How To Have Productive Conversations w/ Joel Silverstone

And someone in the group said something after the day of training, which has really stuck with me and, and I think speaks so much to what a productive conversation is, which is this: solve the emotion before you solve the problem.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I am your host, Roberta and Leila. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. We hope you enjoyed the leadership series that was especially presented in the month of April. We hope that all the leadership experts and coaches were able to help you become a better leader. We look forward to so many more exciting guests this coming month of May, who include public speaking coaches, And others who will be helping us with communicating with our inner selves, with audiences, and those around the globe. So stay tuned. Don't forget to log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review. And again, let's get communicating. Now let's get communicating with Joel Silverstone, my friend from long, long, long ago. Let's get communicating.

I love that.

That's exactly—

please make that the title of this episode. Let's get communicating.

Let's get communicating. You can feel Joel's energy already, right?

Before we were talking about, you know, songs from the '80s, that that's all you listen to. That sounds like such a song from the '80s. Let's get communicating. Let's get communicating.

Mm-hmm. And now I need a beat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I shouldn't be doing it.

I, you know, because I, you know, my background is in theater.

And I went to a fine arts high school, and I had a private music coach and a singing tutor. And after all that, I still can't sing or play musical instrument.

But you just sang, which we really appreciate. Thank you, Joel.

No, I, I can sing. It doesn't mean I can sing well.

And speaking of theater, you were a professional actor for a long time.

Correct.

Yeah. Which we're gonna get into because we'd love to hear that, but Joel Silverstone from Canada is the founder of TFR, which stands for This Feels Right. You're actually a returning guest on the show, right?

That's correct. Yeah.

You've been here before. You're a friend of the show and my friend. And Joel is not only a communication skills and soft skills expert, he has globally coached thousands from Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, entrepreneurs from around the world. And he's here to talk to us about so much when it comes to communication skills, how improv can help us improve our communication skills, and most importantly, which is a very touchy subject, how to have productive conversations. So Joel, I know I skipped a lot of your intro, so please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Roberta, you, you got it exactly. Communication is so timely. You know, when I first started this, it was like you said, it was considered, you know, a soft skill. And then as we're going a lot into AI, we're seeing how important it is because AI can't answer a lot of the questions. It can't sort of change our behaviors. It can't fill in the gaps. Our ability to communicate, to connect with each other, to lead to collaboration, to motivation. This is what I've been going around the world virtually and in person, and, and I've been lucky to do that in person. To be able to do that with leaders and their teams, to get them to communicate effectively, to have those productive conversations. Because people think, well, I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good at communicating. And then I do a lot of practice with them. When we put it into practice, when the theory is like, oh, I think I'm a pretty good communicator, and we put the theory into practice, then everything changes. And then they start to realize, oh, there's some gaps in listening and empathy and asking great questions and moving the conversation forward. So that's what I do is I really, I bring what I call them, you know, pivotal moments or defining moments where the conversation can go one way or another, and we want it to move forward. You know, it's like a good acting scene is that it takes time to write it out to make sure that the scene is moving forward. Well, we want to be able to do this, of course, in real life to be able to move our scene forward.

You've talked about 2 delusions that we have when it comes to communication. The first one is we think technology Helps us connect more. And then secondly, when we think, oh, I've communicated, I'm good, it turns out not so much. Why is that?

Well, because it's in our heads, Roberta. And I'll get your, your thoughts on this as well. I'd be curious to know what your thoughts are as well, because I know in my head, I know what I want to say and how I want to say it. And then all of a sudden, when we're under the pressure, when our adrenaline is going, when we're sort of call it the spotlight moment. Everything we had in our head doesn't quite come out the way we had hoped. Our intentions is misled. And then we're kind of hoping the other person is, don't you get what I mean? Didn't you understand what I meant? And then we get into that cycle where it wasn't. And we'll talk about some ways that we can do that. But I'd love to hear your thoughts as well and what your experience is with it's in our head, but somehow it doesn't— it didn't come out quite the way we had intended.

