Why You Should Talk More, Not Less

In an electronic world, we depend on it greatly to help us communicate. We text more, we talk less. We email more, we talk less. We video conference more and still talk less. In this episode, Paul Simkins, The Values Coach, shares how we can make real connections with people better when we do the opposite and talk more instead of talking less.

Plus, a recipe for a special Dutch Oven dish called Baked Native American Pudding! The recipe is from The Geezer's Cookbook  You can find the recipe, and many more, on the Smoke and Ash Facebook group or by emailing paul@BoldlyLead.com.

You can get a copy of Paul's eBook 15 Innovative Ways to Show Employees You Care and Not Break the Bank by emailing him at paul@BoldlyLead.com.

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Transcript

Producer: 0:00

The tech leaders toolbox podcast is brought to you by Paul Simkins and the Boldly LEAD program, focusing on helping tech leaders like you, and the frustration of low performing teams, and losing excellent employees, so they can increase productivity by 50%. Go home on time, and sleep better at nights.

Paul Simkins: 0:22

Hello, and welcome to the tech leaders toolbox. I'm Paul Simkins. And we're here because how you lead today determines how your team succeed tomorrow. Well, this is Episode 46 of the podcast. And you know, we live in a an electronic world, and many people are developing an extreme preference for electronic communication, they swear that it is more effective and more efficient in their day to day work. Let's take a look at why that may not really be true, and why you should look at talking more and not less. Are you ready? Let's go. You know, we have so many ways to communicate. today. Of course, there's, you know, there's email, there's Facebook Messenger, there's private messages on different social media platforms, there's texting, there's even chatting online or, or within games, I know a lot of the video game systems now have the online chatting, features. And of course, online games all have those chatting features within them. Which of those is your favorite. I've talked to many people over time. And I've asked people out on Facebook and on LinkedIn, and a lot of them say that they prefer to text. They just think texting is better my wife prefers to text, she would much rather she'll text me all the time. And it's hard to sometimes even get a phone conversation out of her on the cell phone. It's just her preference. And a lot of people feel that, again, that that's the thing of the future that everybody's going to be texting, it's much more efficient to text people, it's much more effective to text people, or to send chat message on Facebook Messenger and so forth. In fact, recent studies have shown that 77% of Americans have a cell phone, usually in the form of a smartphone. And that number is probably comparable or larger elsewhere outside of the United States of America, I know that Asia tends to be ahead of us. Back in the early 1990s, I used to travel around the Pacific Rim doing workshops, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, all around that area. And one of the things that amazed me, and again, this is back in the early 1990s. One of the things that amazed me was the fact that every man, woman and child seemed to have a cell phone. They were all walking around Nokia cell phones were bigger back then and bulkier and all that. But everybody was walking around with a cell phone. And I'm like, well, it's not like this in the United States. Why not? We're supposed to be the leaders in technology and all that. And yet, not even not even at that time, not even 50% of the people in the United States had cell phones of any kind. And yet, here I was walking around again, Hong Kong. And I'm not talking about walking along, walking around with the Hong Kong elite. I'm talking like people on the street. Your average Joe in Hong Kong, had a cell phone. His son or daughter, his wife had a cell phone, everybody had a cell his in laws had a cell phone, everybody. So that number, again, is probably even higher, elsewhere outside of the United States. And it's probably creeping up constantly here in the United States. And we tend to text more than we talk. That's some things that I've found from those recent studies, we text more than we talk much more. In fact, it's like a four to one ratio that we text more than we talk. And in fact, we tend to do most everything more than we talk Facebook Messenger, all these other platforms, email, everything, we do all of that much more than we talk on our cell phones, or even talk in person to a great extent. So almost half, would rather communicate by text, then by phone in most circumstances. And I thought again, for me, I thought that was pretty amazing. I'm not a I'm not a Luddite by any way shape or form the imagination. But I don't like to text that much. But I know lots of friends and lots of people who do like to text and that is their primary mode of communication. People are even preferring texting or social media to communicate with businesses over voice communications. That surprised me that, again, if they want support from a business, if they want to order from a business, they would prefer to text or use social media to communicate with them, rather than call up a helpline or call up a customer service line, and deal with it that way. Now, I think part of that is influenced, by the way those kinds of services have changed a lot, there's a lot of automation now, that has gone into those customer service lines, and have gone into those help lines. And so a lot of times, you're going to face some kind of a recorded filtering system, or voice bots, I even like a, we have T Mobile for our cell phone service. And we've had T Mobile now for over 17 years. And I absolutely love T Mobile. And one of the reasons we love T Mobile, is because their customer service quality is just so far superior to any of the other cell phone services. Just it's just been tremendous year after year. And, and T Mobile is great at that. And that's one of the reasons why we stick with T Mobile is because that customer service is so good. But even then, if I call T Mobile, which again, for me is my preferred mode of communicating with them. If I call