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Whether in war or work, effective communications vital to outcome
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In a long-standing relationship, you always have time to earn the trust of people around you, by delivering on your promise or through doing what is expected of you.
In Confucian doctrine, there is a stated distrust of silver-tongued individuals, as evidenced in observations such as, 鈥渃lever talk and an ingratiating manners are seldom found in a virtuous person.鈥
But in modern society, a professional often finds him or herself having to enter into new relationships, many of which last no longer than a business deal.
In such a relationship, communicating well is not only important, but becomes a marketable skill to be acquired and honed through intensive training.
There is a time-honored elevator pitch contest in MBA business training, where you need to sell yourself within a 30-second time constraint.
Leadership skill
My niece, who will soon graduate from college, has landed a temporary job cold-calling potential investors to try and persuade them to invest in an organic farming venture. This will put her communicative powers to the test, for she must inspire almost immediate trust and interest, otherwise the targeted investor will simply hang up. Your ability to communicate effectively is not only essential in a professional setting, but is often a vital leadership skill.
In his 鈥淭he Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively,鈥 Helio Fred Garcia explains why too often leaders and professional communicators get mired in tactics and fail to influence public attitudes in the most effective ways.
Garcia, president of crisis management firm Logos Consulting Group and executive director of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership, has frequently been invited by Tsinghua University to coach state council ministers, senior officials and corporate leaders in communication skills.
In demonstrating how to orient on audiences and recognize their most critical concerns, Garcia builds on the US Marine Corps鈥 legendary publication 鈥淲arfighting.鈥
He shows how to apply the marines鈥 proven doctrine in a broader context 鈥 and achieve truly extraordinary results. As Lieutenant Colonel Robert Riggle explains in the foreword to Garcia鈥檚 book, 鈥淚n Vietnam, the United States won every major battle we fought and we still lost the war. Why? We lost public support.鈥 Riggle believes the same is true for many corporate and organizational 鈥渨ars.鈥
As a matter of fact, the idea for the book was sparked through conversations Garcia had with Riggle a few years ago.
鈥淲ar and communication are not the same. But many of the goal-oriented principles of leading an effective armed force can be applied to the leadership discipline of public communication,鈥 Garcia writes.
The 19th-century Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz summed up war as 鈥渁n act of will directed toward a living entity that reacts.鈥
Act of will
His most famous principle is that war is merely the continuation of policy by other means: The goal of the war is not to fight, but to accomplish a political objective. In other words, it isn鈥檛 about fighting or killing, but about an outcome, or a change, which is essentially the same as communication.
When communication is perceived similarly as 鈥渁n act of will,鈥 it is no longer restricted to what one says, but can also refer to any engagement with a stakeholder, which may include silence, action, or even inaction.
Similarly, stakeholders aren鈥檛 just passive vessels, but have their own opinions, fears, prejudices and attention spans.
Conceived of these principles, the book draws on the author鈥檚 33 years of experience in advising and coaching leaders, and his 24 years of experience teaching management and communication in graduate programs.
By making extensive use of case studies and examples 鈥 of both effective and ineffective communication 鈥 Garcia demonstrates successful communication at strategical, operational and tactical levels. It is certainly a must-read for those who have a message to get across.
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