Right. 2 scenarios for me come to mind. The first one is I'm Zulu by heritage. So first and foremost, I speak Zulu, even though I grew up speaking English. So I'm bilingual. There used to be times when I felt like if I said something in Zulu, it would land differently than now that I have to translate it into English for someone who's not Zulu speaking. But if I said it in Zulu to a Zulu speaker, it clicks completely. So that's the first one. And then the second one is I watch a lot of sitcoms, and I find that the joke, when you look back, the joke is usually one character would say something, and the joke is usually the thing that us, the general public, would have not interpreted the same way. Whether it's the irony, whether in the statement they answer something different.

Yeah.

If I say, Joel is sitting on a bench or something, they would say something in response to that, not what I think in mind, that that conversation should have gone a different direction. So I find that a lot of the time, some of that is because we think, oh, I've communicated very well. Joel understood exactly what I just said, but your mind went in the direction of the sitcom writers.

The unexpected.

Right. Right.

Absolutely. That's what makes comedy so good is that, oh, I never saw that coming. And then when we communicate, sometimes we surprise ourselves by the way someone reacts because that wasn't our intention in how we communicated it. And often people don't react in a way that they give us the clues or cues. They might go to silence as an example. And so we didn't pick up on that. And we wonder why they are not responding the way we wanted them to do. So that's one of the parts of a productive conversation. I was working with some people who are on their way to leaders, like they're managers right now, and they were going through a training to go sort of to the next level of leadership. And someone in the group said something after the day of training, which has really stuck with me and I think speaks so much to what a productive conversation is, which is this: solve the emotion before you solve the problem. I'll say it again.

Say that again.

Solve the emotion before you solve the problem. Now, I know, Roberta, you've got some thoughts on this as well, because the reason it came about was that the people I was working with are very analytical. We were doing some practices that day, you know, people that they're dealing with or struggling with. And, and I would put on sort of my acting hat and my coaching hat, and I'd say, well, let's practice that scenario. Let's, let's bring it to life. And So it'd be example of like maybe someone above them, partner, let's say, in the firm or director, and they weren't responding to the data or to the logic the way they had expected. And what was the aha for them, why they were not responding? And they kept pushing their agenda. You know, why aren't you responding to this, to this data? And what happened, of course, is I gave them feedback about how it felt from my point of view as I'm being their person above. And that was, You didn't make it safe for me. Even though I'm above you, you still didn't make it safe. And there's a story that I'm telling myself. And until you work on focusing on the relationship and find out what's going on and how you can make it safe versus maybe trying to embarrass me that maybe I got something wrong, point it out, I'm never going to admit it until you make it safe. So it's solving the emotion before solving the problem. And we get so focused on our task. We get so focused on what we want, what we think needs to be resolved. The first thing that needs to be resolved is, Roberta, is that you and I need to have a good relationship. You and I need to feel safe as we're communicating with each other so that we're looking at the problem together?

Make you feel safe. It's the same as when people are not buying what we're selling. Have they felt, you know, we always say feel heard, understood, valued, that emotion before you say, okay, here's what I'm offering, are you going to buy my product or service? So we don't take the time to make them feel the emotion that they want to feel, or that would make them feel safe enough for them to go to the next step.

That's right. That's right. It's everything we've been saying right now, which is we tell ourselves stories. And there's this— in the acting world, we call it an actor's secret, which is there's the lines that I say as an actor. But to really make my character really 3-dimensional, to make them really authentic, I have to have a story that I've created for my character. That's not revealed in the words. But I know, as the actor playing it, I know the story. Well, it's the same thing in real life, is that the person you're trying to deal with, the person you're trying to buy in, has a story that they're telling themselves. So unless you sort of stop and go, oh, hang on, what's going on here? I can see that this person is— they're shutting down. They're becoming very quiet. And that's where I need to stop and go, you know what? I've talked a lot. You know, and I can see that there's something about this that's not sitting right with you. I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this, or how do you see this?

Which then means you've listened enough and taken the time to notice that something is not right instead of jumping into the assumption or conclusion of they're not interested or they're not cooperating, you know, because we always bring that, oh, why are you not cooperating, Joel? Why are you not doing what you're supposed to? Why are you not being accountable? Instead of finding out what the real problem is.

