory is a reverse engineering process. First you ask yourself what change you want to create in yourself, in society, in an organization, or in a person. Then you ask yourself what would need to happen for that change to take place, because normally you do it the other way around: first you say what means you have available and how you can use them to generate change.
Change theory says it has to be the other way around. First you ask yourself what change you want to create in others. Then you ask yourself what would need to happen. And, finally, you ask yourself how you can contribute to generate what needs to be created to produce that change. Normally you set a change goal going from the present to the future; here you do it the other way: first you define what future you hope for and then what needs to change so you can contribute to making that change.
This is relevant because whenever you give a presentation, you're trying to create change in a group. You want to influence their point of view, their mentality, their way of acting. Let's see how to apply this in your presentations.
Now; in the world there are people with a communication profile more geared toward extroversion and people with a profile more geared toward introversion. It's normal, it's part of the plan, it's not essential to make a person extroverted to be a communicator or to send a message with impact, but what is very important is to understand the way in which these Two functions of education play a role in our effective communication.
So... What is Effective Communication?
When you hear "effective communication," we think of clarity, of transmitting ideas correctly, of the message getting through well. All that matters, but first you have to define "effective" in what terms, effective from what point of view?
Effective communication is communication that has a purpose when that purpose is achieved. You launch your message as if it were a projectile planning for it to land in a specific place. You build your communication as if it were a tool that allows you to try to achieve a specific objective.
It cannot be effective if your communication doesn't have an objective. You're not just communicating what you were asked to say: there's an objective behind it. Effective communication is communication that has an objective and that objective is achieved, or contributes to achieving that objective.
I think it's already very clear that putting information at people's disposal is not enough to communicate, let alone to lead, influence them, or persuade them to take action. For your communication to be effective and truly transformative, it's not enough to put information at people's disposal: there also needs to be an element of persuasion.
Equally, and with this in mind, let's analyze another point of view that is also key: the way we communicate. There's a lot of talk about assertive communication and also about empathetic communication, but what is assertiveness really? And what is empathy really?
So let's understand that effective communication to be truly effective has to meet three key pillars:
Formal Communication
Kindness, that's what is understood very well, it's very easy to understand, it has to do with knowing the culturally accepted codes for communication and adhering to those codes.
If I travel to a country where it's required to bow when meeting an older person, kindness means doing it. If I come from a country where those kinds of things are done, but it's not required, kindness also means not doing it.
Kindness has to do with understanding the protocol of communication and is in a sense the easiest to do because these rules are normally rules that are very clear, even written, and it's easy to know if a person is following them or not.
Assertive Communication
Empathy and assertiveness. They are two different things, because there are no clearly established rules for what empathy is and what assertiveness is, and that's why some people can get confused with their meaning.
The first thing we need to understand is that assertiveness and empathy are not the same. They seem like similar concepts, but they really aren't. And not only are they not the same, but from a certain point of view, you could say they are opposite concepts.
To simplify, we're going to say that assertive communication is message-centered communication, while empathetic communication is receiver-centered communication.
The word assertiveness speaks to us of precision. It refers to having a sufficiently broad vocabulary and, at the same time, a specific one, so that you can say the exact word at the exact moment.
Having assertiveness and having breadth of vocabulary are two things that go hand in hand. It's difficult to be assertive when you don't have the lexicographic resources necessary to communicate very particular details.
Having a broad vocabulary is like having a kitchen with all the necessary ingredients to make any type of recipe. I can know how to cook well, but if I have few ingredients, the list of dishes I can offer you if I invite you to dinner one day is more limited than if I had more ingredients available.
In the same way, the argument I can present to you will be richer if I have more resources to express ideas to you and shade them with colors, textures, and depth. Vocabulary allows us to give relief and foreshortening to our communication. Vocabulary is, in conclusion, the raw material of assertive communication.
But vocabulary is not the only thing necessary for my communication to be assertive. Because for my communication to be truly assertive, I need the words, yes, but I also need to have quick and timely access to those words, which is another way of saying that I require mental agility.
Assertive communication is what those people can achieve, with much more freedom and skill, who have, on the one hand, a broader vocabulary and, on the other, the agility to access that vocabulary at the right moment.
