How To Be An Impactful Communicator Part 3

We are super excited to have Leeza Steindorf from Core Success with us again today for part 3 (our final installment) of How To Be An Impactful Communicator.

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How To Be An Impactful Communicator Part 3

Tim Fitzpatrick: I am super excited to have Leeza Steindorf from Core Success with me again today for our last and final installment, part three of how to be an impactful communicator. Hi, I'm Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. Leeza, welcome back. Thanks for being here with me once again.

Leeza Steindorf: Nice to be your Tim. Thanks.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes. So we are going to cap this all off today. I know in part one, we touched on why conversations go south. We talked about the four steps of impactful communication and the importance of understanding ourselves as part of this whole communication process. Part two, we jumped into some real-world examples to really help hammer this framework home. And today we're going to talk about how it's so important to understand the other person's perspective or other people's perspective. If there's multiple people to try and tie all this together. Before we do that, can you just summarize the four steps again for us to make sure we've got that?

Leeza Steindorf: Sure. So the first one, the first and second, can be switched around. But the first one, basically is to observe the facts, to speak to what is observable and measurable. Something we can all agree upon. So, for example, you are wearing, I think I've used this example before, you are wearing glasses, black glasses, right? Measure, color, shape, visual, and so forth. And then we speak about our feelings. I'm real excited that you're wearing these glasses, and then we can talk about why that is why am I having that experience of your glasses? Because I know that you've suffered from headaches. And I'm glad to see that you found a solution and then you're headache-free.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

Leeza Steindorf: And then the final one is a request. If it's present and it may be, you know, I've been having headaches. Could you let me know? Where did you get those or what doctor did you see that actually prescribe those for you?

Tim Fitzpatrick: Got it. So sometimes, depending on the conversation that last one, we may not necessarily have a request.

Leeza Steindorf: We may not have a request. Exactly.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Got it. Okay.

Leeza Steindorf: When the situation is tense, there usually is. But if we are just sharing like I just did, or often when we're affirming people, there's not a request. But these four steps are useful. And I love them, especially when I'm affirming someone, because when you're specific instead of just saying, "Oh, hey, Tim, you look great." Right? But now the gray shirt on you, you've got a little bit of gray in your hair to look nice. You look handsome. That specificity. Sounds a lot different than, "Hey, you look great."

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Yeah. People latch onto the specificity there. So I know you've got a few examples to kind of help us understand, like how we understand other people's positions. Let's just jump into those.

Leeza Steindorf: Okay. And before I come into the first example, I'd like to explain why this is important.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Absolutely. Awesome.

Leeza Steindorf: Why should I understand that other person? I'm not okay with the situation. What do I care about the other person? Well, there's two parts of that. First of all, caring about another individual in a conversation is about our humanity. It's about connection, which is I'm about connection. I think we all are at the deepest level. We just don't know how to go about it. The other thing, however, is, though, if there's a situation where there's conflict or tension, that's your best way of actually being heard. So when we become defensive or when we feel like we're in danger, we go into fight, flight, or freeze, we go into our back, the oldest part of our brain, the reptilian brain is ready to take action and defend ourselves. It's not from the latest development of our brain, which is the frontal lobe, the cognitive part. So when things get tough, we actually go back into our back brain. And you think, "Oh, that's ridiculous. I'm 21st century adult." You may be, but physiological, you still have these things going on, right?

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

Leeza Steindorf: So when somebody starts saying, I can't believe you did this, why did you do that? Where we go is to okay, emergency. Let's fight, flight, flee, or freeze. So speaking somebody else's perspective for them, when you recognize the situation and when you have that clarity and that ease is super useful to help them calm down and move from that defensiveness into the frontal lobe, where you can actually then have a conversation. And that's where the steps of mediation or even these four steps are really useful to kind of level the playing field. Calm things down since you can have a conversation that everybody's perspective can be heard and then look for a common solution.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Do you think that when we can understand the other person's perspective, it's easier to find a potential path that we can both go down together?

Leeza Steindorf: Absolutely. So when I do mediation, I love people like, I can't believe you like mediation or going into large corporations doing crisis transformation, right? People are upset, and there's accusations flying. And how could you enjoy that. When I have that opportunity, whether it's in large groups or small party issues, the piece that I love most is when people really hear the other person in their like, "Is that what you really think? Is that what's really going on for you?" They could never hear that. So when we have the opportunity to calm situation down and sometimes emotions are fine if there's not a problem with getting upset, angry, frustrated, whatever. It's not the time, though, to be looking for solutions when that's going on. Right. So we let that play out or take time out. But when we were seeking solutions or seeking to have connection to have that calm playing field and then people can really hear and it's like, "Whoa, Tim, I can't believe that's what you're really saying." And then you may say, "I've been saying that for, like, three weeks." Right. But it couldn't be heard. So that's the real beauty of being able to find solutions through this process.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Awesome. So what's the first example?

