2 of the 7 Communication Styles of Dislikeable People
2 communication styles that everyone in leadership and talent management improve now
Today, I'm introducing Sarah to the Executive Decisions community.
Sarah has struggled with leadership in her industry while starting her own practice. Given her exceptional participation in our leadership lunches, she's taking the next step in her journey. In this post, Sarah discussed two points from my presentation on 7 communication styles of dislikeable people and what you can change that will improve your relationships.
As Tim presented the seven traits of dislikeable people, I immediately remembered some of my interactions that went South. Travel is a big part of my life - I love travelling, but as we'll see, I was communicating this passion incorrectly. I wasn't intending to annoy people, but that's how people felt when they heard my stories. With Tim's permission, I'm sharing two of my deep takeaways from the presentation and how I've been able to improve my communication.
Location Comparing
The positive of travel is that in addition to adventure, we enjoy other cultures, opportunities and experiences. The negative of travel is one that I didn't realize immediately. Travel creates comparisons in our mind. I felt like these comparisons were worth sharing with other people, but as I've learned, I was actually annoying most people. I was also doing something far worse - I was making them feel bad about their life and experiences when I made comparisons. While people feigned interest in conversation, I noticed they were later spend less time with me or would never reach out to me.
One important point that Tim makes is that people may respond positively in a conversation, but later feel negative. I've missed this thousands of times where I felt like people were relating to me, but they actually weren't. People may feel very different about a conversation later. I say this because I've committed this mistake where I didn't think about how a person feels about a conversation later.
What Is Location Comparing?
Location comparing is when we make a statement about a place being better or worse than another place. "Than" is a keyword to watch out for. When I reflect over my conversations where I did this it often involved something like "The tea is much better in South Korea than in San Diego." Location comparing feels easy for people who either travel frequently or are from a different location than the one where they reside. In my case, I compared loations unintentionally because I didn't know how I was being perceived. Some people intentionally do this as a boast or a brag. I don't share travel stories to brag, but only because I love travelling.
Tim's base example is the following three statements, starting with a bad version:
Bad: Where I'm from (or where I travelled to recently), there is a local coffee shop that has much more options and has much better coffee than this (often local) place.
You can feel how annoying this is to hear! This statement is "putting down" the current experience while making our previous experience sound better. It really does come off like bragging and yet, I had been saying things like this.
Good: Where I'm from (or where I travelled to recently), there is a local coffee shop like this place.
This is a better way to share our life without putting down the current experience.
Better: Where I'm from (or where I travelled to recently), there is a local coffee shop like this place, but this shop has some excellent [observations unique to the shop].
Tim's reasoning here is that in order to make this statement, we must be present where we are. We must notice something excellent about the shop. When I reflect over this, I remember that many of the people who I enjoy make every moment feel special. Putting down the current moment actually makes us feel bad. Over time, a person who's constantly putting down the current moment will make us feel negative. But there's a deeper reason that I had never thought of until Tim mentioned it.
Fundamentally, we don't trust someone who's misaligned with their values. Tim used the example of living in Texas with people moving from California, yet stating that Texas was terrible. If Texas is terrible, then why did they move from California? The same applies to a person who goes to a smoothie store and talks about how the smoothies are terrible - then why are you going?
I had to realize that travel was fun because I also experienced a predictable balance of my routines - my job, my hobbies, and my relationships. I would not enjoy travel at all if I constantly did it, as a new experience is only new when it's not being done all the time. This realization made me change how I conversed with people from always talking about the latest place I traveled to what I learned from my routines or my hobbies. I found people enjoyed conversing with me more when I discussed what I felt was average life. But when I think about how these activities align with who I am because they're what I do, I see that I'm conversing consistently with my values. By contrast, the way I had been talking about travel made it seem like I didn't want to live where I lived or do what I do. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Editor’s Note: When someone asks us for a comparison, then do it. Sometimes a person will ask something like, "What did you think about coffee in Shanghai?" In these situations fall back to your preference and experience with comparisons. However, in general conversation avoid comparisons, as these can cause people to feel negative about interacting with you over time.
"Search Engine Syndrome" (ie: Know-It-Alls)
Editor's Note: Expect this one to get worse because AI will only make this worse (see Will AI Be the End of Employees and Workers for why).
I fully admit that I have a really bad case of search engine syndrome. I find myself in conversations giving opinions that I have no experience whatsoever. Several people have called me out on this and highlighted that I'm far outside of my experience. For me, it took an absolute humiliation to learn that I was making this mistake.
I was meeting with my boss and the director above her and I expressed my view on a situation where I lacked experience. The director immediately started asking me questions starting with, "Since you know that" along with a statement. Pretty soon, I had found myself deep into a conversation where I had no idea what I was saying. But I remember feeling like I couldn't back out either, so I kept digging further. My boss later gave me feedback and told me how knowledgeable the director was. She knew that I was making things up as I spoke. Even though she never said this directly to me, she wanted to see how far I would go. To make a long story short, I felt humiliated and lost an opportunity to get promoted that year.
Tim highlights that we can get information quickly thanks to the internet ("search engine syndrome"). The problem is that we don't understand the information that we read. We speak as if we have skills or knowledge, but actually lack both. Even worse, he highlights how social media will reward people who regurgitate information that may not actually be true. This information then spreads because people see the person was "rewarded" (re-tweeted, re-posted, upvoted, liked, etc). The exercise that he suggests that helped me connect the dots is the following: "Find any information on social media in an area where you have deep knowledge that is wrong, but heavily rewarded."
The solution is practice saying "I don't know" when you truly don't know something. Also practice not having an opinion. This one feels harder because I love to share my opinion on things, but how much of my opinion is based on what is true? Unfortunately, the internet has made it easy for us to practice the opposite of being a know-it-all.
I will say that this has really improved my relationships. The reason was unexpected. Because I practice not knowing, I defer to people who do, which gives them a chance to speak. It's a terrible pattern to always be the person talking; this may be a cue that we're being know-it-alls. When other people speak to us, especially with something they know, they're more likely to feel like they were able to contribute and enjoy the conversation. Over time, this makes people feel more connected.
Action Steps
Thanks to Sarah for sharing her experience. I highly recommend the following exercises:
1. Identify if you're comparing in your conversations. If you have to - and this will help - write out what you say and search for "than" or other comparatives. If you do this frequently, stop.
2. You all have knowledge in at least one area of life. Find social media or online posts where the information is completely wrong, yet rewarded with likes, re-posts, etc. Stop and reflect over what you're seeing here: people are rewarding inaccurate information. See my humorous know-it-all story in the Epilogue.
3. Practice deferring to others. This gives other people a chance to speak. You do not know as much as you think. It's actually a freeing feeling to realize this and practice it.
Epilogue
1. My Humorous Know-It-All Story
One of the biggest suggestions in all of content is marketing is that you have to produce content every day. Readers or viewers will bore of you if you aren't constantly creating content. But I don’t adopt (or accept) mainstream culture. In fact, one key to leadership is to not lead in many cases - you aren’t the expert in everything. This is the reason I host leadership lunches; I want other leaders to share their insights.
What I have found through experience is that nothing exposes a fraud faster than a person who always has something to say. I’m not interested in your publication, podcast or anything else if you’re constantly producing. People who do are interesting. People who talk are not. But doing takes work. Talking takes little (if any).
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