1.7 – Relationships

Humans are social creatures. We need various types of relationships to remain happy and productive. This chapter of Supermorning discusses several ways to ensure that your relationships are wins for everyone involved.

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Recap: Verbal Communication

Excellent communication is a cornerstone of any good relationship. We all know this. The problem is that most people would interpret “better communication” as “more talking.”

Fixing this troublesome misconception was our mission over the past week. 

The checklist

  1. Understand the importance of body language and voice tone.
    • A common breakdown of importance is 55% body language, 38% voice tone, and 7% words.
    • Poor body language and voice tone can make your words worthless or even harmful.
  2. Body language: the core of communication. 
    • The most important body language signals are those conveying an open or closed attitude. 
    • Learning how to unravel defensiveness through open body language can make you a much better communicator. 
  3. Voice tone: more than words. 
    • A deep and engaging voice tone is the emotional glue that makes your words stick.
    • Conscious control of voice tone can also help to keep negative emotions from ruining your communication.   
  4. Words: less is more. 
    • If you want people to like you and/or take your message to heart, use fewer words, not more. 
    • Effective communicators concentrate as much goodness and insight into as few words as possible. 

Our modern world has many complex problems. Solving these problems will require many minds to work together. And verbal communication is the best way of connecting all these minds. 

But we often fail to see verbal communication as the full-body exercise it is. Hence, most of the words we exchange have little (or even negative) impact. 

Better communication can make the world a better place. So, let’s stop talking and start communicating 🙂

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Words: Less is More

After body language and voice tone, we finally come to words. Most of us erroneously view words as the core of communication, leading to another flawed assumption: more words = more communication. 

Let’s analyze this error in a little more detail. 

Less is more

Think back to the last time you were on the receiving end of a one-sided conversation. During that time, the other person threw thousands upon thousands of words at you.

So, how many of those do you remember?

Very little, right? Most probably, you recall a feeling of annoyance, boredom, or even some anxiety much more clearly than any of the content. 

Now think back to a conversation that meant a lot to you. Chances are that the other person didn’t talk all that much. And yet, your memory of this conversation probably contains plenty of useful information supported by some positive emotional undertones. 

These thought experiments illustrate a simple principle: If you want people to like you and/or take your words seriously, you should talk less, not more. 

Another bucket analogy

We’ve already talked a lot about the bucket and dipper analogy applied to relationships. Well, here’s an interesting extension that applies directly to communication.

The moment you start talking, you spring a small leak in the other person’s emotional bucket. And as long as you keep droning on, this leak slowly empties their bucket.

This is why someone with a good heart who talks a lot without saying much can actually go around unintentionally emptying people’s buckets. You probably know such a person. 

There’s nothing you can do to stop this bucket leak. Your only option is to ensure that the entire communication experience (body language, voice tone, and words from both parties) fills their bucket faster than your word leak empties it. 

As a general guideline, always make sure you concentrate as much goodness and insight into as few words as possible. 

Listen to learn, not to jump in

We’ve all been in those conversations where it becomes more about finding a speaking gap than about communicating. Similar to the one-sided conversation mentioned earlier, we generally go away from such exchanges with more negative emotions than useful insights. 

Don’t get drawn into such word battles. The person who wins in terms of producing the most words generally loses in terms of the impact all those words had on his listeners. 

Instead, focus on really hearing what the other person says. This will allow you to concentrate the maximum goodness and insight into your smaller number of words. 

Conversations are not competitions, but if they were, this would be the winning strategy 😉

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Voice Tone: More than Words

In communication, the second in command after body language is voice tone. The voice conveys our words in verbal communication, but it’s the voice tone carrying those words that makes the impact. 

Let’s see how this works. 

Emotional undertones

Humans are not robots. This means we’re better suited to process (and remember) feelings than facts. 

Voice tone is particularly good at conveying feeling. For example, if you listen to people speaking in a language you don’t understand, you’ll still be able to tell what they are feeling. 

This emotional undertone is the glue that makes words stick in our minds.  Without it, very little of the message will be retained. 

Not always a good thing

If you want your message to be well received, your voice tone should carry positive emotional undertones.

Negative undertones like anger, anxiety, frustration, or boredom will often hurt more than they help by putting your listener into a defensive or distracted state. 

Awareness of the importance of voice tone can also help you manage your own emotions during a conversation.

For example, focussing on producing a calm and relaxed tone of voice helps me control my stuttering problem. Stuttering comes from a place of fear and is simply incompatible with a calm and confident voice tone. 

