6 P's of Powerful Communication

On a scale of 1 to 10, how powerful is your communication style? Do you know what powerful communication sounds like, looks like, and definitely feels like, not only to yourself but those around you? As a leader, communication can be the difference between others following you into a fire or them throwing you into a fire, figuratively speaking, of course. But in this episode, I'm going to give you 6 Ps of Powerful Communication that will allow you to go from ho-hum communicator to a powerhouse leader, that will also elevate how you influence, negotiate, handle conflict, and even achieve your business and life goals. What is it about communication that makes it so hard and overwhelming and uncomfortable for so many people? Leaders included. And leaders have enough challenges that they deal with day in and day out, but none as great as how they're communicating to the people around them. Leaders often struggle, if they don't fail, at actively listening to their people. They have a difficult time really understanding and delivering difficult news, let alone if they have to give direct honest, hard feedback. They find themselves incapable of being vulnerable, letting themselves be open and allow others in so people can relate and connect with them. And they often find themselves working through challenging problems on their own, as opposed to being able to communicate it clearly to their team in order for solutions to be found. Now, what we really have to consider about all these challenges is the impact that it's having to themselves, to their people, as well as to the business. And those are varied. Everything from the fact that a lack of good communication skills will either have people following you or fighting against you. They— your people will be loyal and trusting, or they will be not so loyal and definitely distrusting. They will exceed expectations, or they will just show up and provide mediocre performance, let alone propel your success or throw you into that fire that we talked about. So I want to share with you 6 Ps of powerful communication that can transform you, and they're just steps that you could be taking to ensure that whether you're dealing with an easy, casual catch-up type of conversation, or you are having to deliver hard news, or to negotiate, or try to influence, or handle a conflict that comes up in your day-in, day-out leadership role. The 6 Ps, if you make a note of them, whether now if you're listening, or at a later time, The 6 Ps will provide you the confidence, the clarity, the energy, and even the desire to want to have more and more communications, whether easy or hard. All right. So let's break down the 6 Ps, give you tips and strategies for each one of them as to how you can use the 6 Ps to really become a powerful communicator. Now, in summary, the 6 Ps are plan, prepare, and practice in order to present, process, and pursue. All right. So let's break each one of those down. Plan. Plan is simple. Plan what it is that you're looking to communicate. I don't care if it's a 5-minute status meeting or it's a formal proposal Or maybe you're going in to ask for a raise or a promotion, or you just are simply going into a project update, uh, to discuss and maybe to raise issues or raise risks, um, get some questions answered. Or maybe you just simply are a participant, and yet at the same time you wanna make your time, whether it's 5 minutes or an hour, you wanna make it valuable. You want to plan what it is you're looking to accomplish. So the planning stage really is just that. What is the purpose of the communication that you're going to be having with one or more people? What are your goals and objectives for that communication? And again, it— even if you were having a social outing, a catch-up cocktail hour with a friend, there's a reason for it, right? Now, and it could be catch-up. That could be the, the purpose and the, and the, uh, reason, the goal of your, of your, uh, outing with your friend is to catch up. But what does that mean? What is it that you want to accomplish? What are those talking points that you want to be sharing with them as a catch-up? What is it that you want to end the night with? Or the afternoon with, with your friend, or what do you want them walking away with, you know, as a result of your interaction and your engagement with them? So planning is, you know, as structured as you want it to be, but it's well thought out even if it's not very structured. You thinking about that purpose, thinking about the desired outcome, thinking about the goals and the deliverables that may come out of a particular communication. It could be the list of talking points that you wanna make sure you get across. Any objections or any issues or any risks or any disagreements that might come up. You wanna really be able to proactively plan out what it is you're about to go in and engage with. Every interaction that you have where you are going to be communicating with someone else— could be your child, it could be a friend, it could be a peer, but it could be a senior, uh, leader, leader member, it could be a vendor or a client— you don't want to just go in haphazardly without giving some forethought to what it is you want to say, why you want to say it, and what is your desired outcome. Many people walk away from interactions