Have you yourself, you know, seen that or felt that when you're in a conversation, and either you needed to sort of stop and pause, or the other person needs to stop and pause? Have you seen that situation for yourself?

I think that sometimes when I— and you called me out on this on the last conversation where you said, you know, people are busy, they're not thinking of me all the time, not in a bad way, but in the sense of people are busy. And sometimes Yeah. You have to take the initiative to find out what's going on before making the assumption that they're not cooperating or they're not coming to the party. What we do is we don't ask the question like you've just explained to us. We don't say, huh, before jumping to the conclusion that this person is not interested, let me find out what's really going on and make it safe for them to be honest with me and tell me what's really going on. Because sometimes people will, if they don't feel safe, as you said earlier, They're not going to tell us what's really going on. They'll just make up this textbook answer that everybody says in order to get away from the conversation.

Oh, Roberta, you exactly— that's exactly it, is that they'll bring it to a close. You know, the other day someone reached out to me. I'm going to be presenting at a conference and they, they're going to be also at the conference. And they reached out to me and they said, hey, I'd love to meet you before the conference. There's so many people going to the conference. This would be great to have a coffee, to network before. Sure. Well, within seconds, the first thing the person said to me is, as we came on the call, was, remind me how we, how we know each other again. And right off the bat, my safety went down because it was like, they reached out to you, you reached out to me, and you invited me to this chat. I thought that you were interested in wanting to know what I did. And then we'd have a conversation, and we'd have a discussion. And all it was, was this person wanted to sell me on what they were doing. It's like, sell me. And I did exactly what you just said, was that within minutes I'm trying to get out of the conversation. I'm going, no, I'm good, you know what, I gotta go. Didn't read the clues, and I didn't verbalize it. I didn't come out and give them feedback and say, I'm really surprised that you're doing this, you are the one who reached out to me.

No, we usually don't, do we?

Yes, we don't.

I don't know if we don't want to look bad, and especially online as well. Here's the thing about safety online. If I want to say something that I really feel honestly in my heart, if I feel like I'm not being treated fairly and it's not safe for me, not only will I not express my honest feelings, I'm sometimes afraid that if I put it in writing— things online, even if you delete them, they are somewhere there, they'll always come back to bite you. So I don't feel safe putting it in writing In that scenario, for instance, if I were to say that and say, I'm so disappointed you wanted to sell me something, because I don't know how that person in future is going to use it against me. We've seen it play out.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's one of those things where you just have to just sort of, you know, let it go because I'd have to make it safe to give them feedback about it. So if I see them at the conference, then I might say, hey, you might be wondering why I was so quick to get off the call. when you had called me. And he'll probably say, oh, have we met? But I will say— and I'll say something along the lines of, you know, I know it wasn't your intention. I know your intention was to actually network with me and have a conversation. I could see that. I was taken aback when there wasn't thought given to why we had met. And so I was really surprised by that. And that's what threw me off. I may have seemed like I wasn't myself, And that's the reason I wasn't myself. I was surprised by that. And then he might reply with, oh, no, that wasn't my intention. I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable. So the idea is, when we want to make it safe, is to actually say what we were thinking. What was the story? As you said, you don't want to put in writing, I was disappointed. Because that's like saying, I'm disappointed in you. And that's our parents saying, you know, why I'm so disappointed in you. You could have been so much better. You could have been so much more. What happened? Parents did not do a very good job of making it safe for us because they just sort of, you know, they sort of point the finger and say, why?

Shout out to parents. They do the most difficult job in the world.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely. No, but yeah, the safety of it and also the relationship, as you said. Let me give you an example when it comes to the relationship. Usually when I finish recording, I connect with the person on their socials or their website and whatnot. I remember I had such a good relationship with one of my previous guests. We're good friends now because we connected on tennis. We're obsessed with watching. She knows I'm a Djokovic fan, the works.

Okay.

