Communication: First articulate, then relativize?

It's sabotage of their own reputation on a grand scale: managers who obviously let themselves go too well. Gigantic salaries, a respectable fleet of cars and escapades at parties are made public. The whole thing becomes explosive due to high losses, employees are laid off and the company is faced with the question of how its own survival can still be secured. Disputes are prominently aired in the media, and the company's image suffers. All the more so when the investment bankers exaggerate their game in the financial center.

So far, so good. In the current world, where headlines sell well and many a scandal is chased through the village like swine, some things are quickly forgotten. Usually. Homemade mistakes, no matter how absurd, disappear again one day in the fog of everyday business. But when this very bank regularly makes a name for itself with such excesses, things get quite tricky. After all, each time an incident occurs, the company's management assures the public that nothing like this will happen again. That the company would do everything in its power to ensure that such things would not happen again in the future, and that personnel consequences would be drawn. The bank regularly wanted to swear itself to a new modesty.

I'll just say this one more time...

On the one hand, this form of communication creates an expectation. On the other hand, precisely this strategy definitely becomes a communicative super-GAU when, a few months later, there are again similar excesses to be recorded, articulated and put into perspective. Only action makes communication credible. Or the non-action makes it unbelievable. This is by no means only a matter of big banks and their trained communication departments. Even a parent who tells a child three times in a row: "You must not climb this ladder - I'll tell you just once more!" not only loses credibility, but the whole affair degenerates into farce.

The logical conclusion must therefore be: If I know how to act, I know how to communicate. But hand on heart: How often does it happen that you just jump into a discussion without clearly knowing what you want? In the end, once again nothing comes of it - in the best case. In the worst case, that's exactly why credibility has suffered. "Talking about something" carries the risk of coming across as untrustworthy, i.e., not very truthful, due to the lack of tangibility of the message.

He who has not defined his goal cannot communicate

In so many companies meetings are held, of which often a large part of the participants do not quite know why one is here now and above all: why I am here right now. If I don't know, the purpose is missing and the conversation is correspondingly tepid and unsatisfactory. In the end, the discussion between the meeting room and the break room leads to the realization that "once again, that was useless. It's not even about the well-known SMART formula of a cunning meeting leader, it's about my appearance, my behavior in the meeting. This has nothing to do with the late arrival of the meeting agenda, but with the fact that I did not define my goal at that very moment.

From such experiences, well-known behavioral theses can be formulated beautifully and courageously: One should be clear, goal-oriented and yet humanly close and tangible. The demands that are made are not only high, but often have an apparent contradiction in them. At the same time, one should have an overview of everything and yet always be in the here and now.

A look at the theater world can show how credibility in communication is related and can succeed. No, it is not about playing something for the other person, but about looking at elements from theater work, with which credible characters and communication are worked on there.

Actions and content must match 

Credibility is not only created in the theater world by ensuring that any downstream actions match what is communicated beforehand. It is like the conclusion of a message when the action takes over what is said. Only then does a coherent, credible overall picture emerge. In addition, there is a key rule from stage work: no action without a goal.

Every little action, even the tiniest one, is concrete and has a goal. There is no actor who is looking for or doing anything on stage. He looks for a lost key, he admires the lamp, counts the flowers - everything has a goal, a purpose. The rest is dismissed by the director with the label "without motivation" and will never have an effect - and therefore will not get a space or a time slot on stage.

The action must have a clear goal. It must have a clear object. An action is meaningless if it is not completed or if it is performed without an objective. And it is precisely for this goal that an actor must be able to feel enthusiastic. Only actions performed with inner commitment to the goal achieve the effect one intends.

Goal, effect, motivation - then action 

The actor admires the rose lying on the floor. He picks it up because he either wants to remove it, in which case he is motivated by a sense of order. Or he has the urge to cover all traces of his ex-wife. Or he puts them in a vase because he has inner fire for beautifully designed spaces. That is the goal, the effect, the motivation that leads to the action and that makes this action credible.

If, for example, as a team leader you walk through the production rooms in the morning and shout "Good morning!" to the workforce, there are those who do this because they have read in a motivational book that you do this. But it doesn't work - at best, because at worst, such things can come across as cynical. However, those who are aware of what they are doing here, because they know what their goal is, walk through the halls differently, encounter their fellow human beings differently, as long as they stay in touch with this goal during this time.

Conclusion: Every action - no matter how small - has a goal in everyday life.

Author:
Stefan Häseli is an expert in credible communication, keynote speaker, moderator and author of several books. As a trained actor with years of stage experience, he writes entire evening programs himself. In addition, he has engagements in feature films, TV series, TV commercials and training films. He runs a training company in Switzerland. Häseli is a multiple international award-winning speaker and trainer. Communication in its different worlds and the details in language fascinate him and shaped his professional career. His professional articles and columns are characterized by subtle humor.