and, and are often left disappointed. They're left feeling as if they lost an opportunity to ask for that sale, to ask for that promotion, to get the issue addressed that they were looking for, to provide that update that you're very excited about. And yet, because you didn't plan for it, you totally you didn't think about it and the opportunity was lost on you. So you definitely want to plan out any interaction that you have. Now, when I say any, I actually mean any. It could be where all of a sudden you're out at the grocery store and maybe somebody cuts in line. There's an opportunity for you to really think through and plan what it is you want to say to address that situation unless you throw up your hands and you just allow it to happen. A lot of us do a lot of reaction, and that can get us into trouble if we don't take that pause, that breath, that opportunity to say, wait a minute, if I'm going to say something, what is it that I'm going to say? Why am I going to say it? What is it that I want to accomplish? As a result of saying it. All right. Now, at the same time, planning is not just words. It's just not your thoughts and your ideas and the topics. It's also planning out how you're going to say it. If you're especially reacting to something, you need to pause to really ensure that you're going to be saying something constructively as opposed to something destructively. Is that a word? Unconstructively and totally sabotage what it is that you were setting out to do. So you definitely want to give some forethought and intention, whether it is a brush on the shoulder that you have to react to, or it's something that you have the time and the space and the opportunity to properly plan out what it is that you're doing for something more formal. All right. It would minimize a great amount of anxiety and stress and also conflict for you and the other person or persons involved if you just ensure that you do plan. Now the next one is prepare. Prepare is now that you have this plan, you have the purpose, the goal, the objective, the desired outcome, you have your agenda, the outline, the list of topics, maybe some talking points, what, you know, what deliverables you're looking to accomplish from it. You have all of that planned out. Now you prepare. Prepare comes in two forms. Prepare comes in the content, the material, and it also comes in the form of you preparing yourself. And we'll break each one of those down. So first, the content. You have all that plan laid out. Now ensure that you have the content to support it. So your plan might have just included, you know, the fact that you have to put together talking points or an outline. We're in the prepare phase, so you're working on preparing all of those elements. The other side of prepare is you, and this is one that a good majority of my clients fail to address, they overlook it, is, all right, I have all my content, I'm ready to go, I have my plan, I have my content, I'm good. They don't prepare themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of it. And then all of a sudden, as much as they have everything prepared They go in and they make the— what we'll call the presentation in just a minute. But they'll have that meeting and again, they walk away feeling, oh gosh, I was fidgeting, I was uncomfortable. I felt like I had hives on my chest. I was nervous. I got defensive. Or on the flip side, I was so over it. Overenergetic. I was so overexcited. I was so passionate that that too has a pro or con effect. So if you really want to ensure that any communication, whether it's a 5-minute communication or it's a 6-hour communication, you want to ensure that on top of planning it, you're preparing both the content materials and all that detail, but also you're preparing yourself. Nothing is more effective, especially for things like handling a difficult conversation, for asking for a raise, promotion, asking for something for you, negotiating, pushing back on, on, or disagreeing, we'll call it, with someone. Nothing is better than also Ensuring that you're preparing yourself and getting your, you know, head in the right place, projecting your body in the right way, your voice, all of it. Plan and then prepare both sides, content and person. All right, another area that's often overlooked is to practice, practice, practice, practice when it comes to either giving or receiving. Difficult feedback. Maybe it's during a performance review, a 360 assessment, a situation that had occurred that maybe you were called out on. You definitely also want to practice how you're going to present yourself, but also what you're going to say, what you're going not to say, how you're going to behave, how you're going to react, what it is that you want to achieve by the end of that interaction, that communication with someone. You want to practice all of that. Once conflict starts raising up, once a situation where difficult news has to be given or difficult feedback, or there is a situation like making a public speaking presentation, all of a sudden that anxiety, that stress, that doubt, that insecurity will start showing up. And therefore, you want to ensure that you're practicing how you're going to mitigate all that and how you're going to— let's go to the extreme of how you're going to even calm your overexcitement, your passion, uh, your, your