And when I went to her website, I found something there that when you click, something goes wrong. And because of the relationship we have, I felt safe enough to not only tell her that, but in my mind, I want to make her look good online. But somebody else is going to come and click who's not a good friend like hers and think, right, I'm not coming back to this website. I don't want that for her. So if we have a relationship, I also want to make you look good. I want what's best for you. I will feel safe enough to say, Joel, you know what, if you do this, this helps you and people look at you this way. And that's how I see the safety factor as well. A lot of the time with the relationship building online, and I've experienced it every day, uh, somebody will find the podcast and say, I do SEO, your YouTube channel has no views and all that.

Right.

Sometimes they come that way. Sometimes they first say all the beautiful complimentary things about me to butter me up and then boom, strike.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't feel special. Is that what you're saying? Or—

I'm not knocking them for— it's their business. I will never knock them for that. But just being on the other side, if the third email exchange is, then I can just see that, oh, okay, this is where this was leading. We don't have any formal relationship. But also, you know, they're also trying to make a living. So I'm not knocking them for that. But just—

They could do it better.

I don't know if I have a formula. But it's an example of we don't have a relationship. I don't feel safe enough to do this.

That's right. That's right.

Yeah.

I love your example with your guest that became a friend that you wanted to give them some— an observation about their site. And I don't know if you remember what you said, but you said, you said it a few times, your intention was about you wanted to make them look good. If you go with that intention into a conversation, it right away takes away the unconscious intention, which is I want to embarrass this person, or I want to make them feel small, or I want to send them a message, send them a lesson, you know, such as I'm disappointed in you. But the intention of I want to make them look good, fuels your words, fuels your, your body language. And this leads us to another productive conversation tip, which is your tone of voice should match your words. Your tone of voice should match your words. Now, I had a manager— I'll give you 2 managers. This is the word. The word is, that's great. That's all they had to say. That's great. One manager says it when they have like a hidden agenda behind it. Yeah, yeah, that's great. So I would do something and they go, yeah, yeah, that's great. And you could just hear that they didn't mean it. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

But they wanna jump into the next thing, sort of like bury the previous thing that, that's the one they say that's great too.

That's right. So the, so the tone doesn't match the words because you don't believe it. So they're saying, yeah, that's great. I don't believe it. The second manager, they would always go, oh, Joel, That's great. It's almost the same words. They use my name, but it's not the words that made the difference. It was the fact that they, how they, their tone matched the words of, yeah, yeah, that's great versus, oh, Joel, that's great. It's like they meant it and they're present and I believe them because I believe them. I feel safe with them. I trust them. I never trusted that manager. They go, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. They were just sort of rushing it off and feeling like that's so important. Because we judge Whether we're doing virtually or we're doing in person, we judge first by the body language and the tone of voice more so than the words.

That's why they say, I think it's 7%, it's the verbal, the words, because the words is only 7%. We judge everything else that comes with the words, and that carries more impact than the words. Like you said, that's great, and then you move on versus, oh, the second manager actually sits in the moment of the greatness of the thing.

Absolutely. Great observation. And this is why I called my company This Feels Right, because we make our decisions first emotionally. Kind of goes back to solve the emotion before solving the problem. We make our decisions emotionally first. As you and I are speaking, if you and I just met and you're looking at me and you're listening to me and you're watching me, the first thing you want to you're saying to yourself, Roberta, unconsciously, is, does this feel right?

Yes. That leads to that safety and everything that we've talked about that should be incorporated. Yes.

That's right. Then we use the logic. Then we start hearing the words, and then the logic substantiates it, and then we go, oh, okay, I think this is right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's—

So you start with the feeling first.

That's right.

With the feeling in the company.

Speak to the feelings first. Speak to the emotions first, then speak to the logic. Especially, I, and I've coached so many salespeople. Salespeople go in with, you know, the client will give an objection like, oh, this isn't a good time, or we're dealing with a few things right now. And so many times the salesperson just bypasses that huge, and I'll call it a clue bird, you know, that looks like the bird sitting on the tree going clue, clue, clue. The salesperson is missing that huge clue moment to build a relationship, deepen the connection, and speak to that emotion, you know, to pause and go, oh, hang on, you know, what's going on? Oh, can you tell me a bit more about that? Versus, yeah, well, listen, what you're gonna really like about this and what you're gonna see about, you know, my YouTube, my product, you know, whatever it is that they're selling, they're so focused on their agenda.

