Triangle for Success: It’s About the Emotional Connection
1 Listen Carefully
I’ve learned that:
Until someone has been “heard”, they won’t listen to you.
- Someone will first tell you what’s important to them and what they want to talk about, so pay attention.
- You must be patient and engaged to develop the rapport that’s critical to establish a relationship.
- They may not wish to discuss business, which doesn’t matter, since it’s about building a connection and establishing trust by focusing on whatever they are interested in discussing. You will eventually get to address business.
If you are an “initiator”, you can never be a “synthesizer”, and being the synthesizer of alternative (and sometimes competing) ideas is critical to achieving agreement in addressing a challenge. So, you shouldn’t “lead the charge”, but rather you should listen carefully to tone as well as words, so you can synthesize approaches and ideas to reach consensus, particularly for a group.
2 Recognize Patterns
I recognize facts and interrelationships that may not be apparent to others by taking careful note of the speaker’s comments. I then apply my creativity, experience, and pattern recognition to solve that particular “jigsaw puzzle”.
3 Leverage My Network
I’ve developed a network of people and resources which I can access, if necessary, to assist in realizing the strategy I’ve developed.
Attentive listening lets me establish the essential rapport to obtain the information that is fundamental to fully understanding the challenge which is of concern, so that I can apply my creativity, experience, and network to create and to effect high value solutions.
This process is vital for success in every aspect of an organization’s business: developing new clients, negotiating and closing deals, or guiding a management team to an accord. Frequently the preferred solution is one that the speaker hasn’t considered. In my experience, virtually all decisions are based on emotion and rationalized by logic.
You can read about me here and see the comments of executives I’ve worked with, and examples of how I’ve solved unique challenges.