In his book “You don’t know how to communicate”, Nicolas Gadeyne tells stories and gives advice on how to communicate as well as possible. We have selected ten to keep in mind.
“You don’t know how to communicate with others, and the worst thing is that you don’t even realize it…” Nicolas Gadeyne’s preamble is severe. But it is only to better unfold his remarks with humor. A former policeman who became a web project manager following health problems, he decided to write this book during a period when personal development helped him. After reading a lot of books, he decided to write one. In “You don’t know how to communicate!” (self-published) he decided to share what he has learned over the past few years from the character of Bobby and imaginary situations.
1- Listen to the other
“There is listening and hearing. To hear is to hear noise, whereas in listening there is the intention to listen to the other person. Sometimes we are not really present for our interlocutor… However, the dialogue is done by two!”
2- Ask questions
“Sometimes we find ourselves talking, talking, talking and finally we take control of the conversation without being two to discuss. To dialogue does not mean to talk about oneself, but to listen to what the person has to say on his or her side in order to build a real exchange.
3- Keep it simple
“When you have to explain or give an instruction, you tend to forget that the people in front of you don’t necessarily know the technical jargon. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the person you are talking to in order to simplify things, and why not go into more detail afterward?
4- Being available
“We come back to listening: you have to be available for your colleagues, to be there for people, it’s part of communication. Arriving late or staying glued to the phone is not very respectful.
5- Managing personal pressure
“Emotions play a big role in communication because when you are angry, for example, it becomes complicated to communicate simply. Let’s admit it: something happened at work, if we come home in the evening at the end of our rope and our partner, our child or a friend makes a comment, we can “go crazy” and get angry at the wrong person. Learning to manage your emotions, especially negative ones, is important to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.
6- Be honest about your requests
“I find that we tend to beat around the bush. If you need to go and see your boss ask for a morning off, you have to take the bull by the horns and ask clearly by expressing your need. You have to dare to ask, without rounding off the angles or imagining how the person will react. If you have a sick child, in the workplace, for example, you don’t always dare to ask for time, although managers are generally understanding. Sometimes, we make a world of trouble for nothing.”
7- Give thanks
“Thanking is part of respecting others. Expressing gratitude to others is important. For example, a colleague gives me a helping hand with a file, it’s the least I can do to say “thank you”. Having thoughtfulness (gift, coffee, etc.) should not replace the expressed “thank you”, which is not only a norm but one of the bases of communication.”
8- Accepting the other
“We all have qualities and faults. All of us. With our ways of being and thinking. And we have to accept that with what the other person is, not what we want him to be. Flaws are part of the game and trying to understand how a person works helps to avoid headaches since we can minimize the reactions in front of us if we don’t like them.”
9- Communicate with gestures
“In everyday life, we don’t necessarily use gestures to communicate. However, for example, in a professional environment, it is really interesting to use the body and gestures to support what we say and be better understood.
10- Do not judge
“It is very complicated and we all judge people because we have different values, different cultures, different religions or different educations. But opening your mind and realizing that just because I think one way doesn’t mean I’m right, or realizing that the other person may think differently because they have a different culture, allows you to listen better. Without giving them the right, we can try to think that everything is not black or white.”
