Life bites back in the workplace
The techniques used to communicate at home can be just as effective with your colleagues. Katie Pattullo talks to Neil Roberts, an experienced actor and director of communications training company Partners With You – who spills the beans.
How many times have you started the day off with a challenging argument with either your kids or partner? Or been stuck in stationary traffic on your way to the office, resulting in a missed meeting or deadline? Not only do you become stressed but you carry that stress and anger into the office with you and take it out on your colleagues.
Neil Roberts is an experienced actor who has appeared in television programmes ranging from Beverley Hills 90210 to the BBC series Holby City. He is appearing in a new Disney series Life Bites and is also a director of the communications training company Partners With You and is adamant that bad communication is not what you deliver but how you deliver it. Life Bites is a humourous account of how families fail to connect as a result of miscommunication.
As Roberts says: “Where communication goes pear-shaped is when emotion gets involved – at home you are more likely to lose your temper because of tiredness and the incessant attention kids need. But some techniques you use with your teenagers can work well in an office environment, such as the ‘shut up pause’ – make your request and leave it. People tend to keep talking which is just the kind of thing that irritates your teenagers.”
Under the auspices of unconditional love at home, ensuring your message is understood may mean repeating it in an increasingly antagonistic way. Irritation can come across in the tone of your voice. Roberts explains: “We use actors on our training courses because they can help participants control their voice, so what they feel inside does not necessarily come across to the recipient.”
There are startlingly similar qualities in those recalcitrant teenagers at home as there are in the mavericks in your organisation. With their fierce sense of independence and their ability to be easily bored, both parties may be talented but difficult to manage.
What really irritates these individuals, though, is when their parent (or their colleague) is unreasonably demanding. What they need is dialogue, and a willingness to listen to what they have to say. It means asking many questions. It also means showing that you value their contributions. As Roberts says: “You want to bring the qualities you use at home around listening – not just pretending you’re listening, but seriously listening and valuing their opinion: asking them what their issues are and what they want: being genuinely interested.”
There is also the ‘what, when and why’ technique. Quite often, as a parent you will say to your child: “I want you to get dressed now.” That’s the what and the when, but by adding the ‘why’ at the end (“we will be late for school”) you help to raise the level of willingness. This technique can also work with colleagues when you are asking for presentation notes by lunchtime – because they are being included in the board meeting. ‘Because I said so’ will not have the same effect.
At the end of the day, being a good communicator to your teenagers and your colleagues is all about how confident you feel delivering the message. Roberts explains: “It’s not purely the word choice, you need to have the body language right and the voice right. If these fall into place then, you don’t have to raise your voice so often – either at home or in the workplace.”
It also means having the confidence to say ‘no’. Roberts illustrates this with a scenario he finds himself in in Life Bites. “My screen wife and I want to watch a different programme on TV to our kids and we simply don’t know how to say no to them. In the end we start flirting to ratchet up the embarrassment factor so that the kids leave the room. Wouldn’t it have been easier if we had just looked them in the eye and said, no?”
So, the next time you’re trying to think up just the right excuse to avoid a pending meeting, you know what to do...