Can we blame the training before you, obviously? Because the training, like you said, it's very scripted. If they object, this is what you say. If they— if you present, this is what you say. If they ask this question about the product, this is how you close them. So they've had all this practice being second nature to them. You wonder, do these trainings also add the emotion element? Add the— if they ask a question, Instead of say it like the script says, study their eyes, their body language, study how they sit back on the chair, or do they stand up? Do they look you in the eye or do they look away? I've always wondered if those scripted sales trainings emphasize on those things, not just the script.

Roberta, let's get communicating.

Let's get communicating.

That was a great example. That was all the Cluebirds right there. And You're right. The script is a big part of it. But the second part of it, whether you're in sales or you're a manager that has to give feedback or you have to have a difficult conversation with someone or even a good conversation, there still, again, goes back to unfortunately this, I got to get this accomplished, this sort of story that we're telling ourselves. I got to make this sale. I got to get this person. How many times have we been in a conversation? It's like, I got to get this person to change. I gotta get them to stop doing a certain something. And that becomes our focus versus actually, as you just said, observing what is going on in front of you.

Is it a time factor? Are we in a hurry? Like the— that's great, manager Joel. Are we in a hurry? Is that why we don't take the time to look for those clues?

I like that. We are in a hurry and we think we don't have the time. We're afraid of going to the emotional part. We're afraid that if we open that, what are your thoughts? How do you see that? What are you thinking? We're afraid that if we open that box up, we'll never be able to close that box. But then we spend so much time trying to push our agenda or push what we're trying to accomplish, it becomes counterproductive to what we're trying to do. And I see you have a thought on this, and I'll say what this is, which is to respond. And not to react. That's the third thing of productive conversations, which is to respond and not to react, which is to take that beat, that 1, 2, what do I see? Or even how do I want to respond? How do I want to say this differently? What did the person just say? To sort of calm down the sort of nervous energy that feels like I have to get this done in a certain amount of time.

Here's the reason, like I said, you were observing me. And you realize that I hadn't thought about this. Emotions are very tricky, actually. We always say emotions make humans tricky, and that's why we're afraid to open that can of worms. It's gonna go the emotional route. I mean, Joel, you're married, so you cannot relate, but as singles and dealing with the dating scene, things are usually well at first, right? Just in general. Because there's not a lot of emotional layer that's involved. You just go on dates, you do nice things, and everything is good, right? As soon as something happens, somebody gets triggered emotionally.

Yes.

Or something requires vulnerability, we either gonna run scared, or the person, when we express our emotion, is gonna run scared.

Yes.

Emotions are a very scary animal for us.

Oh, very scary.

And communication, when emotions are involved, if you think emotions are tricky, it gets trickier.

Yes.

Yeah. Emotions are a very tricky subject.

Such a good example, Roberta, about the dating. Because, and I've been out of the dating for a little while, but if I can recall, let me sort of go back in time. Go back in time means I have to go back to 1990s. 1993, actually, that was the last time I was dating, 1993. Let me go back to 1993. Let me change my hair. The thing about dating is that you're not invested into it quite yet. So when those emotions come up, You have to make that decision whether you're gonna invest more into it. So someone, you know, like you said, you're triggered or the other person is triggered, and then you have to decide, okay, do I want to invest myself into it? When we're in, in a relationship at work or even with a client, we're actually invested in wanting to deepen that relationship. So that's why if you don't invest in the emotion, even if it's tricky, if you don't invest in that, Because if you can get through that emotion, through that tricky part, that uncomfortable part, well, then you are— you're basically friends forever. You're now allies because a whole layer has been shedded. And this person now feels safe. Your conversations are at a higher level. When you're dating, you have to decide, is there enough pros here, basically, with this person that I want to go through, you know, what they're dealing with or what I'm dealing with? Because I could see that, that it's going to be worth it.

The long-term effect, which you just described. So even at work, if you don't just see the person in front of you as just the one sale for now, and you build the relationship, they're going to be loyal, they're going to come back to you in the future. What makes you think they're only going to buy one time? They can come back in the future. You have a client for life, you have a relationship for life. And if they don't buy now, who said they can't come back 6 months later and buy?

