It’s no accident that I ended up as a professional speaker. It seems like I spent most of my youth hearing people tell me to stop talking. The Colonel often said to me, “Communicating is not about telling everyone what you think. That’s just talking kiddo. Communicating is about actually getting through to people. You’ll know you’ve communicated yourself well when others get what you really mean.” It wasn’t until much later in my life that this sunk in, and I realized the real difference between talking and communicating. Really communicating means that others hear the message behind the words; it compels others to internalize or act upon what you have said.
Like many people in high school, I read Robert A. Heinlein’s book Stranger in a Strange Land. As a teenager desperate to be understood, I was especially affected by the concept originally coined by Heinlein in the book: that of “grokking.” To grok means to understand so fully, so intuitively, that empathy happens automatically. It is a complete grasping of all nuances of the message and what was intended in the communication. In the book, as in life, this is not something that happens quickly or easily. It must be cultivated and worked upon by two people on an on-going basis.
As leaders, we should always endeavor to communicate in a manner such that our team “groks.” We should strive for an empathy bond such that, even when we word things poorly, our team can hear the message behind the words and hear what we truly mean.
Read Lauren’s Whitepaper on The Nine Essentials of Significant Leadership.