Without effective communication, your ideas, no matter how good, are of little use to others.
How often have you heard an athlete say things like
“I don’t understand”
“I don’t follow you”,
“I can’t quite see what you’re saying”?
Or watched as an athlete failed to follow your instruction, yet again?
Have you predicted a poor performance prior to the event? Have you asked yourself “Why can’t they picture what I’m trying to explain?” or “Why’s it so hard for them to understand?”
Given that your instructions are clear, the answers can be explained as follows.
From the ‘display’ of all sensory information surrounding an athlete, (opposition player movement, ball movement, weather, crowd size and movement, the smell of grass or hotdogs…they need to recognize, select and respond appropriately to critical (or advanced) cues.
Watch children in their initial learning trials. They often attend to the wrong cues, or select poor responses to correct cues.
To obtain an outcome, the successful individual needs to continuously check (through the feedback available) the correctness of their cue selection, response and execution in the particular context and make the required adaptations to their performance.
The communication process is similar.
To communicate effectively we need to become aware of what cues to attend to and then develop a response compatible to the mutual outcome of both communication participants in that particular context.
It appears however that many of us as coaches are attending to ‘the smell of the hotdogs’ when we are communicating with athletes.
Why is communication effective sometimes and not at others? The principles of Neuro Linguistic Programming help us to realize that communication is an understandable mutual process.
You can improve your skills at communicating (and thus improve both coaching and learning) by understanding and applying the processes involved to the mutual benefit of all parties involved in the communication process.
To improve your communication skills, follow the same process as a successful athlete.
- Recognize the advanced cues available from the display of sensory information
- Choose the correct response for the advanced cues you’ve selected
- Continuously monitor the correctness of your cue selection, response and execution in the particular context
- Make necessary adaptations to obtain your outcome.
Let’s look at how to do this.
Recognize the advanced cues available from the display of sensory information.
What cues should we attend to?
Basically those that provide sensory feedback that helps both communication partners know they are being understood and progressing towards their outcome.
Many people use the content of conversation as their only sensory feedback. While content is important, there is other sensory information equally, if not more important.
We use our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin and body position to perceive (both consciously and unconsciously) he sensory stimuli we call experiences. These experiences are represented in memory by pictures, sounds and feelings that were present or imagined when the experience originally happened.
We perceive and encode (take in and make sense of) our experiences through “Representational Systems”. One representational system appears to be trusted more than the others in any given situation.
Usually people are oriented either
- Visually, (trust their visual sense)
- Auditorily (trust their auditory sense)
- Kinaesthetically (trust their sense of feelings).
This limits the information we are capable of perceiving, as we’ll often only consciously take in information through one sense, rather than through the combination of senses available. (To become a better communicator pay attention to your non-preferred modes. Learn to trust your other senses.)
People make sense of the information they hear, feel or see by representing it in their minds visually, auditorily or kinaesthetically. We then use terms, called words, to describe these representations, which we have modified and adapted to fit our belief systems or visa-versa.
When conversing, others are telling you, by the words they use, not only content but also what representational system they are using. That is how they make sense of things and therefore what will easily make sense to them.
A person using a visual representational system to make sense of situations will use visual terms such as:
- Picture
- Clear
- See
- Reveal
- Cloud
- Bright
- Colorful … and expressions such as
- “I see”
- “I get the picture”
- “I don’t see what…”
- “It’s clear to me now”
Someone using an auditory representational system will use auditory or ‘hearing’ terms such as:
- Tune
- Note
- Sound
- Compose
- Shout.....and expressions such as
- “That rings a bell”
- “I hear you”
- “That sounds familiar”
Someone using a kinaesthic representational system will use kinaesthetic (tactile, feeling or action) terms such as:
- Feel
- Touch
- Strike
- Move.......and expressions such as
- “I feel good about that”
- “Get a grip on the problem”
- “Remove the obstacles”
- “Untangle the mess”
Explaining that they understand a situation,
a ‘Visual’ may say “I can see the picture clearly now.”
an ‘Auditory’ might respond “It’s clicked now. That sounds good.”
a ‘Kinaesthetic’ might say “That’s touched something familiar”
Whilst words are very useful feedback they are not the only feedback available. As words represent stored pictures, sounds and feelings, thoughts using these words evoke subconscious feelings, sounds and images known as resource states.