Leeza Steindorf: Okay. So I had a phone call. This was many, many years ago, but it was a strong example where I was setting up my first coaching practice. And a friend of mine's husband had a radiology practice. Large complex, beautiful buildings with soft lighting and water flowing inside. I mean, it was really more like a hotel. And the doctor, he said, Dr. Cole, he said, "Of course, you can come and do an open house and invite people. And he kind of launched your business." And I was totally stoked. This was gorgeous. And what an opportunity to set it all up on a Sunday and made flyers and invitations. And it was the Wednesday prior, and I get a phone call from someone. I pick up the phone, you know, "Hello." And I hear on the other end, "Is this Lisa Steindorf?" And I said, "Yes, it is." "Who do you think you are?" And I was like, "Well, I think I know who I am." I the question is right when he said, you know, "I'm Dr. Smith. And who do you think you are to come into my practice and start hanging up flyers and telling people you're having something here on some event here? And I've never even spoken to you." And I'm listening. I'm thinking really quickly thinking, what is he talking about? Dr. Smith? I know Dr. Cole really well. Who's this guy? And as I'm listening to me so upset, there was no, I knew quickly there was no way I was going to have a conversation with him. So in my confusion, and also in my surprise, I just started speaking his situation. So I said, from the information I had, right. Just from his sharing, he said, so, "Dr. Smith, I can hear you are really upset. You come to work and you find flyers from a person you've never met. And you're told by your receptionist that there's an event in your practice on Sunday and you never approved it. And I can imagine, like, you are really not only confused but livid that somebody would just intrude in your professional space. And I hear you saying you have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth equipment, and you don't want foreign people in there that aren't even your clients. And you probably would like to know what the heck is going on and who I am." Right. So I went through just those four steps. And he said, "Absolutely. Absolutely." And then because I had spoken that he didn't have any more momentum. Right. And then he said, "So, who are you?" And so now we're in a conversation, and he was still upset. It wasn't that was gone. But now he was engaged. He was no longer accusing. He was no longer as agitated. He was in place. Now he wanted to understand. And at the end of the conversation, what we got clear on is that Dr. Cole and Dr. Smith don't communicate.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. But if you had jumped into, "Hey, I got approval from Dr. Cole." Right in that beginning of that conversation, it probably would not have gone as well as it did.

Leeza Steindorf: Exactly. It would have not only escalated the phone discussion that we were having, but it also would have caused problems in that situation, which I wasn't interested. Here's the thing I wasn't looking at, who is at fault. I was interested in what's happened here, what's your experience and what's my experience. And if you want to have any kernel of usefulness in any of this, it's thou. Instead of looking for who's at fault, seek to understand what's going on. When you remove that piece or defend yourself from fault. When you remove that piece, you have no loss. It's like, wait a minute. Let me understand. Why are you yelling at me? Who are you? I didn't even know you existed, and he's feeling the same way. Right.

Tim Fitzpatrick: This reminds me of a quote, and I can't remember who said it. You might know where they said, seek to understand before seeking to be understood.

Leeza Steindorf: Well, that's actually St Francis of Assissi.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay.

Leeza Steindorf: Right. Yeah. Absolutely. It's a golden rule, if you will. A golden rule of engagement. And so it was interesting. And what ensued from that? And then I went into the practice, and then the three of us had a conversation. And indeed, it turned out that those two had issues with each other, which was not my thing, right?

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.

Leeza Steindorf: I had to backtrack. I couldn't even have the event because they couldn't clarify. So it's not that it came out smelling rosy as far as the results go. But the conversations were peaceful, and what was really going on became clear, which I was not the problem. Their communication had been the issue, and I was caught in a crossfire.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Sorry that happened.

Leeza Steindorf: It gives me opportunity to share it with other people. And here I am with a thriving practice. And it doesn't matter whether I had it. There, there.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Right. You found ways to succeed in spite of that.

Leeza Steindorf: Exactly.

Tim Fitzpatrick: So I know you got some other examples. What else is top of mind?

Leeza Steindorf: Similar to your field of business. So I had recommended someone to do web design.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Okay.

