Communicate in a way that will
boost morale. To me, there are
three basic ways to deal with a
person. One is enhancement,
taking what they are saying
and saying, ‘OK, let’s work out
how we can improve this or go
from here.’
Then there’s domination, do
this or else. And then there’s
nullification, which is saying,
‘You’re basically nothing; my
dog could have done a better
job than you.’
My viewpoint is enhancement is the only appropriate
way to communicate, and
that’s in life just as well as it is
in business.
We all know that there’s
room for improvement in
anything. The second you go
into invalidating something
they’ve done or being very
negative, the person is on the
defensive and spends all
their time justifying instead
of producing.
I try to point out how they
could do something better or
how I might have done it to
get a better result. Using enhancement motivates better
because they know you’re
working with them. You’re saying, ‘How can we do this better? How can we not have this
outcome next time?’
The ability to communicate
means not just talking but the
interchange of ideas. It’s not talking at a person. Part of the time
you’re listening and actually figuring out what they’re saying.
You have to identify from
their questions and their
responses whether they can
actually understand what
you’re saying. You have to get
it into a situation where,
given the situation, you ask
them, ‘How would you use
that?’ So then you can think
through how they would
actually go about doing it.
HOW TO REACH: Florida Orthopaedic Institute, (813) 978-9700 or www.floridaortho.com