T Mobile for help, I'm going to get that automated system that says, you know, if you have a question about sales, if you have a question about support, if you have you know, and, and go through all of that, and then and it keeps one a lot of the services, what to keep rerouting you to automated response systems. And I want to talk to a real person. And so almost invariably, my first voice response to any of those systems is talk to a human. And I'll just keep saying that, until they finally Connect me up with a customer service representative. And I'll just say talk to a human talk to a human. And I'll just keep doing that, because that's my preferred mode of communication. So we're talking, we're still talking. And we're talking more than ever, in some ways, but are we really communicating? And are we really connecting with people? When we're talking through text? When we're talking through email when we're talking through Facebook Messenger or chat systems? Are we really communicating and connecting with people? As much as we need to? Well, recently, I read one study that suggests Well, no, we're not. And in fact, this study was released just this year. And it was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. And in fact, suggest that perhaps we're fooling ourselves with all of this when we think that we're being more efficient and more effective with our communications, when we're using electronic ways of communicating when we're using the texting and the emails, and, and again, even email really is kind of dwindling down. It's mostly text and messenger and chat systems. The researchers who did this study found that over all, we undervalue voice communication and in person communication. We undervalue it, which means we don't we don't think it's as effective, basically. And they found that from that today, that's what they found is we tend to undervalue voice and in person communication. Another thing they found, which I thought was interesting, was that communications involving voice, however, led to less awkwardness and communication, and better connection overall. And this is why I started off by saying, you really need to think about talking more and not less. Even with all of these other forms of being able to communicate with people. We a lot of times we don't want to communicate by voice because we anticipate the awkwardness of the conversation. If we have to talk about something sensitive with someone, or we want to call a customer service line and complain, we think it's going to be an awkward communication. And so we try to avoid that by using one of these other forms of communication. Well, what this study found was actually, the awkwardness did not increase When we use voice communication over other forms of communication, in fact, in some cases decreased. So the whole conception that it's going to be awkward if we do voice, well, it didn't really happen that way. It wasn't any more awkward, and in some cases less awkward. But from my standpoint, what I thought was even more important, and more critical, was the fact that we made better communication, or better connection, overall, with voice communication than we did when we were using text or chat or anything like that. And I think there's some very strong reasons for that, that we made better connections with voice. Part of that is, is because there's a lot of things that go into our voice, that you simply cannot put into a text message, or a chat message somewhere. And think about this. Think about how many times you have misunderstood someone's intent in a text message, or a chat, and how many times that has happened. And the reason that happens is because all you get are the words, even when they add emojis, it is still not as effective. as what we get out of the change in tone, the change in volume, the change in how people say words, the words they emphasize, again, the emotion behind the voice, the volume, the pace, all of that affects how we comprehend, and connect with what someone is saying. So when we're presented with just the words, even when emotion even when emojis are included in that we don't connect with the meaning is much. And so therefore we don't connect with the person as much as we do when we're using voice communications. So in other words, if you really want to connect with people, they need to hear your voice. A lot of times, they not only need to hear your voice, but they need to see you as well. And one of the reasons why I love to do the podcast, one of the reasons why I like to do videos, and record a lot of stuff is because I connect with people much better when they can see me. And they can hear me, I used to write a blog regularly, I still once in a while, we'll put a blog post out there. But I was really faithful about blogging for a while and, and one of the problems I had with blogging was that the content people just I had a harder time connecting with people. Because it was hard for me to put the passion and the emotion behind the words when I was writing them on paper. And it's much easier for me to do that when I'm simply talking. And they can see and hear my voice and and see how I changed the tone and the pace and the inflection and so forth. Now, the pandemic has exasperated this problem with dependence on electronic communication and an even video conferencing, video conferencing like zoom has replaced the face to face contact that we have. And even in many cases replace telephone calls for voice communication that instead of saying oh, I'll call you they'll go I'll send you a zoom conference notice, right? And here's the thing is that sounds great in a town to a lot of people with zoom with these video conference services. And of course, they seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Now everybody's got a video conferencing solution. Many of them, of course exist have existed for a long, long time, but a lot of new ones as well. And they're all coming out of the woodwork and everybody's predicted that work is never going to be the same. That we're now all going to work from home full time. We're going to depend on video conferencing for everything. But there's some evidence that shows that maybe that's not so. In fact, I tend to believe it's not so because people still want a human connection. And