How To Have More Authentic Conversations with Your Team

Although you might think you're a 'genuine' communicator you could be coming across with less sincerity than you think. No matter which platform you're using to connect with your teams during this next phase of Lockdown, if you're not genuine in your conversation, you could be doing more harm than good.

Here's a simple idea on how to have more meaningful, connected and genuine conversations with your team.

At Hop, we talk about communication in three parts; our body language, our verbal communication and our thought process. To be truly genuine, we want to have all three of these strands synced up and telling the same story.

However, that's easier said than done, and a lot of the time we might be saying one thing but thinking about something else. For example, you might be just about to start a zoom session with a team member, but you have to run payroll later, pick the kids up in an hour and after that review the P&L. Then you start the zoom session with all of those thoughts still running around your head. Those thoughts influence your tone, your pace and your body language. That stress and anxiety will subtlety come through in everything you say and do. So no matter what words you use, or what questions you ask, there'll be an underlying sense of hurry and stress. So you might be saying the phrase "It's so good to see you", but the subtext will be I've not got time for you, and I'm in a rush. Essentially you're giving off two completely opposing messages. This "incongruence" of communication makes it almost impossible to build genuine connection, and ultimately you come across as fake, insincere or just not quite there.

Most of the time this incongruence is sub-conscience, and it tends to happen more with the people we feel most comfortable with - the irony being that sometimes the people we value most we're present with the least.

So what can we do to be more present, more congruent and ultimately more genuine with the people we care about? At Hop, we use a simple idea we call "working with intention".

Before every call or meeting, set a clear intention of how you want the other person to feel. Mentally ask yourself "How do I want to make the person in front of me feel? "What's the feeling I want them to experience" ultimately "What's my Intention?" The power of this is simple question brings you into the present, syncs up your communication and makes you fully available to the person you're speaking too.

Let's go back to the earlier example with the payroll, the kids and the P&L. You've got all those thoughts running through your head, but now before you make your zoom call you ask yourself "What's my intention? How do I want to make this person feel?… I want to make them feel valued." Now you've got a clear intention of how you want the other person to feel all the thoughts about anything else will quieten down. Your body language will shift; your tone and pace will change. All three strands of your communication, verbal, physical and mental will start to sync up, you'll be congruent, present and above all, genuine. Now when you say "it's so good to see you" you'll mean it. By being present and congruent, you're giving yourself the best possible chance of creating a connection with the person you're speaking too.

There are loads of different intentions you can choose to use, but it's best to keep it simple and pick one at a time. A good starting place is to make people feel one of the following: relaxed, at ease, valued, heard, safe, or welcome.

Interestingly once we get that connection with the other person, all other thoughts tend to drift away anyway. We become so engaged in the conversation; we don't have the mental capacity to think about anything else. We get a respite from the thoughts that have been worrying us. That's why it's so important we have these genuine conversations during these uncertain times. Our teams might be feeling, anxious, stressed and worried, but that doesn't mean we can't make them feel relaxed, calm and safe.