This can be applied to any negative emotion you might experience during a conversation. Just focus on producing a voice tone that is completely incompatible with the negative emotion you’re experiencing and watch what happens in your mind. 

Deep and engaging

In general, deeper voice tones resonating from the chest are better received than higher tones resonating in the mouth or nasal cavities. 

That doesn’t mean that people with a naturally high voice cannot communicate effectively. It just means that speaking in the lower registers of your natural voice is a good idea. 

But don’t just emit a monotone low drone. To achieve engagement, there needs to be plenty of life in your voice. Luckily, this happens naturally whenever you can call on some positive emotions to carry your words. 

Practice makes perfect

Voice tone is deeply habitual. You cannot just decide to instantly control negative emotions with your tone or to always speak in a deep and engaging voice. 

Achieving the ideal voice tone in all situations requires plenty of repetition. 

For example, I practice reading out loud in my morning reading sessions. Aside from helping me build a better speaking voice, it also increases information retention.

Try recording yourself on your phone during a number of different conversations, especially when you’re under some pressure.

If you don’t like what you hear, putting in a bit of work on improving your voice tone could be a very smart move 🙂

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Body Language: The Core of Communication

Yesterday’s post discussed how body language and voice tone are more important than words in verbal communication. Today, we’ll take a closer look at body language. 

Open or closed

Body language can be broken down in endless detail, but most of it is used to communicate an open or closed (defensive) attitude. 

Here are some common open/closed body gestures I extracted from “The Definitive Book of Body Language,” all the way head to toe:

  • Raised/lowered eyebrows
  • Dilated/constricted pupils (subconscious gesture)
  • Smile with/without showing teeth
  • Infrequent/frequent hand-to-face gestures
  • Shoulders and chest turned toward/away
  • Leaning in/away
  • Arms Uncrossed/crossed in front of the torso (one or both arms)
  • Palms turned up/down
  • Palms visible/hidden
  • Uncrossed/crossed legs
  • Still/restless feet

Gesture clusters and context

One or two of these gestures in isolation don’t mean anything. There can be all sorts of contextual reasons for open people to display seemingly closed body language. 

Tightly crossed arms and legs might just signal that someone is cold. A frequent nose rub might be nothing but an itch. And someone tapping his foot to music is certainly not defensive. 

That’s why we need a cluster of at least three congruent body language signals to discern a given attitude. 

For example, if someone is displaying three or more of the defensive gestures outlined above and there is no other contextual explanation, you can just as well stop talking. Your words are not getting through and, if anything, they’re having the opposite of the intended effect. 

Defusing defensiveness

We have already discussed the importance of not getting defensive in relationships. Defensiveness makes it almost impossible to reach a good compromise or win-win solution. 

If you see a strong cluster of defensive body language, shift your focus to restoring an open mindset. 

Start with opening up your own body language.

If you are sending out defensive signals, you’ll also put the other person on the defensive. Opening up in all the ways outlined above can completely change the tone of the conversation. 

If your body language is open, but the other person remains closed, you have several options: 

  1. Stop the conversation or move to another topic, planning to try again at a later time when the other person is more receptive.
  2. Trick them into more open body language. For example, giving them something to hold is a good way to open crossed arms. 
  3. Ask them (with completely open body language) to share what is bothering them. 
  4. When talking to someone close to you, you could even ask them directly to open up their body language. This strange request by itself will already shift the mood. 

Openness to new ideas

Open body language not only makes you more approachable; it opens your entire thought process. This makes a positive outcome from any conversation much more likely.

Try it next time you feel yourself getting defensive. It’s a fascinating experience!

Such openness to new ideas, even those that go against your preconceived notions, will serve you well in life. Openness is particularly valuable when working in the multidisciplinary teams required to do exciting things in today’s complex world.

Closed body language is rarely needed

There are some circumstances when closed body language is the right response. 

For example, if someone is acting really poorly or displaying great prejudice, closed body language is useful for signaling your disapproval. Often, the better option is simply to leave. 

Also, being artificially open to someone you strongly disagree with or dislike can send the wrong signals, causing all sorts of awkward misunderstandings. 

But in the majority of cases, open body language is the way to go. 

Try it out! I think you’ll like it 🙂 

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Communication: Words, Voice, and Body

Our final week of Supermorning Relationships will delve a little deeper into the science of communication.

The main theme this week will be that words are a surprisingly minor part of our conversations; voice tone and body language matter much more. 

Only 7%?