These two things can be built in different ways, but one of the easiest (and which we all have at hand) is by cultivating the habit of reading. Reading gives us vocabulary. Reading exercises our mind. Reading allows us to become intellectual athletes who, although we're not competing to win the title of chess grandmaster, could all benefit from having more speed and more intellectual flexibility. And the result of that agility is: assertive communication.
Empathetic Communication
Something very different happens with empathetic communication. To be empathetic, you don't need to have a large vocabulary. You don't even need to have much intelligence. The only thing you need to be empathetic is to care about the person you're talking to.
Empathy, in 100% of cases, is an attempt at empathy. What that means is that we're never perfectly empathetic, and therefore we always have the possibility of being more empathetic.
Empathy is confused with kindness, but it's not the same. A person can be very kind without being empathetic at all. In the same way, a person can be empathetic without being kind. Of course it's convenient to be not only empathetic but also kind, but it's not the same. They're different things.
Kindness has to do with manners, with being polite, with following the formal protocol of communication according to the cultural codes of the environment you move in. And that changes from one place to another. It's not the same how a person is seen as educated in China, as in London, as in Mexico. Kindness is something that changes because it's contextual, it's different in each society.
Empathy doesn't. Empathy is universal. Empathy is eternal. Empathy has always existed. In fact, empathy is much more animal than we like to accept.
Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. Or at least to try. But how could I put myself in someone else's shoes if I'm not in their situation? I can't. No matter how hard I try, I won't achieve it completely. But in the trying is exactly where empathy lies. To empathize is to try to empathize.
Empathy doesn't require as many intellectual skills as assertiveness does, but it does require other types of skills. Two, specifically:
- The ability to intuit. Intuiting is nothing more than learning to connect the dots and find patterns to try to get ahead of what's going to happen. That is, if I observe you carefully, I'm going to receive information. And if I connect the dots of that information, that will allow me to make informed assumptions and draw conclusions that, although anticipated, if I practice empathy, those conclusions can get closer and closer to reality. That is intuition.
- Imagination. How could I put myself in someone else's shoes if I don't imagine what it feels like to be in their place? That's why people who have voluntarily suppressed their ability to make informed assumptions (out of fear of stereotyping
So, these three concepts (assertive communication, protocol communication or kindness and empathetic communication) are not the same. And understanding the difference between them is key to being able to make strategic planning of my communication and thus deploy much more effective practices to achieve my own objectives when speaking in public.
Six steps to grow as a leader and communicator
Step 1: Calibrate your Expertise
It is key to constantly be calibrating your expertise, your specialty and your experience. Perhaps at some point, you have heard of this author. His name is Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He published a book that
is called Antifragility. He proposed this term, the term of antifragility, as a principle for understanding economically how nations function, but it also works for understanding how the mind works.
Antifragility means that there are, let's say, three types of people. On one hand, there are people who are fragile. People who are very structured, at the same time are also fragile, because if you are very rigid in your structures, suddenly change comes, which is inevitable, and then your structure can break.
The example we are experiencing is the rise of artificial intelligence. It is something that has changed us in many ways and people who are very rigid or very structured can break from not being able to handle that situation.
The second type of people are resilient people. Resilient is this word that has become very fashionable since the middle of the last century. Resilient is another way of saying resistance. That is, when there is change, you are able to resist that change, perhaps you become more flexible and then return to your original way of being.
And then you have a third way of seeing change, which is precisely antifragility. When there is a change, you receive that change, you understand the change and you adapt, not completely, but in certain aspects. You adapt to the change. You incorporate the change as part of a new structure.
The question, not for you to answer me, but for you to ask yourself, is: how do you react when there are changes in the world? Are you a rigid person who breaks with change? Or rather are you fighting with change, being resistant? Or rather, when there is a change, do you adapt to that change?
That is why the first step is to constantly be calibrating what you know, asking yourself whether what you know is truly what you will continue to use as change occurs. And that is the concept of antifragility.
