Communication Skills Power

Getting people to pay attention to what you say: ah, now that is a challenge every school teacher, advertiser, and director of marketing has been trying to figure out since the dawn of time. Anyone who has ever been in a position of authority will realize this can be difficult. So, if you are faced with this problem, what are some of the methods you can use to defeat the poor attention span of your audience?

Well, first realize the root cause of the problem. In our modern, high-tech high-speed world, people are bombarded on a daily basis with all manner of images - sights and sounds come at them from iPods, TV, radio, the Internet, and so on and so forth. So, if you stand before someone and just try to speak in a flat monotone voice - something like what Ben Stein did in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”; you are going to have the same affect on your audience as he did on his students. You are going to put them to sleep!

So, how to liven them up? Step one, figure out what sort of audience you are going to be speaking to. After all, if you talk to a bunch of senior citizens, they are quite a different group to some high school seniors. For that matter, highly gifted students are quite different from a group of “special needs” students. So, you must tailor your talk to your audience. Also, speaking to a group is different to speaking to an individual.

Next, look for ways to relate what you are talking about to what is important in their lives. Let us take the example of the high school students. You want to talk to them about the importance of learning to write. Oh, can’t you just see their eyes rolling back in their heads as you try to sell them on that? If at all possible, have some sort of audio/visual presentation. These days, just about anyone can do a PowerPoint presentation. So, make use of that. By giving them things to look at, you can stimulate attention.

Also, don’t preach. Involve your audience and speak on their Level. So, when talking about writing, talk about books that are of interest to them. Don’t drone on about the classics, use recent books that they would like to hear about. If you are talking to minority students, maybe mention how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had to write out his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in order to learn it. Maybe show a clip of the speech. The moral here is: make what you are saying relevant to your audience. Make them care about what you are saying.

If you are trying to get someone to a reprimand or a  Warning, avoid being confrontational. Appreciaate your Audience’s point of view.

There is also the issue of the time and place of your talk. If you give your speech early in the morning or late in the day, people might be tired. Also, if they are hungry, they will be less likely to pay attention. If the room you are in is very hot or cold, your audience will be uncomfortable and not inclined to listen to you. If you can, make sure you are speaking in an area where there are few distractions and the ambience, temperature etc is pleasant.

Finally, there is the old classic rule about leaving them wanting more. Often, the best way to catch people’s attention is with humor. A few jokes, at the right places of your speech can help to keep your audience focused on you. If you’re an entertaining and interesting speaker, people will be more likely to listen to you throughout what you have to say.

Many people around us fail to respect us. Some people use us and take advantage of us, while others talk and behave with us in ways that offend us and hurt us. However, when people fail to respect us it is our own fault. It’s our fault because we have failed to establish boundaries for these people. Setting boundaries is one way to get people to respect you.

The first thing to determine when someone is disrespecting you is; are they intentionally doing this or are they just not aware of your boundaries? Knowing the answer to this question will help you to decide how to respond to get the results you desire. If the person is not aware of your boundaries the solution can be as simple as making that person aware of the boundary. However, there are many people in the world who don’t care about the boundaries of others. These people become a little more problematic to deal with.

Nonetheless, in boundary setting it is vitally important for you to determine what a boundary is for you. Sometimes we confuse boundaries with a pet peeve. A pet peeve is something that gets on our nerves, something that is really not a disrespectful behavior directed toward us, but that just rubs us up the wrong way. Take for example the person who just talks to hear themselves talk. This is not really a disrespect of your boundaries, although it can drive some people crazy. Unfortunately, there just happens to be people in the world who just talk to talk, with not much useful to say. This then becomes a matter of acceptance or, if it bothers you that much, one of avoidance.

Once you have determined the difference between a boundary and a pet peeve you need to consider any consequences of boundary setting with those not used to you setting boundaries. More often than not, when people violate our boundaries it’s because we have let them and when we try to establish them after the fact, these people may themselves take offense, which in turn can result in a negative response.

The thing we have to weigh out in establishing boundaries is the value of our boundaries verses the value of the relationship. Some people will over react to your boundary and it then becomes an issue those individuals need to resolve for themselves, if you are serious about your boundaries and the resulting respect you will gain. But this can affect your relationship with that person. To gain respect from others you must have respect for yourself, and in so doing you may have to take a stand on those grounds. Moreover, gaining respect from others has nothing to do with them liking you.

Now that you have determined that it is necessary to set a boundary you may want to practice what you will say to the person. Because setting boundaries is often touchy ground you will want to make sure you say the right thing. This does require a degree of sensitivity to the other’s feelings while at the same time establishing the desired boundary. This can be tricky. Setting boundaries is not always easy and therefore you might want to find a friend you can trust to help you with what to say.

Next, set up a time with the person you want to talk to about setting the boundary with. The time you select should be a time when you can have the other’s attention, a time when they are able to listen to you in explaining what is bothering you. In these types of communications your lengthy explanations are not necessary. It is best to get right to the point as soon as possible.

Many people seem to think that they need people to like them. The truth is that you don’t. All you need to is to like yourself. When you like yourself, and are comfortable in your own skin, it doesn’t matter if people like you or not. When you like yourself you are secure within yourself and this translates into attraction. People are more likely to like you. The opposite is also true: if you dislike yourself you are more likely to be needy and constantly seek affirmation from others. This can become a strain on your relations with other people and make them less likely to like you.

Needing to be liked says a lot about you. First on that list is insecurity. When you need to be liked you demonstrate insecurity. This means the need to be liked hits directly at our self-concept. Your self-concept then directly affects how you think of others and how you deal with them, and communicate with them, either positively or negatively.

It is in your self-concept that you find self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is about the degree to which you feel comfortable in your own skin. When you are comfortable in your skin you will have developed a liking for ourselves.  When we don’t like ourselves we want to fill that void through others liking us. When we need to be liked it means we don’t like ourselves as much as we should and therefore need others to like us to make ourselves feel complete. That can be quite a responsibility to put on to other people and they will soon become resentful of that.

Your self-concept has everything to do with the needing to be liked. If you have a poor self-concept you will have more of a tendency to behave in such a way as to demonstrate need rather than be able to give positively within your relationships with other people. Most people can tolerate need, when they see it, for a short period of time. But as the relationship develops and they consistently see a need for reassurance within you they will soon see you as burdensome and will begin to develop a dislike for you.

When you have the idea, in your mind, that you need people to like you this actually works against you. You can develop resentments for example. When you need people to like you and you find that they don’t you can feel offended, which can turn into resentment. Resentments have a tendency of being revealed, through our interactive behavior, and have a discouraging effect in future interactions with those you think should like you, and so the dislike grows, from both sides.

Furthermore, resentments have a way of pushing people away from you, in all relationships. This is because when you hold resentment this makes proper communication difficult with the person or people you resent, unless of course you address that resentment with that person. Resentments against one person can also affect your relationships with other people as you become suspicious and self-conscious,thinking other people have a problem with you too.

Another point about needing to be liked is that if you have that need you can possibly over-compensate in your needing to be liked by trying too hard. When we try too hard to get someone to like us we may actually disturb and upset them with those needy behaviors.

The bottom line is that needing to be liked causes people to not like you because it demonstrates some quite negative things regarding how much you like yourself. People like those more who like themselves because they will be able to see the positive qualities you can see in yourself, and they will also know that you will not become needy with them.