100%. And even refer you or just say, you know, this wasn't for me, but, oh, Roberta, I just spoke to so-and-so. You should check it out. And I referred you, right? So absolutely. And even with a manager speaking to their employee or even an employee speaking to their manager or above, it's the same thing. It's about we're gonna be here for a while. So it goes back to the intention. You know, you said your intention to make the person look good. The other intention is, Collaboration. I want to collaborate with this person. So as I speak to them, I'm going to maybe have to deal with some emotions, because if we don't deal with the emotions, we're not going to collaborate. It will always be me versus you.

Yes. Speaking of work as well, here's the thing, and I've been in— worked in different companies, a few different industries. No matter how high the emotion, do your best not to burn bridges. You never know When the person that you did not treat well at your previous job might meet them later in a position where they could have helped you with something in the future.

Yes, yes.

You never know who they can influence going forward based on the trajectory that your life is taking. As best as you can— listen, I know that at exit interviews people must be honest and say, yes, I'm leaving because you know, I did my best, but my relationship with my manager not so good. I don't think I can stay here, but I just feel it's not a fit, or whatever it is. But even in the way you communicate that, there's ways to do it. You don't just say, oh, Mr. Silverstone, I hope nobody ever works with him again, he's horrible, and you leave and you tell HR, right? Because you never know. My first boss, that was in 1995, my First boss wrote my first LinkedIn recommendation. Oh, 1995. He was my mentor. He was everything. You don't burn your bridges. You never know where that can lead. So as best as you can, no matter how heightened the emotion, no matter how pissed off you are, do your best to be careful with your words while expressing how it feels.

And as you're saying that, the listener might be going, Hmm, but this is so hard. I really want to tell— I really want to tell them. It goes back to this, which is again your intention, which is, well, your intention is, do you want to walk away with someone feeling upset at you or angry at you or pissed off at you because you spoke badly to them? Or do you want to leave where someone goes, they were a pretty good person, it didn't work out, and I said where the bridges are not burned. It's a relationship unto itself. We're not going to communicate anymore, but there's still a relationship there. There's still good feelings. Better to leave with good feelings than, as you said, someone is pissed off.

Yes, because it should feel right, right? This feels right. My guest, I recently published an episode where he says when he was dating— he's married as well— when he was dating and if he met a girl and the girl says, all my exes are crazy, he used to think So I'm gonna be your next crazy ex. Goodbye.

Right. Oh, brilliant. That's such a good example. That's right. That's right. Which goes back to—

We have to look at ourselves. Not all your bosses are gonna be crazy. Are you the one maybe who needs to do some introspection?

Oh, well, now we're getting into emotional intelligence because absolutely that, that's such a good example. It's like when someone goes to a job interview and they go, why did you leave this company and this company, this company? Oh, they All those managers were crazy. You know, it's like, hmm.

So we're going to be your next crazy manager.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All those managers were disrespectful.

Hmm.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Interesting. Yeah. You know, again, clue, clue. We don't always hear the clue bird, but we have to be aware of that clue bird. So absolutely. Yeah. Roberta, let's get communicating. I think we talked about solving the emotion before solving the problem. Talked about, you know, your tone of voice has to match your words. And then we talked about to respond and not react. And all this boils down to the intention that you want. And I love your example. And it's also from the world of improvisation, by the way, which is always make the other person look good. It's from the world of improv.

I first heard that from you, actually. Remember the first time we had a podcast interview when you talked about your acting background? You said when you were in theater, that's exactly what they said. You make the other actor look good.

That's right. Because you're on stage. When we're having a conversation, it feels like it's just the two of us. But when you're on stage, whether you're doing film, television, or acting on stage, there's an audience watching. And if you are trying to hog the scene or you're trying to make the other actor not look good, it becomes obvious you're the one who looks petty. Same thing about as you leave work, that exit interview, you're just going to look petty. So if you are actually trying to make the other person look good, you're going to look good.

You dig the hole for the other person, you get in it.

That's right. Oh, you've got some good sayings there. I look forward to your book, The Book of Sayings by Roberta.

