Communication: What's Trust Got to Do With It?
Welcome back to Curiouser, our monthly newsletter with insights about leadership. This month's edition is about adapting your communication style.
Turn That Frown Upside Down
Have you ever dealt with a really unhappy customer? So unhappy they made you question your career choices?
Years ago I joined a project in the midst of a turnaround. The client had threatened to terminate the contract so our company brought in new project leadership to change course and inspire confidence. A new project manager (let’s call him Tom) and I were part of the new guard.
Tom was fun to work with. He was also a great project manager. At an especially contentious client meeting, Tom approached me during a break and asked to take over as facilitator. I pushed back, worried I’d lose credibility with our new client. Tom empathized and said, “It’s not you. No one on this project has credibility right now. Our job is to build it and I think I know how. Trust me.”
It was the right move. Tom facilitated the rest of the meeting with charm and wit, keeping to the agenda while being flexible to address the client’s concerns. He managed to turn an awkward, tense meeting into a collaborative conversation with smiles all around.
Adaptation Builds Trust
Tom demonstrated in that meeting—and repeatedly through the project—a prodigious ability to read the room and adapt. He had mastered the art of flexing his style of communication to get the best out of clients and colleagues.
What I thought was Tom’s special talent, I’ve since learned is a skill. We can all learn to adapt our communication style.
How we communicate and work with others—our “style”—isn’t fixed. By flexing our style to match those we interact with we can build trust and improve collaboration.
Successfully adapting your style involves 3 steps:
1. Build Self-Awareness
95% of us think we’re self-aware.
10-15% of us actually are.
That means most of us have some work to do!
It’s difficult to adapt your style if you don’t know your default behaviors. For example: are you a natural ideator or do you prefer working with facts and data? Are you prone to engage in conflict or do you avoid it? Do you prefer structure or spontaneity?
Being self-aware of your default styles of communicating and working is how you know which of your behaviors you’ll need to adapt.
Make a Habit of Introspection
Here’s some good news: you can cultivate self-awareness through regular introspection. By pondering self-reflection questions, you’ll become more aware of yourself and your environment.
Here are 3 self-reflection questions related to your communication style that you might reflect on:
Ask "What?" Instead of "Why?"
Reframing self-reflection questions can also help you increase your self-awareness. In her TEDx talk, the organizational psychologist Dr. Tasha Eurich suggests changing “why” questions into “what” questions. This simple rewording shifts your focus to future thinking and improves your ability to self-assess.
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2. Read the Room
When I kicked-off that meeting years ago, my plan for winning over the client was to ask questions and listen intently. As it turned out, the client was tired of talking. She wanted to see clear milestones, dates, and accountability.
Tom understood this. He realized we were being too deferential, moving too slowly through the agenda, and failing to get concrete plans on the whiteboard.
Most of us are able to read the room—discerning the styles and preferences of others—if we take the time to pause, observe, and reflect.
Consider asking yourself these questions before any high-stakes encounter:
In our Flexing Your Communication module, participants identify their own style and learn to diagnose the styles of others through practical exercises. And those two steps are critical to the final step: flexing to meet people where they are.
3. Meet People Where They Are
By adapting his style to meet the needs and preferences of our client, Tom built trust, improved collaboration, and—thankfully—got our contract extended.
Despite being a natural consensus-builder, Tom had figured out that our client was highly task-focused and looking for results. So he flexed. Within minutes of taking over, he had a high-level work plan on the whiteboard with dates, assigned actions, and verbal commitments.
Tom’s success in that moment isn’t surprising—research tells us that people tend to like people similar to themselves. It’s easier to trust and connect with others when starting from a common place. In fact, simply mirroring gestures, posture, or tone can help us connect better with others!
We can’t always give people what they want. And we certainly can’t be all things to all people all the time. But when stakes are high, collaboration is difficult, team members are underperforming, or we’re trying win over an angry client—success often requires us to adapt how we communicate and collaborate.
Your 30-Day Challenge
Over the next 30 days, try doing one thing to adapt your communication style. Here are a few ideas:
1. Build your self-awareness by pondering a self-reflection question each day.
2. Read the room by identifying a relationship that needs nurturing and then considering these questions before your next conversation:
3. Meet someone where they are by adapting your behaviors to their style. Match their tone, use some of their words, or mirror their body language.
Stay curious!
- Leadership & Co.
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