drive for whatever it is that you're about to present in that communication. So plan Prepare and then practice, practice, practice. You can't get enough practice when it comes to communication. Let me also touch on— I have a big stance on words matter. So just as I mentioned, in, in planning and preparing, you're going to be planning and preparing your talking points. Uh, you're going to be planning your, you know, outline of topics, maybe those objections, the risks the issues. Some of those things could be automatically perceived as contentious or issue-raising. Well, you want to be able to practice how you're going to respond, how you're going to answer, how you're going— what words you're going to use to ensure that the communication, whatever it might be, stays positive, optimistic, constructive. Productive and effective. And so at the end of it, you've achieved your goal and objective. All right, let's move on. Present. This is it. This is everything you've been planning and preparing and practicing is to actually go and present it. Again, this could be a casual night out with a friend. When it comes to more formal situations and a 5-minute status meeting or an all-day presentation. Obviously, you want to ensure that when you go to present, you are extremely present. I also mentioned in the struggles and the fails that many leaders don't listen, actively listen. Actively listening requires you to be in the moment, in the now. The Power of Now, it's an awesome book from Eckhart Totally. And it really instructs you and informs the power of you being very present, very engaged, actively listening and paying attention, not so you can respond, but so you can understand, be informed, and then provide whatever support is needed, or whatever result or response is needed. Too many of us listen, listen, listen half-cocked, I'll call it, and just so we can get our opinion and our thoughts, our ideas, our proposal, as opposed to really truly listening to where you're listening to understand and be informed. So presenting, when you're presenting, you want to ensure that you're in your body. You just want to be completely present in your, your entire body and your brain and your heart and your soul. So you're presenting the most effective way possible because you've just done all this planning, preparing, and practicing. You want to ensure that your presentation, which is just merely a conversation or could be a formal presentation, is received, understood, and/or informs and, and delivers your goals and objectives that you had planned for. Presenting is also not the word— just the words that you're using. But again, presenting is using all of that preparation and that practice to ensure how you're presenting it is also going to be influential and effective and successful for you. So that includes your body posture, that includes your facial expressions, that includes your use of your hands, your— even your legs if it's standing. I used to be accused of kind of rocking back and forth, or, you know, guys will put their hand in their pocket and they'll They'll jingle the coins in their pocket as they're speaking, not even thinking about what that might, you know, be doing to the persons listening to them. So presenting is both the words, the topics, the subjects, the answers, the questions and answers that you're there to communicate, but it's also how you're presenting. All right, so you definitely want to leverage all of that preparation and practice to ensure that your body language, your tone of voice, your facial expressions are supporting productively, effectively, and successfully what it is that you're communicating. So that's presenting. You're not done once you've presented. There's still a couple of very key steps that you need to take to ensure that all of that planning and preparation and practice and presentation is optimized and exploited for all the good stuff that you experience and you can take away from it. The next one being process. You need to process what just happened. You need to process all the way back to your planning. Did I plan effectively? Was something missing? Did I overlook something? Did I put too much into my plan? Did I add too many subjects to be discussed or too many talking points? Did I not understand or reveal or discover, you know, the objections that all of a sudden came up in our conversation? So you want to start really processing and assessing from planning to then preparing. Did I prepare effectively? Did I put enough content or work on how I was going to present. Did I prepare that enough? Did I practice it effectively? Did I practice it enough to where I came across confidently and, and focused and clear? Or was I haphazard because I didn't plan and didn't prepare and then certainly didn't practice? I see it all the time. A lot of the drama when it comes to conflict, a lot of the misunderstanding when it comes to direction, when a lot of the misperceptions of people through one's interaction with someone all come from the lack of planning, preparing, and practicing. And if you can get yourself into a state, whether it's a 5-minute conversation you're about to engage in or it's a more formal, to plan, prepare, and practice before presenting, You'll find that when you start processing, which is basically assessing and taking out the lessons learned and the