To be heard you have to make people like you. You need to create chemistry with your staff as a manager, with your team as a project leader, with your boss, with your customer, with your strategic partners. People believe people they like. That’s not a news bulletin. Great communicators develop the “likeability factor”—your personality and the “chemistry” you create between yourself and others.
Just as many roads lead to success in the workplace, many different personalities attract followers. But the following traits seem universally to attract people and open their minds and hearts.
Be Vulnerable, Show Your Humanity
In speaker training 101, people learn to tell failure stories before success stories. Generally, audiences have more in common with those who struggle than those who succeed in life. If you worry about whether your teen will graduate from high school without getting involved with the wrong group, say so. If your father-in-law drove you nuts during the holiday weekend, it’s okay to mention to your colleagues on Monday morning that you might not have been the storybook spouse. If you lose a customer, regret it rather than excuse it. If you miss a deadline, repair the damage and catch up.
People respond to humans much more favorably than machines. When you communicate with colleagues, never fear to let them see your humanity.
Be Courteous—Remember to Kick the Copier
Day in and day out, it’s the small things that kill our spirit: The sales rep who empties his cold coffee and leaves the splatters all over the sink. The manager who uses the last drop of lotion and doesn’t refill the container. The analyst who walks away from the printer, leaving the red light flashing “paper jam.” The boss who walks into the reserved conference room in the middle of a meeting and bumps everybody out for an “urgent” strategic planning meeting. The person who cuts in line at the cafeteria cash register. The guy who answers his cell phone and tries to carry on a conversation out loud in the middle of a meeting.
