Communicate Positive Messages

Estee Lauder, famous for her cosmetics, died recently. Her message accompanying her product was positive and optimistic: "Beauty is an attitude." She also said that "There are no ugly women—only women who don’t care or who don’t believe they’re attractive." She referred to her products as "hope in a jar."

Her approach to her cosmetics should be our approach whenever we communicate. Communicate positive messages whatever your topic. People receive enough negative messages when reading the front page of a newspaper or listening to headline news on the hour.

When someone asks how you are doing, answer with a superlative. "I’m doing super," or "Fantastic," or "Great!" Avoid answers like "OK," or "I’m getting by," or "I’m glad it’s Friday." Don’t complain about your health or spend time talking about your personal problems. Keep an upbeat approach to your personal life.

Mention something good as a conversation starter. Describe a virtue of the current season of the year. "The flowers are beautiful in May." Affirm a hometown team that won recently. Tell about a good movie or a delightful new restaurant you have seen or visited recently. Comment on a new building going up or a community project that is benefiting a certain group of people.

Focus on the other person’s strengths. Find something good to say about him or her. Perhaps it is a piece of clothing he or she is wearing, or remembering a relevant comment that person made in a meeting recently, or the completion of a project that he or she was responsible for.

End on a positive note. People remember best what you say last. Be specific and not perfunctory. You can do better with most people than, "Have a great day." Think of the individual. "Enjoy your children over the week-end," or "Have a great time at the game," or "I know you will enjoy the movie."

It is easy to speak of the bad and the negative but it takes specific effort to keep our messages positive. To have the most influence in conversations, put a positive spin on your talk. People will associate you with positive things and will look forward to conversing with you.

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You Have to Listen!

A major factor in not listening is that we have a choice! We can choose not to listen and to sit passively daydreaming or thinking about things other than what is being said. Thus a way to become better listeners is to put ourselves in communication situations where we have no choice but to listen. There are a variety of ways of doing that.

If you are attending a meeting, volunteer to take notes for the group. Or you can tell someone who will not be at the meeting that you will report back on the content of the meeting.  While at the meeting, think of two questions you will ask (even if you don’t get to ask them) and you will have to assimilate the information more carefully.

If you are in an audience listening to a speaker, sit front and center and you will have no choice but to pay attention. You are in the speaker’s line of vision and may even be a person to whom a question is directed because of your position. You will work harder not to succumb to sleep or daydreaming because of fear that the speaker may call on you or look directly at you for a response.

When your work area needs information from an outside vendor or customer, volunteer to make the call and then commit to report on what you learned. Not only will you have the information first hand, but you will have assimilated it well because you reported it to the entire department. In any conversation, build in a reporting system where you have to report on your conversation to a peer or supervisor.

Anytime time you receive directions, commit to yourself that you will always repeat them to the talker. Whether they are directions on how to get to a certain address, or how to implement a process, or what the customer wants you to do, repeat them before you end the conversation. A line you should have ready when receiving directions is, "What I hear you telling me is…." With this mental set you will pay close attention to the content of the message.

Because we are exposed to all kinds of stimuli, we often miss important information. Putting yourself, however, in physical or intellectual situations where you have no choice but to listen will help you ignore the unimportant minutiae and focus on the important and vital.