is helpful as video conferencing is it's just not the same. It's not the same as an in person human connection. And again, there's some recent studies done during the pandemic. To test this out, suggesting that we are quickly growing weary of video conferencing, that a lot of people, you know, again, when you're booked in zoom calls all day long, you get sick and tired of it after a while. And I can go off on a rant for a moment, I'll make it a quick rant, I swear, if you're running a video conference meeting, or any kind of a conference meeting, you need to be on there early, not right on the dot, you need to be there early. Because there are people out there, like me, for example, who tend to go to meetings early to make sure that everything's working right. And that we can start on time. And that things can be done quickly and efficiently. And we can get the job done. Well, again, if the host is not on the line early, then nobody else can get connected early in most cases. And you end up starting the meeting late because you're not ready. And that's not considerate of other people's time. So if you're a host of a any kind of a video conference or online meeting, you need to be on there, at least five to 10 minutes early, preferably 15 minutes early. And there's a lot of pre meeting stuff that can be done as well during the time like that. So says there's something to think about and that rant over, but beyond be early for your meetings, not just on time. All right, so going back, so So again, we're getting tired of video conferencing, we still want that face to face. It's your voice that matters. The same study that had people that had people conduct the same study that I talked about earlier, that suggests that we undervalue voice and in person communication, what they had what they did a long as another part of the studies, they had people conduct meaningful conversations, not just small talk, like how's the weather and all that, but probing questions, they had to conduct meaningful conversations with others, by texting on real time chat. And then another group by talking with audio only, and another group using video conferencing. So they tried it three different ways with the people in the study. And two things really stood out from the results of the study. One was that concerns about voice being more awkward, did not prove out. And I mentioned that earlier, it was the same no matter how they communicated. All three, audio only video conferencing, real time chat, same level of awkwardness in the communication. But the sense of connection was greater with voice communication, even greater than seeing them on video. In a video conference chat, it's the voice that matters. So with our team members and our employees, there are ways we can facilitate a better connection with them, even during the pandemic. And most especially going forward. Now I want to share with you four ways that you can do that, that are going to be helpful to you. And these are things you can apply right away. And I highly recommend you do this. And the first thing is you want to make your weekly one on ones by telephone, instead of by video or chat. It needs to be a telephone call, until such a time as you can be in person. And again, if you have the capability to be in person, be in person. But until then do it by telephone, not by video or chat. So that's number one. Number two, be mindful of your tone, your volume, your strength of voice. A lot of times, especially more charismatic leaders. Because of my personality, I my voice tends to come out real strong. And I have to be very careful to tone it down. Because I come out really overpowering to people and it's sometimes a little intimidating. And it's not at all my intent. But I tend to come on a little strong. So I have to be mindful of my tone, the volume of my voice and the strength of my voice when I'm saying something and if I'm saying something that is meant to be guiding somebody, or being corrected for something that is a small thing and not a big thing, I need to be careful of the way I say that because I can make that come across as if it's a big deal, or that I'm really angry or upset with them. And so you need to be mindful of your tone, your volume and the strength of your voice. And then number three, is you need to avoid words that are absolute, especially in situations where you're having to speak in a more what we call crucial conversations, or a more critical conversation with someone where you need to talk about something that happened, something that went wrong, something they may have done wrong, or, or perhaps they're, you're having an issue with their performance or their reliability or something like that, when you need to have those concrete kinds of conversations. You want to avoid words that are absolute words. Now, what do I mean by that those certain words such as always, always is an absolute word, you're always late. Well, is that really true? Are they late every single time? In most cases, that's not true. You always miss your deadline. Is that really true? Never is another absolute word. If you never do what I tell you to do, you never listen. You never treat the customers well avoid those kinds of words, because first of all, 99 and 44 100 of the time, they're not true. Secondly, those kinds of words, but is another absolute word because is another absolute word. In some cases, or is an absolute word, because it tells you that there's only two options. Avoid those kinds of absolute words. Because what they do is they put people on the defensive. And once you put them on the defensive, your possibility for communicating effectively with them is greatly diminished, perhaps even eliminated. So avoid the absolute words. And then finally, instead, this is number four, choose words that suggest connection. Because what we want out of these communications is we want relationship. We want engagement. Remember, is real. One of my favorite quotes from my one of my mentors, john Maxwell is leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand. So especially when you're going to ask for someone's assistance on someone, you've got to reach them first, you got to have a connection. So you want relationship you want engagement. So words that suggest connection words like

