New Ideas on Connecting and Communicating with Meredith Bell
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with the incredible Meredith Bell. Meredith is the Co-founder and President of Grow Strong Leaders. Her company publishes software tools and books that help people build strong relationships at work and at home. Meredith is an expert in leader and team communications, the author of three books, and the host of the Grow Strong Leaders Podcast. Her passion is to provide how-to guides for improving communication skills and she was kind enough to share some of this great info with us!
What is the secret sauce for making new connections?
Enter the conversation with an attitude of service. People can sense when you have a hidden agenda or when you are not really being genuine. It is important to be asking questions that are going to help us understand who this person is in front of us. What are they excited about? What are they concerned about? What are they working on? Asking a series of questions by simply naturally bringing up a follow up question is key.
Eliminate distractions and be curious and open. It is so easy to get distracted be external factors around us (our cell phones comes to mind immediately) as well as by the thoughts in our own heads! Sometimes we start thinking about how we can react to what the person is saying instead of listening to them to our complete ability. Also, as humans we tend to want to judge, criticize, and prove ourselves right. But if we keep our judgments at bay, we will find that people really are teaching us so much by sharing their experience or explaining their point of view. We can only get there if we listen to the best of our abilities.
Encourage them to think for themselves by asking probing questions. Sometimes we find ourselves answering for people or providing a response for them, But what is this teaching anyone? Nothing! Some great examples of things to ask are “what have you thought of so far?” “What options are you considering?” ”I wonder what would happen if you did that?” (P.S. This is great advice for parents too!)
Understand the importance of feedback (giving and receiving). We can get anxious about how to give feedback. So oftentimes, we suppress it or we repress it. Addressing an unacceptable behavior as it's happening in a calm way so the other person can hear it is such an important skill to have. And also being on the receiving end of the feedback, learning how to accept it without being defensive. Practice really seeing it as a gift instead of getting defensive and feeling like you need to prove yourself right. Unexpressed or misunderstood feedback can be a point of contention in relationships if not done properly.
Connection and communication are so important to the human experience. Who will you be connecting with today? You never know the impact it can have!
Connect with Meredith Bell: Meredith@GrowStrongLeaders.com