The Book of Sayings. Some I'll translate from Zulu proverbs because they're so good. Sometimes they don't land well in English when translated. But yes, sometimes, yes, you think the other person is the one being embarrassed, but actually everyone is looking at you thinking, why are you acting like this? Why are you speaking this way to this other person? No matter how justified in your head you think you are at that time, but you are the one in the spotlight at that moment.

And this happens at all levels. You know, I've worked with enough, you know, C-suite, you know, people who are those, you know, CEOs, Chief roles, basically, let's call it.

Yeah.

And when they sort of talk about some of the conversations they have, and I'll coach them on it, it's like they didn't quite realize that they were reacting and not responding, that they were pushing their agenda. And this is not just talking to someone below them, but even talking to someone on the same level as them, because no one's really given them feedback about their communication style. And that's exactly what you're saying, which is They may not realize how they're coming across, but the people around them are, or even the person that's in front of them is seeing, you know, asking themselves the same question. Why is this person acting that way?

Hmm.

And that's something we need to ask ourselves too, you know, to go back to the very beginning of what we talked about, solve the emotion before solving the problem, is why is this person not talking? Why is this person being silent? Why does this person keep pushing the same topic over and over again. Oh, maybe I need to stop and listen.

Which really helps because when you listen, say for instance in, in a sale, it will actually help you go in the direction of where this person is and you can take them on the journey, on the next leg of the journey and say, okay, oh, I hear you. And even though our product does this, Now that you've told me that your main problem right now is this, how about we look at it this way? But you're not gonna do that adjustment detour if you just script, script, script, script, script.

Yes, script, script, script. And see the clue bird, or the cue, or the cue, cue. See that as a chance to pause. Well, we were talking about, you know, it's like rebooting your computer.

Oh, yes. I needed to do that a few times today before we started recording.

Every conversation you're having is an opportunity to adjust it within the conversation. It doesn't have to go this path. Every conversation you have is your opportunity to make it a new conversation. So you can reboot in the middle of a conversation. It's not going well. I need to reboot. I need to just step back. I need to— we're not kind of listening to each other. Something's not working here.

Because we're not knocking scripts. It's good to be prepared. If just speaking, it's good to be prepared. No, be prepared. Come with your material. Be prepared. But like you said, adjust and sit back and listen if things are not going in the direction of where the preparation was supposed to take you.

As you say that, I think about an example I was training a sales team. When you train a sales team, you know, here's the script, here's the model that you're going to follow, here's the things that you have to do, here's the things you should say to a client. And then one person in the room, every time I sort of would bring up an example, one person would go, oh, I don't do that. This is what I do. And it'd be like opposite everything I said. And so I'm feeling, without saying anything, I'm feeling this pressure in front of the room because I'm supposed to be the the expert guiding them on this. I'm feeling a bit embarrassed. I'm feeling like, oh, are people gonna turn on me? And so at the lunch break, I go to the VP of sales to sort of, you know, save myself. I go, hey, just to let you know, and I'll make up this person's name. Hey, just to let you know, Raul is not buying into the process today. And the VP says to me, oh, Raul. Oh, that's our number one seller. And I'm like, oh, and actually what I did was I— that's where I did a course adjust, which is stop trying to make Raul into something Raul is not.

It's not—

it's okay.

Whatever Raul's doing, it seems to be working.

It seems to be working, and that's fine. So going back to the scripts, it's okay.

And I guess Raul comes off as his authentic self, and that's what people connect with. Yeah. Yeah.

Raul was actually pretty pushy as a salesperson. Yeah. It worked for them. They were pushy and it was sort of counter to this whole thing I was talking about, you know, building relationships in sales, but it worked for them because their personality went with it. And as you said, they were pretty authentic and genuine in how they were doing it.

Right.

Their intention, they didn't come across as an aggressive type of person, but they were professionally perseverant, I'll call them.

New word, professional perseverant, not aggressive. I like that.

What this was about me was that I had to drop my script about how the day was going to unfold and what the training was going to be about and start to accept them and invite them into the conversation. And maybe I could learn something from them as well, and the group can learn something as well. And, and then we can start to bring more balance into the room versus me trying to push these ideas and now sort of maybe pull more by bringing— inviting Raul into the conversation more.