The most often quoted breakdown of verbal communication looks like this: 

  • Words: 7%
  • Voice tone: 38%
  • Body language: 55%

It seems impossible that words can be such a small fraction of the total message. And yes, when things sound impossible, it’s often because they are. 

But the accuracy of the 7% figure is not the point. The point is that voice tone and body language are critical elements of communication that are often neglected. 

Why the voice and body matter

Humans are not robots. We don’t emit and receive audio signals with the logic and efficiency of a computer. Instead, both the emission (talking) and reception (listening) of audio signals go through a wide array of emotional filters, massively affecting the efficiency at which the message is transferred. 

Maximizing the efficiency of communication is the role of voice tone and body language.

If everything lines up perfectly, we can transfer abstract ideas between each other’s minds with ease. This is crucial in our modern world where progress requires many minds to work together. 

On the other hand, if body language and voice tone are all wrong, our words quickly become useless. In some cases, they can even have the direct opposite effect to what we intended. 

A shift in focus

We often obsess over what we say in conversations. However, the smarter approach is to focus on three other areas. Here they are in order of priority:

  1. What you do with your body
  2. The tone of your voice
  3. How much you speak relative to others

The actual words you use only come in fourth. In fact, word selection and sentence construction, being mainly subconscious processes, are greatly influenced by these three elements. 

Over the next three days, we’ll cover these three crucial communication avenues in more detail. 

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Recap: Professional Relationships

Interdisciplinary collaboration moves our increasingly complex world forward. And, unsurprisingly, taking part in this progress requires you to be an excellent collaborator. 

Becoming highly “collaboratable” was our mission over the past week. 

The checklist

  1. Establish “win-win more” relationships.
    • When gathering collaborators for your initiative, try to ensure that they get more from the deal than you. 
    • This strategy can bring massive compounding gains over the span of a career. 
  2. Ensure that you collaborate effectively. 
    • Be open to feedback – both the constructive and destructive kinds. 
    • Make sure your communication is crystal clear. Misunderstandings happen all too easily. 
  3. Take pride in being the dumbest person in the room. 
    • Learn from experts by offering to do all the work in return for their guidance. 
    • Get a mentor team, either by reading works from best-selling non-fiction authors or by getting real-life mentors. 
  4. Find your networking style.
    • If you’re a natural networker, you could make a career out of bringing the right people together. 
    • If not, rather build close relationships with one or two natural networkers and focus more on online networking. 

It’s not unusual to spend most of your relationship time with professional instead of personal contacts. Make the best of this time and, together, you can make the world a better place 🙂

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Some Networking Tips

Our final post on professional relationships will be about your network. These are all the people you know but rarely interact with. 

Why have a network?

There are two key reasons for expanding your network: 

  1. Being able to build great multidisciplinary teams and getting invited into other people’s teams.
  2. Early access to great opportunities and key information shared by people in your network. 

Growing your network to (and beyond) the point where these two features start working for you is a great investment. 

Old-school networking

The world needs great teams, but many of the best potential team members are poor networkers unlikely to ever find each other.

Thus, if you’re a social butterfly, there are many people who could really use your networking skills. In fact, networking could become your superpower. 

I’m no expert on this topic. But I do know this: good networking events are relatively infrequent and expensive, so it makes a lot of sense to learn to use them properly. Here’s a nice place to start. 

Luckily for those who dislike old-school networking, there are plenty of other options. 

For those who don’t like networking

If you don’t like crowds and small-talk, rather focus on building a couple of high-quality relationships with highly connected people.

Naturally, this should be a win-win relationship, so you need to ensure you can give something in return for the other person’s networking capability. 

There is also another attractive option:

Online professional communities

Many options are available for different professions. Find yours and patiently build up your online presence. 

It’s essential that this community can form part of your online track record.

A good online professional community will offer ways to share and archive your work. The ability to quantify the impact of your work (e.g. how many other people have viewed it) is also very useful. 

Just don’t spread yourself too thin. While writing this, I’m realizing that the five different online communities I actively contribute to might be a bit too much. 

This also brings us back to the old saying: quality over quantity. Even though the world (and your ego) will often push you toward maximizing quantity, this is a bad strategy. 

Find your place

There is a type of networking out there for everyone, even for those of us who hate networking.

Find yours and do your best to consistently give more than you take. You never know what opportunities it may bring! 

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Take Pride in Being the Dumbest Person in the Room

The human ego is responsible for much that’s wrong with modern society. But one of it’s greatest sins is keeping us from learning from people smarter than us. 