Unknown: 23:08

Yes. Yes. And

Paul Simkins: 23:14

in fact, I use and a lot of times, and it's also a great way of correcting people, instead of saying, well, you gave a really good presentation. But right, what happens is when they when you say but nobody hears anything after that, they turned it off. So instead, you say, you gave a really good presentation. And I think it would be even better if you did this and see how that sounds a little bit different. So and is a great connector word?

Unknown: 23:46

If

Paul Simkins: 23:49

so, like you ask somebody, well, how do you think we can solve this problem? I'm not sure. Well, if you were sure. What would you suggest? Right? Help is another positive connection word, I need your help. I want to choose to call to love two are all great connection words. Here's a great one. And it's so easy to use. Thank you. Thank you is great connection word. And the best connection word in the world is their name and use their name. They have an identity and it's attached to that name and use their name when you speak with them. And that shows real connection. So those are the four things. Make your weekly one on ones by telephone by either in person or by telephone. Be mindful of your tone, volume and strength of voice. Avoid the absolute words and choose words that suggests connection, because we want relationship and we want engagement. So talk more, not less, even during the pandemic. And even going forward, no matter how much more we depend on electronic communication. We'll be back in a moment.

Producer: 25:21

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Paul Simkins: 25:49

All right, I have a great recipe for you this week as those of you who have listened regularly know one of my favorite things to do is cooking outdoors grilling, smoking with I have a nice little side firebox, smoker, Dutch ovens, I do a lot of cooking on Dutch ovens and over and over open fires because I camp a lot. And so I always like to in fact, I love doing this kind of stuff so much. I've actually created a Facebook group called smoke and ash. And on the smoke and ash Facebook group, me and all of my friends, we compare recipes, we compare techniques, ideas, we share pictures of our cookers and all that and talk about different things out there, we'll have trivia questions. And I'll throw a lot of stuff out there during the holidays and other times of the year that we all discuss and have fun. And it's a great easy going, no judgement, whether you're a neophyte to this, whether you're brand new to outdoor cooking, or whether you've been doing it for years, there's a place for you there. And I invite you to come and join us on Facebook, and it's called smoke and ash, the smoke and ash Facebook group. But during the show, I always like to share an outdoor cooking recipe with you now most of the recipes I share, you can also do indoors. And that includes the one I'm going to share today, you can easily do this indoors if you want to do it to Dutch oven recipe. So you could use a indoor Dutch oven if you want and do this in your oven in your kitchen. Or you can do this outside over hot coals with a traditional outdoor Dutch oven. And this is Baked Native American Pudding. That's the name of it. And this is I got this from a book. I've shared recipes from it before called the geezer cookbook. And it's by a guy named Dwayne Pritchett. And he was a big time camper. And so all these are camping recipes. And so this one is a pretty tasty one. You'll like it, it's got a good sweet flavor to it. I think you'll really enjoy it. So here's what you could do to make Baked Native American Pudding. You need a quarter cup of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon, a half a teaspoon of ground ginger, quarter teaspoon of salt, quarter teaspoon and nutmeg, about four cups of milk and a half a cup of yellow cornmeal, a half a cup of raisins and then you're also going to need a half a cup of pancake syrup or some other kind of syrup. Maple Syrup would be great here. Two tablespoons of butter or margarine