We live, work, love, and socialize in a climate where people don’t say what they mean-even with the best of intentions. The following conversation unfolded between two managers at a seminar I was leading.

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	Dianna Booher

“I can’t put off the decision any longer-I have to give the president an answer tomorrow about taking over the operations in Germany.”

“Why would you turn it down? It’d be a great experience for your kids. Only two years there. Then you’d come back here and have any job you wanted for the next twenty years.”

“It’d be great if it were just my wife and me. But I’d have to move our two youngest kids, my mother-in-law, and our granddaughter.”

“The company wants you there, right? Did they give you a choice?”

“I think so-I mean, I think I have a choice. I guess that’s what I’ll try to determine in the meeting tomorrow with the president. He did ask me if I wanted the job.”

“They don’t ask. If you don’t take this assignment, it’ll be your last shot at the executive suite.”

The manager with the pending meeting pondered his predicament: what had the president meant? Take it or leave it? Or, take it and love it?

Sometimes people keep their conversations purposely vague to avoid conflicts or hurt feelings. If someone asks, “Hey, how do you like my new office?” you’re not likely to say, “If I had to look at this color paint all day, it’d make me puke.”

Families are no different. They often value polite conversations during holiday weekends over direct discussions of serious issues. Some couples land in divorce court because neither can discuss straightforward feelings for fear of defensiveness from their spouses. The longing for harmony outweighs the importance of honesty.

To some extent, tact and evasion make civilization and camaraderie possible. But purposeful evasion, as a rule, over time-where harmony is valued above honest communication-destroys trust, erodes morale, and lowers productivity in the workplace.

Six Communication Styles That Create Either Paranoia or Productivity

Leaders typically fall into one of six patterns of communicating, and that pattern largely contributes to the communication climate of the whole team. Some styles are far more effective than others.

1. Give and Let Live. Leaders who use this style send out lots of information in all directions to everybody in the organization-regardless of whether it’s tailored, relevant, or applicable to others’ interests or needs. Their mindsets: I’ve done my job in sending the information-let them figure out if they want to know what it all means.
   
   
2. Sell and Compel. Leaders who use this approach identify a few key themes, sell their points of view, and compel others to see the wisdom of their strategies and buy into their goals.
   
   
3. Align and Redefine. These leaders listen for misunderstandings, continue to correct those who get “out of line,” and redefine their goals. They rally the troops and ask them to “align” around those few core issues.
   
   
4. Reply and Deny. For the most part, these leaders play hide-and-seek and are seldom seen by rank-and-file employees and customers. They listen to the grapevine for questions, concerns, or complaints and then reply and confirm or deny rumors.
   
   
5. Control and Scold. Leaders who use this approach withhold information in an attempt to control what happens. They scold employees, suppliers, and strategic partners, causing them to behave like dysfunctional family members. People pout, become jealous, backstab, become territorial, lie, tattle, play favorites, argue, withdraw, and generally work against each other.
   
   
6. Share and Compare. Leaders with this mindset communicate information and their conclusions drawn about that information: their visions, goals, strategies, and initiatives. They ask for and listen to input from others before setting all decisions, policies, and plans in stone. Then they keep their ears to the ground for necessary course corrections as new information, better ideas, and varied viewpoints surface. They make as much effort to hear as to be heard, and they encourage other people to talk to each other about best practices.
   

Any one of the first five styles may limit a leader’s effectiveness and people’s productivity. Take a culture that values harmony above all else, stir in an ineffective communication style of leaders, and you have a recipe for dysfunction, desperation, and duplicity. By contrast, direct communication embraces rather than evades the truth, involves clear words, and focuses on the facts. That kind of communication increases productivity while eliminating the paranoia that vexes and perplexes many people.

About the Author

Dianna Booher works with organizations to increase their productivity and effectiveness through better oral, written, interpersonal, and cross-functional communication.

As a prolific author of 43 books (21 on communication), she has published with Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, Warner, Random House, and McGraw-Hill. Her latest books include:

• The Voice of Authority: 10 Communication Strategies Every Leader Needs to Know
  
  
• Speak with Confidence®: Powerful Presentations That Inform, Inspire, and Persuade
  
  
• E-Writing: 21st-Century Tools for Effective Communication
  
  
• Communicate with Confidence®: How to Say it Right the First Time and Every Time
  
  
• From Contact to Contract: 496 Proven Sales Tips to Generate More Leads, Close More Deals, Exceed Your Goals, and Make More Money
  
  
• Your Signature Work®: Creating Excellence and Influencing Others at Work
  

Several have been selections by major book clubs: Book of the Month, Money, Macmillan, Newbridge, Writer’s Digest. Her works have been published in 25 foreign editions.

Good Morning America, CNN, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes.com, NPR, CNBC, Fox Family Network, and Bloomberg have interviewed her for critical opinions on workplace communication.

Clients of her communication training and consulting firm, Booher Consultants, include IBM, MCI, Dell, AMR, Bristol Myers Squibb, Siemens Medical, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Lucent Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, Frito-Lay, JCPenney, Deloitte & Touche, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Principal Financial Group, State Farm Insurance, Nokia, Verizon, BP, Shell Oil, ConocoPhillips, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Federal Reserve Banks, NASA, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Senate.

In addition to national awards on training products, Dianna has received the highest awards in the professional speaking industry, including induction into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame®. She has also been named one of the “21 Top Speakers for the 21st Century” by Successful Meetings magazine. She has spoken to corporate audiences on six continents.

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