Here at Critical Skills Nonprofit, we love to think about leaders who have influenced us. One thing is certain about memorable leaders: They have style. Leadership style may be memorable, but it doesn’t replicate easily.
Not Punny
Puns and other elaborate wordplays stop conversations cold. Puns seldom add levity to conversations, but they almost always add awkwardness.
Wordplay and puns, like “Shanks for the memories,” “The Big Crapple,” and “To Glee or not to Glee, that is the question” may sound funny in your head, but when wordplay hits a conversation, the result is almost always awkwardness and hesitation—not laughter—for two reasons.
Calm After the Storm
Effective communicators know how to restore peace and harmony following conversations that go poorly. Negative incidents can do serious relational damage and make future conversations even more challenging. To recover from conversational trouble and protect against lasting damage to your
Special Delivery
For important conversations, a smooth delivery matters. Jerky and discombobulated communication in strategic conversations diminishes your overall chances of success. To smooth out your delivery in important interactions, follow five conversational delivery tips.
Delivery Tip #1: Practice your delivery if the conversation matters.
Replicate the conditions of your future conversation as much as possible and rehearse for important conversations. If you can’t replicate the conditions exactly, don’t skip a rehearsal. For a smooth delivery, you must speak your words out loud, and not just say them in your head. The benefit of hearing your own words cannot be overstated—the ear, after all, is the final judge of smoothness. Almost everything sounds good in your head, but almost nothing comes out smoothly the first time. Get your first time out of the way in practice.
Sometimes, Playing Dumb is Smart Communication
It is fitting in light of the recent death of Peter Falk, who played a bumbling homicide detective in the 1970s television series Columbo, to discuss the upside of playing dumb. As Columbo, Falk would lull criminals into a false sense of security by playing dumb so he could trip them up and prove that they committed the crime he was investigating. Just like on TV, playing dumb can sometimes be a smart communication strategy.
Smart communicators sometimes play dumb to serve the larger purpose of maintaining interpersonal harmony. Sometimes people simply say foolish things, and when you hear something in a conversation that is best left alone, playing dumb can be an excellent strategy.