WIBF was delighted to welcome Sarah Hanson to give a fascinating talk about how to say what you want and get people’s buy in at all times. More than 30 people attended the event, generously hosted by Wesleyan in central Birmingham.
Sarah has trained over 300 participants since joining Interactifs in 2016. Previously, Sarah held HR management and Business Partner roles within the FMCG and Banking & Insurance sectors, so had a lot of practical hints and tips to share.
Sarah started her talk with a thought-provoking question on whether we ever reflected on our own reaction when someone asked something in a way we liked or did not like? And as a result who would we help first?
All together, we also discussed how the meeting should go for us to say that it went well. Commonly people mentioned that: only relevant people needed to be present; the subject of the meeting had to be clear; the plan achieved; no discussions taken offline; everyone was heard and contributed and next steps agreed.
We then discussed how we wanted to be spoken to and again the themes were the same across the room: we always want to be spoken to clearly, concisely, with respect, politely, appropriately, honestly and at the convenient time. Interestingly, the research that was done with more than 100,000 people in more than 20 countries across genders, ages and positions revealed the same trend, which then posed the question – we know what we like, then what stopping us from communicating in the right way? It is culture, education, background and business that are shaping us; however, there are tips that we can all learn that can help us enhance the way we communicate.
Sarah suggested forming the structure of the conversation in a different way, as shown in figures 01 and 02.
We can then change our reproach to a request to give ourselves a better chance to achieve what we want from the conversation. The example is in figure 03 below.
All things considered the main takeaway from the session was that our behaviour is contagious, so let’s start ‘spreading’ the best way of communication now!
The topic generated a lot of interesting discussions and questions which proved that there was still a lot to be done in this space, and that communication is key to achieving success.
Personal Excellence Programme