We instinctively want to appear smart and competent. The open admission of ignorance certainly does not come naturally. And yet, this is precisely what we need to do to succeed in modern life. 

Smart collaborators

Most experts enjoy sharing their expertise with those who share their passion.

So, if you have access to such an expert, don’t be afraid to ask. But remember to always respect their time and not overstay your welcome.

And this is part of the problem. Most true experts are also very busy. Thus, not only do we need to fight against our egos for the right to be the dumbest person in the room, but we also need to sacrifice to get some smart people into the room. 

If you want a very smart person to work with you, you’ll need to give them a good reason to do so.

Chances are that they probably can’t learn much from you. So, what you need to do is to offer a collaboration where you do all the work, and they just give some expert input.

I recently followed this path in gaining the strategically important skill of energy systems modeling. It really works, and it’s totally worth it 🙂

Mentors

Getting a world-class mentor team is easy. Go online, buy a bunch of highly recommended non-fiction books, and digest them thoroughly (preferably on a regular schedule). 

You really need to know your stuff to become a best-selling non-fiction author. Hence, it’s safe to say that the authors of these works have deserved the honorary title of “mentor.”

A direct relationship with one or more world-class mentors is the next step. It’s also still just a next step for me, so I can’t say anything other than that my written word mentors strongly recommend it. 

I hope to be able to share some useful first-hand experience on this topic this time next year 🙂

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Effective Collaboration

A lot has been written on collaborating effectively. This stuff often sounds very complicated, but it only boils down to three primary things. 

Let’s take a look.

Constructive feedback

One of the most valuable elements of teamwork is receiving feedback formulated from various different perspectives. Exchanging such feedback can be challenging, though.

On the one hand, we’re often hesitant to give feedback that might come across as criticism. On the other, some give destructive feedback that hurts more than it helps. 

We must be wide open to both.  

To attract constructive feedback, simply ask for it, and respond positively to what you get.

Also, get into the habit of openly acknowledging your ignorance in any technical discussion. This sends out clear signals that feedback is welcome. 

And if you get destructive feedback, focus all your mental powers to keep your ego in check and stay objective.

Often, negative feedback is not ineffective because it’s wrong; it’s ineffective because it makes us defensive. Defensive people become emotionally bound to their opinions and instinctively reject any conflicting views, even those that can help them.

Those who evolve beyond this primitive emotional response can extract value from any kind of feedback, whether it’s constructive or destructive. 

Clean communication

A team can only be greater than the sum of its parts when those parts communicate effectively. 

Don’t be lazy, and don’t be rushed. Write properly formulated emails, take the time needed to communicate your point in meetings (preferably with some kind of visual aid), and frequently check if you were understood correctly. 

Also, make sure that you receive your collaborator’s communication loud and clear. 

If there’s any doubt in your mind, ask. If there’s a need for dialogue, talk (and send an email summary afterwards). As soon as you get some preliminary results, share them to make sure you’re on the right track.  

Mutual respect

Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Be on time for meetings. Make sure you deliver what you promised when you promised (and communicate any deviations early and honestly). Stay positive and pleasant to work with. 

Your collaborators hold the key to your long-term success. Treat them well if you want a great career.  

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“Win – Win More” Relationships

Following last week’s discussion on personal relationships, our logical next target is relationships of a professional persuasion. 

These two relationship types differ in their final goal. For personal relationships, it’s health and happiness. For professional relationships, it’s some practical benefit to your career or initiatives. 

But there is an important constraint: we cannot expect others to enthusiastically help us further our visions if they get nothing out of it.

This is where the idea of win-win collaboration comes in. Most people know that win-win is important, but we can take things one step further…

Win – win more (WWM) relationships

Whenever you’re thinking of initiating a new collaboration, try to set things up so that the other person wins even bigger than you, creating a WWM collaboration. 

You should certainly still win, but the deal for the other person should be so sweet that they would be stupid to decline. 

Not only will this increase your potential to gain the required collaboration to further your ideas; it will also ensure that your collaborators are fully invested in making it happen. 

Compounding

WWM collaboration is just one of the many ways in which you can reap compounding gains from your wealth, particularly your intangible assets. 

The greater your wealth of skills, contacts, reputation, and personal liberty, the more you can bring to any collaboration, and the easier it becomes to set up WWM deals.

Since you will still win from every deal, each of them should grow your wealth, both tangible and intangible. And these gains can then be leveraged to establish even better collaborations. 

Allow the power of WWM collaboration to compound over a 50-year career, and you can build something very special together with your collaborators 🙂

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