These resource states cause alterations in eye movement, choice of words, posture, breathing rates and physical appearance. Therefore they provide us a great deal more insight into how people are responding if only we possess the acuity to notice them.
These subtle changes are the advanced cues requiring attention when communicating.
A ‘Visual’ is selecting pictures from memory to make sense of whatever is happening at the time. They do this by ‘picturing’, checking the image they see with those they have stored in their mind. To check these images, their eyes move up or softly defocus 60-80 cm straight ahead. By standing in this area or making them look you in the eyes, you may be preventing them from thinking.
A ‘Kinaesthetic’ checks feelings to understand events. Their eye movements are down and to the right (down and to your left) and their speech is full of pauses allowing them to get n touch with their feelings. Allow them time to do this.
‘Auditories’ make sense of situations by relying on internal sounds. They usually have pleasing voices, often talk to themselves and have difficulty making decisions. Their eyes remain level, moving either left or right, or down and left (down and to your right). This is the least likely representational system to be encountered.
Before attempting to communicate, establish your outcomes. Outcomes are goals stated in positive, specific, sensory terms about how and what you will see, feel and hear when you have achieved your outcome.
While you are talking, notice eye movements:
Up or defocused indicates pictures
Down right indicates indicates feelings
Any other place indicates sounds.
To pick up eye movements ask open-ended questions such as “How would you…”, “What is…”. Then listen to the words used. Are they using seeing, hearing or feeling terms?
If these two associations match, you have probably recognized your communication partner’s preferred system for that context.
Choose the correct response for the advanced cues you have recognized and selected.
If you tailor your words to match their representational systems (pictures, sounds and feelings) they will find your words meaningful. Your partner will find you to be an understanding person. This improves both understanding and rapport.
Those people with whom you often have conflicts may simply be making sense of the same situation from another representational system.
Continuously monitor the correctness of your cue selection, response and execution in the particular context.
Be flexible. Check for rapport. Neither party will gain their outcome until rapport is present as it is rapport that allows for the exchange of sensory information. Therefore establishing rapport becomes your major short-term outcome. Check for and establish mutual trust in the competence of the other person to complete the task at hand. If it doesn’t exist, ask what specifically your partner would like to see (or hear or feel) that would convince them of your ability to do the task.
Answer in terms they are capable of easily understanding by matching your words to their current representational system. When mutual trust exists, find out your communication partner’s short-term outcomes by asking questions and share your short-term outcomes.
Focus on outcomes instead of problems, i.e. what you want to achieve rather than what you don’t want to happen.
Maintain rapport by subtly mirroring and paying attention to as much sensory feedback as possible. Mirror by using the least number of the following sequential moves necessary – attempt to match through emulating:
- Voice tone and tempo (including tempo
- Breathing rate
- Rhythms of movement (using a different movement)
- Body postures
With an increased awareness of the sensory information available, let’s reconsider one of our original problems. An athlete says “I can’t quite picture what you’re saying,” whilst looking up or ‘glassy-eyed’ as if they’re not even paying attention, avoiding eye contact and shrugging their shoulders.
You feel their frustration but can’t understand why they can’t ‘get it’. With your hands in your pocket (you feel more comfortable like that), you shuffle your feet, kick an imaginary can, run your fingers through your hair, take a deep breath and roll your head (it helps relieve the tension).
All the sensory information is available to understand and solve the problem.
Chances are they are trying to make sense of the situation by using a ‘Visual’ representational system. Their eyes look up (a sign that they are in visual mode), and don’t want to make eye contact (which upsets you, as you expect people to look you in the eyes).
You, on the other hand, can’t understand why they don’t ‘get it’, a feeling or kinaesthetic term. Other kinaesthic behaviors include you looking down finding a ‘can’ to kick and a number of physical tasks that make you ‘feel’ better.
The problem is simple, the representational systems of the two communicators don’t match!
The solution, follow the process!
Establish your outcomes and rapport.
In this situation, use visual terms rather than kinaesthetic ones.
Speak of ‘seeing clearly’ rather than ‘feeling you are in touch’ and of ‘focusing’ rather than ‘feeling’.
Continue towards your mutual outcomes checking feedback along the way.
You’ll eventually find a result like “I see what you’re showing me now.”
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