Tag: communication

The best way to connect with your people this holiday season.

I am good at staying in touch with people. In fact, I make a sport of it. I like to see how many friends, family and professional connections I can interact with each year. Because like volcanoes, an active relationship is more interesting than a dormant one. And the recency of your last interaction has a major impact on both the real and perceived value of a relationship.

Social Media

Social media makes it easy to stay in touch. Likes, hearts and thumbs-up offer us a way to say, ‘I see you baby…’ But they are not really staying in touch. They are kind of like making eye contact and waving at a party. There is very little social investment, and little long-term value.

Next Level Interactions

As we barrel into Christmas and Hanukkah with our noses glowing, one of the greatest gifts we can give one another is the gift of human interactions. Making time for coffee meet-ups, lunches, dinners and drop-bys are great. But they are hard to do this time of year. Those in-person interactions are also limited by geography, and hard to scale (meaning hard to do in large numbers, not hard to put on a scale, or to remove the scales from the body).

My Secret Social Weapon

But there is one social interaction tool that I really love. It is great at keeping people in touch. It works regardless of geography. It is infinitely scaleable. And it is always at your fingertips.

The Group Text

I love staying connected with groups texts. If you don’t know what a group text is, it is a text interaction with a group of 3 or more people. The French call it a Mobile A Trois. And it is an easy way to create your own micro-social networking platform.

My Groups

I have created an eclectic variety of social groups via texts. For example:

  • I have a group text with my parents and my 3 sisters. It enables my original homies and I to reconnect quickly from anywhere. Our group text conversations are like our conversations at the dinner table in my childhood home in Norwich, Vermont. Only now we can’t see each other snarf.
  • I have a group text with my high school football teammates. This group text is a little like the banter on a bus ride home after a road win, sans mooning. This text group includes people in Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, California, Colorado, Illinois and Wisconsin. But we can still huddle together anytime we text.
  • I have a group text with my neighbors from our Madison Hall subdivision in Atlanta. The interactions here are often about planning our next get-together, funny memories or pics from a past get-together, or theories about who called the police with a noise complaint (I always blame you Vickie).
  • I have a group text with the advertising creatives who I worked with at my first job out of college. These texts are so full of inside jokes that military communications seem less encrypted.

Creation

By creating a group text you can instantly reunite and rekindle a social group from the past. But you also have the power to create a totally new social group. You have the ability to huddle up a select group of people like a team, a club, a society or a telephonic gang. And that is a fun gift to give.

Text Me Maybe

We could all use more positive human connections. Especially this time of year. So between now and New Year’s Day I encourage you to create a new group text to help bring people together, or bring people back together again. Just remember, my mobile number is 614-256-2850.

Key Takeaway

It is important for us to invest in our relationships. Creating a group text is an easy way to stay in touch. But it also has the power to make other people feel special. Because being included in a group text means you are considered a member of a special group, team, family or community. It is easy to do. It’s fun. And there is someone in your network who needs it now more than you know.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this story, please share it with them. Or maybe text it to them to start you own group.

 

6 lessons from the class everyone should take but no one ever does.

I work in advertising. I know the value of the New and Improved. Which is why I am always trying to create a newer, improved-er version of myself. I realized at the beginning of my career that if I wanted to catch up to the best professionals in this industry I was going to have to do my homework. So I began studying and learning. Not in a structured school program. But in a self-directed, choose-your-own-adventure, movie montage kind of way.

Like most people who are into self-improvement, I have focused heavily on communication skills: public speaking, presentation skills, selling skills. But the deeper I get into this game Prince called, Life, I realize that most people (including me) spend too much time on the wrong side of the equation.

The most effective and important communication skill is not speaking. It’s listening.

Listening is where all success starts. It is only through listening that we understand the problems that we need to solve. It is how we hear what isn’t said (don’t think about this too hard or it sounds really stupid). Through listening we learn about other people. We learn about their history, their values, their styles and their quirks. Which allows for deeper, more meaningful and more valuable relationships. Yet when was the last time you heard about someone going to a listening seminar?

So here are The Perfect Agency Project’s 6 Keys To Improving Your Listening Skills. These are sure to make you a better, bigger-eared version of yourself.

1. Listen Competitively.

Start by trying to be really good at listening. You already know the little things you have to do to be a great listener. We learned them playing Simon Says. Look at the person talking. Give the person speaking your full attention.  And do this like your earning potential, relationships and Parent Of The Year award depend on it. Because they do.

2. Shut your mouth.

We are often so compelled to talk that we stop listening. If you want to be a great listener you have to silence your own impulses. And focus on your role as a listener. This means you are not providing answers, or solutions or opinions. You are harvesting. Not planting. Know what season it is. Bring the right equipment to the field.

3. Keep your partner lubricated.

I don’t mean with alcohol or KY.  With affirmations. And demonstrated interest. Lean in. Show you care. And you will keep others flowing with information. Yet without the annoying public outcry that comes with waterboarding.

4. Listen with your Spidey Sense.

Go beyond the words that are said. Note the tone. The emotion. Those things are like limps, signaling that something deeper is wrong. Or they could signal that someone is in a good mood that exceeds the norm for the current situation. Maybe they just got engaged. Or maybe they are on drugs.

5.  Play back, Jack.

The curtain call of any good listening session is the summary of what you heard.  The highlight, simplified conclusion or takeaway that demonstrates that you really heard what was said. What was implied. And what is now important.  Do this and you will always leave a conversation with more personal equity.

6. Lock up the valuables.

The most important listening skill is keeping the private stuff private. You have to know which things you heard were intended for you alone. And don’t talk about them. When people know that you are trustworthy they tell you more. You become an important confidante. An insider. It’s like being sponge-worthy.

Improve your listening and everything else will improve. Better relationships with your friends, family and co-workers. Better solutions to problems. More and better networking. And better creative ideas. If you have your own tips and tricks for better listening I would love to hear from you.