best practices and the dos and don'ts and the next steps and the, the action items or the, you know, accountabilities that came out of your communication, you will find yourself achieving those goals and objectives that you laid out in your plan far more than you may be today. And that all will happen if you actually take time and you actually process. So let me leverage that casual evening out as an example of the steps all the way up to process. So again, friend rings you up, let's go and catch up. All right, we're doing it over cocktails after work. Awesome. You plan those talking points and what you want them to be caught up on. You, you prepare in regards to you're getting dressed, you're building yourself up, you're getting excited, you're thinking through what it is you want to make sure that you convey to them. You here or there practice as far as, you know, how you want to come across physically, emotionally, mentally, all of it. And then you actually go and engage. Well, what's the first thing when you leave that evening of catching up? What's the first thing that you do when you get in your car, drive out, and, you know, you work your way home? You, if you're like me, you kind of run through the evening. You replay the encounter you just had, and you kind of assess, did I, you know, highlight everything I wanted to? Did I let them know about this, this, this, and this? Did I, you know, understand from them what's going on in their life and, you know, what's new, what's happening, what challenges they may have? Am I truly caught up in regards to their life? And then are they caught up on mine? But oftentimes you'll find yourself, you may not pay attention to it, but you'll find yourself assessing, replaying, going through and making note, even if it's mentally, what it is that you just presented and, and engaged with as a result of that interaction with someone. Again, it could be as casual as that, or it could be more formal. Processing what it is you went in with and walked away with, ensuring that everything was accomplished, you have next steps, you have deliverables. Um, you have accountabilities. That would happen in the process stage. And then the last one, because you're not done yet, the last one would be pursuing. And pursuing is really ensuring that, one, you are taking any action that's necessary from the presentation that you made, from your goals and objectives and expected deliverables. That you had planned at the very beginning, that you're, you know, taking that action, that you're doing the follow-up. But it— and it's pursuing what it was that you took away from that, from that communication. A good example would be your performance reviews, whether you're giving it or you're receiving it. Let's use receiving. So you receive your performance review. And there are areas of strengths that are discussed, there's areas for development that are discussed, there's next steps, there's actions, there's new goals. And now you're going off and you're, uh, pursuing and following through on all of those, those outcomes as a result. So that would be your pursuing. It could be iterative in that you're pursuing multiple actions, multiple next steps as a result. And yet one ends sooner than the other. So you're pursuing doesn't stop, it just continues. So, and then it could include the fact that you're going to check in, you're gonna give statuses, you're gonna track and measure and report all of that until the point of closure of that communication. With these 6 steps, they, in this discussion, they may sound very overwhelming. And I had mentioned at the very beginning that we don't want people to feel that communication is hard or challenging or overwhelming or uncomfortable. These 6 Ps can still be used, and it might take a minute for it to be completed, or it may take days, weeks, or even months. Even those very quick, what can be perceived as reactionary situations, you actually, you actually could walk through these 6 steps to be as effective and productive and successful as possible in your communication. All right, leverage these 6. Make note of them: plan, prepare, practice, present, Process and Pursue. Make note of them and consider how you could be using them in your day in and day out, especially at work when it comes to communicating with your people. So you don't struggle or even fail at actively listening, really being able to deliver difficult news or hard, direct feedback. So you don't struggle or fail at opening up and being vulnerable and letting people in and connect and relate with you. These 6 steps, if you choose to use them and you choose to use them regularly and even practice them over and over again, then they can transform you from, from a ho-hum communicator to a powerhouse communicator. All right. And if you have any challenges with any of it, which I would understand if you do, and you want to get your own personal tips and strategies, maybe based on something that specifically you're dealing with, then don't hesitate to reach out and schedule a call with me. You can go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall and let's get you tips and strategies for moving forward and being that powerhouse leader. I am so grateful that you were here with us this week, and I'll look forward to having you right back here next week. Take care, everyone.