Step 2: Enrich your Vocabulary
This is key, it is critical to have good assertive communication. And this comes in no other way than by reading and using language. The Spanish language has millions of terms and we only use a small percentage, but if you start reading for pleasure, and not only books and documents specific to your work, but also other types of documents, other types of literature, it is something that will allow you to enrich your vocabulary. And that is key to assertiveness.
Step 3: Know and Follow the Rules
Protocol can be said to be the easiest of the three abilities in the trifecta, because it is the only one that has rules. And those rules are mostly clear and primarily written. There are protocol rules that are different in one context and another, but they must be followed.
For example, if you are going to go to a gala event, you will try not to go in sneakers that you wear every day to the gym, which are already all dirty and torn. If you are invited to a gala event, perhaps you will bring clothes to look presentable. If someone is greeting you and asking how you are, you will return the greeting and maintain yourself in that trivial conversation to maintain protocol.
So, protocol means being kind to others. It is not the same to be kind in Mexico as in Japan, the United States or Argentina. The codes are different in each place. However, it is your responsibility as a communicator to understand those codes, familiarize yourself with those codes and be able to carry them out in your communication.
Step 4: Use the Rules with Warmth
Use the rules with warmth. It is not only about knowing and following the rules, but also doing so with warmth. Perhaps, some when you were little, like me, were taken by your family to take catechism when you were going to have your first communion.
And something that was learned is that in the story of the Bible it tells how Jesus was especially demanding with people who were already very present in the church, not so much with people who were not there, but with those who were already there. Why? Because these famous Pharisees, as they are called, what they did was that they were too rigid with the law. They even ended up being little empathetic with other people. And it is something that was mainly criticized.
So, not only follow the rules of protocol communication, but use them with warmth. In fact, there is a phrase that I love, which is the golden rule, which says: "treat others as you would like to be treated". It is known as the golden rule or some call it the eleventh commandment.
More important than following the rules: more important is to treat the other as you would like to be treated.
Step 5: Give Yourself Permission to Imagine
Empathy has a lot to do with giving yourself permission to imagine. Imagining what situation the other person is in. Imagining what situation the person you are trying to communicate with is in. It could be a patient, it could be a group, it could be a person on the street. It could be the person who is pumping gas for your car. Give yourself permission to imagine. Many times we don't do it, but if you see the signs, you can give yourself permission to imagine.
Let's do a mental exercise. Imagine that you are walking down the street, you are on the sidewalk, and it is getting dark. You are walking toward your car and you see walking in your direction a person who seems to be violent or aggressive. They even have their hands in their pockets, are wearing a hood and it seems like they have a weapon in the bag held by their hand.
What would all of us do? At least cross the street. That is because all of us are capable of predicting, through the signs, what will happen in the future.
If I am driving on the highway and I see a car that has crashed a kilometer ahead, well, I am going to brake, because if I don't, I will probably crash.
That intuitive capacity that we all have, sometimes we don't use it with people. Sometimes that person is communicating with us, through their nonverbal language, signs that we do not want to understand or do not want to hear.
But if we start to look people in the eyes, we start to understand their gaze, the tone of their voice, the way they are sitting or standing, that can give us a lot of information. And if I give myself permission to imagine, it can give me a lot of information.
Step 6: Dare to Communicate
Dare to communicate. Once we have dared to imagine, we will also dare to communicate. Address the other person and tell them: "hey, you look rested" or "you look happy", or "it seems to me, you communicate to me that you are going through a certain situation". How are you? Open their communication channels. It is something that is sometimes difficult and hard, especially when we are working among colleagues. It can be a challenge. However, the person who conquers assertive communication, protocol communication and empathetic communication is something that will help us a lot to improve that communication and our effective communication.
Bibliography
- Alberti, R. E., & Emmons, M. L. (2017). Your perfect right: Assertiveness and equality in your life and relationships (10th ed.). New Harbinger Publications.
- Anderson, A. A. (n. d.). The community builder's approach to theory of change: A practical guide to theory development. The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change.
- Associated Press. (2022, October 14). Climate protesters throw tomato soup on Van Gogh's "Sunflowers". PBS NewsHour.
- Center for Theory of Change. (n. d.). What is theory of change? Theory of Change Community.
- Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126.
- Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. *Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3*(2), 71–100.