softened, and about two eggs beaten up. So what you're going to do is you're going to preheat the Dutch oven. It'll work much better that way and I recommend lining the Dutch oven. And what I like to do is line them with parchment paper because it makes for a really easy cleanup. So you preheat your Dutch oven, and then you're going to line it and you're going to take the dry ingredients I talked about the sugar, the cinnamon, the ginger, the salt, the nutmeg, take them all put them in a small bowl, mix them up real good and set it aside. Then get a saucepan and you're going to heat the milk in the saucepan and then stir in the cornmeal. And then you're going to cook that over low heat, stirring it constantly because with this, especially with the milk if you don't stir it constantly, the milk is going to bake in and stick to the bottom of the pan. So you're going to stir it constantly until it gets thick, real thick. It's gonna take about 20 minutes. Then take it off the heat and mix in the dry ingredients that you had earlier. And then also you're going to mix in the raisins and the pancake syrup and the butter and the two beaten eggs and mix all that together. And then you're going to grease a baking pan. Now what I do if I'm doing this outdoors with the Dutch oven, is I'm going to find those aluminum foil the disposable aluminum foil baking pans. grease it on the inside. And I'll pour the mixture into that. And then you're going to use in the Dutch oven, you're going to want to put a spacer down below they make these, like trivets or something or a spacer, you can put in the bottom of the Dutch oven so that you get good air circulation. If you were doing this in your oven at home, then you could just bypass the Dutch oven and just kind of put it into a baking dish and stick it in the stick it in the oven. So again, you're going to pour your ingredients into the baking pan, place that inside of your Dutch oven. And then you're going to go ahead and put your coals on it. So that you want to bake it at about 350 to 375 for about an hour, or until it's puffed up in the middle. And if you stick a knife in, it comes in comes out in the center, it comes out clean. So again, about 350 to 375 for about an hour. And you're going to want to serve that warm. And you could optionally like have whipped cream or Cool Whip or something like that on the side to go with it. But that's it. It's baked Native American pudding. Now if you like that recipe, I always put these recipes out on that smoke and ash Facebook group. And you can go out and get it there. If you ask to join and be a part of our group out there. If you're not a big Facebook fan, no problem, send me an email Paul at boldly lead.com. And I'll be glad to send you a copy of the recipe. Alright, so this week, we talked about how you should talk more and not less if you want to make real connection and real engagement with your people. Because it's your voice that matters. Hey, you know, we do this podcast for free, I don't sell advertising or anything on it. I do it because I want to add value to you. And I want to add value to as many people as I can. So I want to ask a favor of you. You know, if you're listening to this podcast on an app like Apple podcast, or Google podcast or Stitcher or Spotify or anything like that, can I ask you to do a favor do two things. Number one, leave us a five star review. Because again, people look for those reviews, and they want to know whether they're getting a quality podcast. So leave us a five star review, and share the podcast with your friends so that we can bring more people into the fold here and build our audience. Well, that's about all we have for this week, though. So again, be sure to subscribe, be sure and review the podcast. Also, we have a Facebook group for the podcast called the tech leaders toolbox, where we kind of extend the discussion about the things we talked about on the podcast episodes and you're welcome to join us out there. Again, that's it for this week. Until next time, go out and be the leader you were meant to be!