Leeza Steindorf: This was a while back and now probably recommend you Tim. I have clients. So I also work with small businesses. I do strategic planning and I help people think through how they want to proceed in their business and do business consulting. So I was working with a small group, and I had recommended to them a web designer with whom I had had some good experience. And one of the women came back to me in the group and just was irritated as heck. And talking about this guy who's doing this work and he's doing a horrible job and he doesn't get back to me and she's going really was on fire. And again, right. Instead of being interested as well, it's not my fault. I'm not the web designer. I only recommended the guy, right. Is I said to her, I said, wow. I said so you've called him three times and he's not responded to you. And it's already been five days since you've heard from him, and you paid him a retainer of $1200 from the 2500 you were going to give them like that's a lot going on. Right. So those ar the facts. And I can hear like, you're frustrated. And I can understand that you're probably also concerned about the outcome. Like if he's dealing with your communication this way, how is actually the product going to look when you're at that point and you want this to work well, because this is the website you're investing in for your new business, like it's important to you. So are you, I'm curious. Are you asking me to get in touch with this designer, or do you want me to support you and get in touch? Like, what is it that you're asking me to do? I'd be glad to help.

Tim Fitzpatrick: There you go.

Leeza Steindorf: There would be the four steps.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yep. And I think it's important for people to realize here we're using the four steps for ourselves and our point of view. But in this case, you're using it from the other person's perspective, walking through the framework about how they feel about the situation.

Leeza Steindorf: Right. And it's powerful, as I said before, because it takes people out of their aggressive or assertive mode and seeking blame, even if you're not, they are still looking for whose fault this is. Right. And what happens is. And this is something. As I said in our first conversation, Dr. Carl Rogers did research in this, which was just, in my opinion, so essential for humanity. When somebody is understood at a deep level from their own frame of reference, just being understood is healing. Even if nothing changes. Just to have somebody in here with me getting me. It's like, God, yes. That's it. That's exactly it. And maybe you've noticed that when you've had with your children or partner, old friends, it's like when you get somebody, it's like, oh, Hallelujah. Somebody asking me, right. So that's what goes on here. And what is really wonderful from that is then both people can move forward in a manner that really is connected. It's not it's me against you. But okay, now we're together. Why most people don't want to do that is because they feel they're going to lose their stance, their lose face, they're going to be at fault. Just the opposite. When you can suspend your perspective or your experience for just a moment, not forever, just for a moment. Just suspend it, put it to the side for a minutes, not lost and seek to understand the other person speak that for them. And you're guessing you don't know for sure. You can be as clear as you want, and they'll correct you to. I'm not angry. I'm sad. Okay. So I hear you're sad that the web designer hasn't shown up for you, right? Go down that road. When you can suspend it, you have no loss. You have a gain, because then you really you're getting your highest chance for the other person to hear you.

Tim Fitzpatrick: So I want to touch on this because you you just brought this up. How are you knowing the other person's position or perspective in most cases, are you guessing based on the information that you have or are there other tips or tricks you have for us there?

Leeza Steindorf: That's a great question, Tim. First of all, they'll tell you, like if you're just listening clearly, you can hear it. You can hear if they're angry. If the voices raised, if there's tears in their eyes, there may be sadness. There could be frustration. If you know any of their history, like in this situation, if I'm coaching people and starting their business, right. You know, as a business owner, the concerns of making an investment, having a return on that investment, you have time challenges of trying to pull all those pieces together before launch and so forth. So you can interpret or intimate certain things as best. And you can also preface it by saying, I'm not sure if this is how you're feeling, but I'm seeing tears in your eyes, and I'm guessing you probably feel sad. So it's not. Well, you're sad because. You're trying to understand this person. You're not trying to be right about what they're feeling, you're trying to understand them and even if you're off base, they're going to feel that attempt, as I said earlier, just to care enough to want to understand somebody. And then you can kind of extrapolate. And maybe it's because you have a time frame and you only had $2500 to invest in website. And now half that's gone, and you may have to find someone else. And your concern. Got you finance. So, you know, as an adult, as a person who's been on the planet a couple of years, you can kind of figure it out. And as I said, if you're not adamant about it and you say, well, maybe you're feeling this way. They're saying, no, I'm feeling that way. Okay. So now you're not sad. You're scared that it's never going to get done.

Tim Fitzpatrick: So that also touches on what if I get the position wrong? I'm hearing you say, well, they're going to tell you, and then you can take that and continue right down the road.

