Communicating with your boss: Master the perfect tactic

It is necessary to perfect the art of communicating with your boss, for how you interact with him has a major impact on your performance appraisal and consequently your career, say Peter Urs Bender and Robert Tracz

We all answer to someone. Bosses come in all shapes and sizes and have many different styles, yet they speak the same language the bottom line. How you communicate with your boss will have an impact on your performance evaluation, your raise and your career.

Here are some tips on communicating with your boss:

• Propose, don’t impose, solutions to problems
• Share all the information-good and bad
• Don’t take the bosses decisions personally
• Clarify resources, levels of authority, responsibilities, reporting, schedules, desired outcomes and deadlines
• Ask for feedback

Breathing

Generally speaking, our feelings are reflected by our rate of breathing and general physiology If we’re nervous, startled, or excited, we breathe rapidly and shallowly. If we’re relaxed, comfortable, or contemplative, we breathe more deeply. This is an important factor in understanding other people. By adopting their breathing rates and postures, you will begin to feel similar feelings and better understand what they’re thinking.

Sometimes it’s difficult to determine what people’s breathing rates are. Watch the edges of their shoulders. See how they move against the background and then try to match it. In addition, adopt their general body position to get fully into their state of mind.

But be careful. If their breathing rate is considerably different from yours, the matching can be exhausting for you to maintain. Don’t do it for too long. In any case, the objective is to match them, not slavishly copy them. In fact, once you establish contact and develop understanding for how they are feeling, you may begin to breathe and speak to your normal rate.

Broken record

A broken record doesn’t move forward. Some of us remember those vinyl records from long, long ago. The needle would get stuck and the same part of the music would play over and over again. Sometimes people get stuck and try to sidetrack you or change the topic. They will attempt to go over, under, or around you. Use the broken record to stick to the topic, to get a response to a question, or to simply say “no”.

Here’s how you do it:

• Focus on and state what you want
• Acknowledge what they’ve said if they sidetrack you
• Repeat what you said

This powerful technique is simple and effective yet it’s not easy to practice

Bulldozers

We’ve all met difficult characters. They can’t be avoided, so we have to deal with them. Here are some suggestions on dealing with one of the better-known types the Bulldozers.

With Bulldozers, it’s their way or the highway. Bulldozers aren’t necessarily hostile, but they are fast-acting, decisive and motivated to get results. When you deal with Bulldozers, you’re either going to help them or get in their way.

Here are some tips on how to handle Bulldozers:

• Remain calm, hold eye contact and breathe
• Hear them out, then reflect their main concerns
• Focus on the bottom line be brief
• Offer options they’re decisive
• Avoid a battle, because they won’t back down
• If possible, allow them the last word

Checking it out

We’ve all had them...those embarrassing moments when we enter a promising conversation and somehow one of our pet peeves emerges. Before you can button your lip, you’re saying something like, “I hate teachers” (or lawyers, government employees, politicians, whatever apply the necessary vocation use only one!).

You can still ride your hobby horse (if it seems necessary), but before you do, it makes a great deal of sense to start your conversation by asking your partner what he or she does. Questions like “...and you work with what company?” or “What is your job?” or, more bluntly, “What do you do for a living?” not only indicate interest in your partner, but they will stop you from making rash statements. If you don’t and he or she replies, “Too bad, I’m a (teacher, lawyer, etc)...,” where do you go from there?

Use questions to check your ground. There is a lot of ground to cover. Facing an individual for the first time, or facing a committee whose members you don’t know, are similar experiences. You need to ask questions to get to know the “law of the land.” Just like a military scout, you need to listen, observe, and then start questioning the rules that underlie a conversation just as soon as introductions are made. Here are a few things you might want to check out.

Hidden agendas

If you hear any of these comments, be careful! They may be disguising the speaker’s hidden agenda and should raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

• Everybody’s doing it.
• Let me tell you what is really happening!
• I’m your friend. Would I lie to you?
• It’s exactly the same as before. You don’t have to check it.
• It’s okay. Trust me.
• We’re alone in this. We have to stick together.

Also listen for any one-sided, biased evidence or any emotional hot button your partner or colleague tries to push.

Assumptions theirs and yours

Assumptions must be shared for effective communication. If you’re having trouble understanding each other, check out both sets of assumptions. Question the reason behind your areas of disagreement to find your underlying differences.

For instance, you may reach an impasse when it comes time to sign on the dotted line. Your partner is hesitating. You become confused because your partner seemed excited by the proposal and was fully involved in the presentation. State what you observed: “I’m confused because you seemed to be interested in the proposal and now you’re reluctant to proceed. Why is that?”

You may discover some underlying assumption you were originally unaware of. Maybe your partner likes the proposal, but feels product reliability isn’t good. Whatever the reason, now is the time to find out.

Things you don’t understand

Clarify misunderstandings and confusions immediately. Take the responsibility to understand your partner and his message. Show your partner that you’re paying attention and you want to understand what is being said. Question how it is said because it is often more important than what is said. Many people simply don’t realise how they are saying something.

If you sense something that bothers you in the way something is said, address it immediately. For instance, in the middle of helping someone, you hear agitation or frustration in the person’s tone of voice. Be specific and take ownership of how you feel about it. You might say, “I sense you’re frustrated. Is that true?” Don’t criticize. Focus on the message you are getting and see if you can straighten it out.

Non-specific words

If someone says, “He went to the store”,: ask who he is. If your partner says, “They took it with them,” ask specifically who they are and what it was they took. Don’t make assumptions about non-specific words. Think like a detective. You come home and find your house broken into and some of your possessions stolen.

(Excerpt taken from Secrets of Face-to-Face Communication by Peter Urs Bender & Robert A Tracz, Macmillan India Ltd)