Communication Skills Video
In this video on Communication Skills, Mark Tyrrell discusses how different communication styles are suited to different people and different situations. He presents specific ways of communicating your ideas, and why one might work when another would fail. Mark talks about how to sound confident when you communicate, and what to watch out for in the way you come across that might make people take you less seriously.
Mark’s experience as a hypnotherapist has led to years of study on the best way to convey ideas persuasively and he outlines several of these communication techniques in the video. He talks about the need for ‘clean language’ in therapy and why therapists need to be aware of the impact of the words they use. And he tell you how you can prepare your listener to receive the message you have for them.
Transcript of Communication Skills video
Being able to effectively communicate with other people is a vital tool for success in all kinds of areas in life, from building and forming relationships with other people to work projects. But so often, communication goes wrong. Being a hypnotherapist, I’ve had to learn about effective communication, and certainly you learn that some ways of communicating are much better suited to getting your message across than other ways. Sometimes we need to be very direct with people, very unambiguous, so they know exactly what we’re talking about, but sometimes in life - and certainly when you’re doing hypnotherapy - you need to know how to be indirect, even using metaphor or talking in parallel.
Now, for example, if people take things very very personally, sometimes if you want to get a message across to them, you need to not be so much “you do this” or “you do that”, but maybe talk in parallel. You present a pattern over here and then they can see the pattern and apply it to themselves without having to be force-fed the message. So there are different ways of communicating: very directive, and sometimes indirect - what we might call ‘permissive’ - communication.
I was thinking the other day… I was hearing somebody using inflections at the end of sentences, which never used to be part of language (as far as I know), but has taken off. People will end sentences as if they’re questions when they’re not questions: “I was in the park the other day?” (I don’t know, were you? I wasn’t following you! I’ve only got your word for that.) It doesn’t sound very confident; this is the problem. People need to know when it’s a real question and when it isn’t a question.
If you want to sound confident when you communicate, then you can do the opposite: you can deepen your tonality at the end of a sentence. Rather than, “I want you to relax deeply?” (some doubt there, because I’m going up at the end), say, “Okay, now, in a few minutes, it’d be wonderful for you to notice that you can start to relax deeply.” Lowering the tonality at the end of a sentence makes it more authoritative. So knowing when and why you’re using inflection in your language is vital. And also, which words you emphasize, where the emphasis is. If we want somebody to relax and to feel comfortable and calm, start to feel good, then we can deepen the tonality and even pause around those words, so the unconscious mind is getting the message that these are the important bits of the communication.
“You can really begin to notice what it’s like to… relax... and as those hands relax... and the eyes begin to feel tranquil... you can begin to notice what it’s like to have that calm feeling all around the body. And as you feel calm...and feel relaxed...and feel comfortable...all kinds of good feelings can come to mind.”
So there, I’m emphasizing “feel calm” and “feel relaxed” and “feel good”. What we emphasize tends to be what people pick up when we’re communicating with them - which isn’t rocket science; it’s kind of obvious.
Or conflict resolution; again, if somebody’s getting upset, we need to know how to communicate with them. It’s a curious thing; years and years and years ago, I worked as a charity telephone fundraiser - you’d phone up people and ask them for money for a good cause. We were taught not to ask people what they thought about giving money to refugees or to canine relief or whatever it was, but how they felt about giving money. If you ask someone what they think about something, you’re appealing to a different part of the brain - the thinking, rational part that considers that they have a mortgage to pay. But if you ask them how they feel about giving money to canine relief, then you’re appealing to the emotional part of them and they may be more likely to give money. It’s the same when you’re having to deal with a very upset person; asking them how they feel about things can make them feel more upset. But using thinking words, appealing to the left hemisphere of the brain, the rational part, can actually dampen down the emotions so they start to feel clearer in their own mind again. “What do you think about this? What do you think we should do here? When you consider this, if we rationalize this, what do we think we should do?” It’s very different from saying, “How does that feel? Does it hurt? Do these feelings hurt?” and so forth, which can exacerbate the emotional experience that someone’s having.
So knowing about these tips and techniques can enable us to become better communicators. Also, if we’re using conflict resolution, using ‘I’ statements rather than ‘you’ statements, stuff like this: rather than “you do this” or “you do that” or “you never take any notice of me” or “you always do that wrong!” The ‘you’ word is extremely threatening. But if we start a statement with ‘I’, then it’s less threatening: “I really think that perhaps there’s a better way for us to do this” is less threatening than “you never do this right!” “I think that perhaps” gives the person a chance to actually relax and to listen to what you’re saying. When we communicate, it’s no good just saying the words; we have to ensure that the person is in the right receptivity of mind to be able to take on what we’re saying to them.
Communication is a huge art and science. There are many different aspects to communicating effectively that you’ll find within this section of the article database. And the better able we are to communicate with other people, the better able we are to build relationships for the benefit of everybody.
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