Leeza Steindorf: Or I got that so wrong. That's how I would feel. So I'm curious. How do you feel? Like you not like you have to stick to these four steps, right? Ask them like, hey, I'm terrified. I'm terrified because this keeps happening to me. And I don't know how I'm going to ever change this pattern of bad things happening to me. Well, now we're in a completely different conversation than the web designer.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Absolutely. I think the most important thing for people to get is you said we got to listen. Man, sometimes we're in conversation and we're kind of listening. But then we're already thinking about what we need to say next, and we're really not present. So we need to listen. That's going to give us the information we need to then communicate in a way that's going to help move this conversation down the road.

Leeza Steindorf: You know, it's interesting you said and rightly so we need to listen. I would tweak that we don't need to do anything. The question that I encourage people to ask is what's important to me here. Right. So important to me to get my point across. Then get your point across. It's probably not going to get you a result of a conversation, now.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Your end, it depends on what your end goal is.

Leeza Steindorf: Yeah. End goal or the experience you want to give yourself. Is that how it because I don't know the end goal. I can't force a positive outcome. Yet I can create a circumstance in which I have the highest chance of a win-win situation where we can both at least understand one another. And the way that I can do that is what's important to me is to understand myself and the other person. And when we have understanding, if we're caring human beings, I've done this with people who are special needs. I've done this with people who are psychotic or had a psychotic break or some mental health issues. I've done this with children. So when you are willing to understand yourself and the other person, the other human beings show up the best way they can. And then you have so many points of reference to connect on. So just knowing what's important to me here is really useful. And from that place, then you can practice the four steps and other tools. If you're trying to get tools and just apply those without really knowing why you're doing it or what's important to you, it's going to be formulaic be missing the meet.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Got it. So how does this help us? We understand the other person. What's next?

Leeza Steindorf: Well, as I said, connection. So if we go back to the two situations, the first one where I had, I was supposed to have the grand opening of my business. It helped clarify, at least for them, that they had issues going on, and I had to figure something else out. But it got me out of an embroiled situation. In the second one was a web designer, I helped a client of mine clarify what's important for her. And we also clarified in the end. Then she called the web designer, and her problem was she had not been communicating as clearly as she thought she had. So her web designer was doing the work. He just wasn't clear that she wanted updates consistently. Work wasn't getting done. So that clarity was there. And what the request from her was tell me how I should talk to him about that, because she was conflict averse. And so we talked it through. Then, you know, you can just ask him. I sent this email and I made this phone call. I didn't hear from you why? And then that got them into this conversation. And then she said, But I told you, well, no, actually, she hadn't. She thought she had said, I want to update. So it helps things flow more smoothly. It helps the human interaction. Also, our businesses really go a lot better. We retain clients that maybe would have jumped ship. We have more profitable engagements, because when people feel comfortable when they feel like they're understood, then you build trust. Building relationship, as you know, in your business, right. When you have relationship, then you can do better business on all sides. And also in the private sector, this is it's useful anywhere that you want to be in relationship with people. So that's just about everywhere.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. For most of us. Right. So do you have any other examples you want to run through?

Leeza Steindorf: Well, I have one that it's kind of a strong example, but it's so clear. I think it's really useful. And that was called recently by a friend whose mother had died, and she had literally just passed away in the nursing home. And so my girlfriend called me and said, you know, can you come? And so I went and she had two friends there. And then myself and her mother was laying in state. She had just passed and they were waiting for the coroner to come. And they were going to do a natural burial. And when I arrived, my friend was, I don't want to say, chipper, but she just seemed really almost a little frantic. And she's standing in the room with her mother's body and didn't talk about it. And so I took a chair. There was a chair close to the bed. So I took a chair and I brought it over and I brought another chair over so she and I could sit down next to her mom's body. And I said, you know, would you like to join me? And she came over and I said, So when did your mom pass. I got the facts, right, because I didn't know, half an hour and she gave me all the details of what happened and what she was doing, and she talked to her mom and things, and I said so I can imagine that you're really not only in shock, but probably really deeply, deeply sad that you've lost your mom, that she's gone now because you guys were so close and you love her so much. And I can imagine that all you really want right now is to be able to talk to her and have her be here again. And, you know, she just was still kind of stoic and didn't say anything that I went through it again. And maybe you have some regret the things that she didn't say. And maybe you'd like to say those things to her, and I'd like to invite you. Is there something you'd like to say to your mom now? And so she did. Then she started talking and that seemed to open the gates for her to be able to be in it. And then the tears came in, the grief and whatever she had left on set, and it really helped her move through that. Now, would she have gotten through that anyway? Of course she would have. But for whatever reason, she couldn't make that transition from her mom was breathing 2 hours ago, and now she's not now there's a physical body there without her mom's life living it. She couldn't access her own experience of that. And so just going through. And as I said, I went through it twice those things and it wasn't formulaic. I was just really looking at what was going on and imagining what she must be feeling and just staying in touch with her. Did you want to say something or is that correct? And then that opened up that she could then start really being in touch with what was going on for herself? That's more of a let's say, unusual circumstance. But I think it's an important one because we do get caught like deer in the headlights, often in situations where the other person is not capable or struggling with something. And if you have a theory of mine, works great with children who sometimes don't know how to formulate, they know what they're feeling, but they don't know how to formulate yet, depending on their age, right? One to just help that. I can imagine I would feel this way. Or maybe you're feeling that way. Is that right? And maybe you want to have this conversation, you want to tell him to stop or you want to ask her to meet you or, you know, and then they're like, yeah. Yeah. That's no. No, that's not. Yeah. That's it. And so you're helping them clarify their experience by walking through this for them and with them.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. I think that's a great example where it's not there's not an argument or anything. Somebody's trying to solve here. It's just you're helping them work through, however they're feeling, and hopefully they can gain a better understanding of what's going on for them so that they can figure out what they need to do to move forward.