I think that's probably one of the reasons we always ask the question, why do trainings not bring about change in any environment? It's because you just push, push, push, which I'm sure those ideas have worked in a lot of cases. But what about this one particular case in front of you? So if you observe and realize that it's not sinking in, maybe adjust. Because if it's not working for them, you adjust so that one, you build the relationship, as you said, and two, it will sink. They will absorb the principles that you've come to teach.

You know, absolutely. And then one of the things that sort of was the aha for me with this was actually going back to when I was an actor in acting school, and they had brought in this professor from like the London Academy of Dramatic Arts. to come and do a special classical theater 2-week intensive with us. And I was doing a scene from a play called The Importance of Being Earnest. And I was playing him a little differently because the truth is I didn't really want to be a Shakespearean actor. The truth is I really wanted to be Jack Tripper from Three's Company. I wanted to be like this sort of slapstick comedian. And so I was—

John Ritter?

Yeah, John Ritter, exactly. So I was playing Ernest just a little bit differently, not quite polished British. It was a bit more, a bit more buffoonery. And I'll still remember, which was the professor just stops me, basically sits me down and basically says, you know, you're out. You're on the bench. But this was an opportunity for the professor to go, ah, maybe there's something different here. Maybe Joel's gonna play it a different way. And maybe there's a balance here between I can give Joel some tools maybe to make this Bring the classic to it, but maybe I can learn something also about maybe sort of a modern version of this towards that. And so the reason I share that is that the professor has been doing it the same way over and over and over again. So that was the aha for me when I went into training to always be open. What does the audience need? And what do I have to offer? And what can I also learn from them? And this goes also to our conversations, which is when we communicate, it's I've got something to offer.

Mm-hmm.

But I need to also be able to listen to what the other person is saying so that we have mutual respect.

Yes. So, Joel, please give us one more time those 4 things that you spoke about today that our listeners can be cognizant of.

For sure. Number 1, solve the emotion before solving the problem. And again, this goes back to, we want to speak to the emotions first before we speak to the facts. We want to respond and not react. So when we react, it's like we're quick to jump in. Responding is we count 1, 2. And again, it's also what do we see as the clue? Clue, clue, that clue bird. And that'll be the clue that we need to respond and not react. We need to stop what we're doing, pause, and reboot the conversation. Our tone matches the words. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Oh, that's great. When our tone matches the words, we create safety. And all this ties into our intention. As you said, make the other person look good, that rule from improv, or even if it's collaboration or it's around the— I want to be deeply invested in the relationship. When we take that as our 4th clue to a productive conversation, our intention, it'll guide all of these things towards where we want to get to in our conversation.

Intention and making the other person feel good or look good. Words of wisdom from Joel Silverstone, the founder of This Feels Right, also a podcast, right? Please give us details of the podcast before you go and then your website.

For sure. The podcast is where we, we talk to leaders and experts, and also I'll share my own tips on influencing and communication skills. And the podcast is also called the same thing, TFR, This Feels Right. Plenty of episodes to go back and listen and learn. And then the website, if you want more information, is thisfeelsright.ca because we're in Canada. thisfeelsright, all one word, .ca. And of course, do connect with me on LinkedIn, Joel Silverstone.

Joel Silverstone on LinkedIn. thisfeelsright.ca for Canada, and This Feels Right podcast where he speaks to leaders. thisfeelsright.ca. Joel Silverstone on LinkedIn. Thank you so much for this. It wasn't an interview, it was a conversation. Thank you.

Oh, Roberta, such a great conversation. I'm looking forward to the book on the Roberta sayings.

Let's get communicating. Thank you, Joel. Always fun to have a chat with you.

Thank you.

My pleasure. Thank you for joining us on the Speaking and Communicating Podcast once again. Please log on to Apple and Spotify, leave us a rating and a review, and what you'd like for us to discuss on the show that will be of benefit to you. We encourage you to continue to get Communicating, and let us know how communication skills continue to improve your life professionally and personally. And stay tuned for more episodes to come.