Leeza Steindorf: Exactly. And even if it's not to figure it out, just to be as I said early, just to be heard, and the other folks in the room were chatting. But just to have somebody come and be willing to sit next to a lifeless body. And as I said, that was an extreme situation. But if we had, I've had young children come if they've had an argument with each other and just to say, wow, I really see that, you know, when you lost that baseball game, it really hit you hardly. You must feel sad and disappointed because I can see you like putting it all out there on that field like you ran every base as fast as you could. You hit every ball as far as you could. Like, I really get that. And you probably would like to have a different outcome. I'm imagining where you'd like to be able to tell you your teammates that you're sad about that, like, even if they don't take action on that just to be heard on this experience is really powerful.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. I love that. This has been awesome. I told you before we jumped on the interview today that I've been taking notes feverishly, and I'm going to do my darndest to start putting this into action because I find the sooner I put things into action, the better I am at them.

Leeza Steindorf: Absolutely.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Any last-minute thoughts you want to leave us with?

Leeza Steindorf: It's the one I said to you the other day is really to believe in good. First in yourself and then in the other. And in our world today, it's so easy to believe that people are out to get us or we are doing a bad job because we're inherently bad and maybe flip that paradigm, try it on and just say, wow, you know, if the premises is that I'm really goodness inside and then maybe the other person is as well. If I want to consider that, then I have no loss to share what's going on for me. And I have a whole game to try and understand what's going on with the other person. And then really almost miraculous situations take place.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, that's awesome. I know in the first episode we talked about where people can go. Leeza Steindorf dot com you also have Your Core Success dot Teachable dot com. And there they'll find multiple courses that will help them with what we've been talking about the last three interviews.

Leeza Steindorf: Yes. So I have on my website. Actually, the pop up that comes is a three part series on exactly this. So you also get some worksheets so you can opt in for that and then on teachable the classes that I have there. And I also have it on Learn Desk dot com. But the classes that you'll find there, there's another one called Connected Communication. There's the Genius of Non Judgment, which is free. There's Core Personal Transformation, which is a really powerful training. And then I have the Parenting Success Blueprint, which is a very in depth training for parents.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Awesome. Guys, we've done this for three episodes, now. I think it is very clear that eezasa knows exactly what she's doing. Head on over to our website. Head on over to Your Core Success dot teachable dot com to take advantage of those resources. Reach out to her if you need help. She's obviously very easy to talk to. I've done it three times in a row now. So thank you so much. I really appreciate the time, Leeza. And for those of you that have been tuning in, I am Tim Fitzpatrick, again. If you are running into roadblocks with your marketing, you need some help, head on over to our website. Rialto Marketing dot com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O Marketing dot com. Click on the Get a Free Consult button. I will help you push through those roadblocks so you know what the next right steps are for you. Until next time. Take care.

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Copyright ? 2021 Leezá Carlone Steindorf. All rights reserved. No duplication without written permission. Thank you.

Leezà Carlone Steindorf is a communication, crisis and culture transformation specialist. Her extensive background in multinational corporations, trade unions, nonprofits, and educational institutions in over 35+ cultures allows her to help individuals and organizations make sustainable forward movement, especially during the most extreme of circumstances. Reach out to Leezá@LeezaSteindorf.com.

About the Host Tim Fitzpatrick

Tim Fitzpatrick is the President of Rialto Marketing. At Rialto Marketing, we help service businesses simplify marketing so they can grow with less stress. We do this by creating and implementing a plan to communicate the right message to the right people. Marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the RIGHT plan.