If you want to become more effective as a leader, more successful in meetings, or more confident while resolving conflicts, become a better communicator.

On the high end of the communication skill spectrum, you find that great leaders — like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr — are often great communicators. On the low-end, research indicates that poor communication skills can contribute to family disputes escalating to domestic violence. (Check the discussion section of this article.)

Evidence from research, experience, and anecdotal observation points to higher levels of success and satisfaction and lower levels of stress and frustration as your communication skills improve.

With that backdrop, here are four ways you can improve almost all of your communications (presented roughly in the order I suggest you follow):

1.  Learn how other people might hear, see, or interpret your messages

One concept that often surfaces in my communication workshops, is that communication comes from the Latin word that also gives us the English word common. This observation implies that communication makes ideas, thoughts, and concepts commonly understood — even if not agreed upon —  between two or more people.

In order to make ideas common, it becomes important to understand both sides of the communication. You need to understand both how your idea sounds to the other person and what the other person means with the words they use. What you say might mean something other than what you intend to the other person. What the other person says might mean, to them, something other than what you hear.

Long-time readers of my blog know that I use and recommend the DISC model as one tool for accomplishing this step. There are factors to consider other than communication style (e.g. – culture, gender, age, etc.). Still, it’s a great place to start.

The goal of this “step” is to get a clear picture of how the differences between you and the other person might affect your communication efforts.

2.  ”Observe” your perspective

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I have not yet mastered this concept. It’s really hard to do, and I’m not sure that any of us will ever truly perfect it. It’s a good goal nonetheless.

Here’s the idea, learn to step back from your first interpretation of a statement or behavior and look for how your perspective, or filter, might be affecting your response. There’s more to this one step than I can effectively cover in this post, but David Rock shares exercises you can do to build your skill in this area in Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long.

As you develop this skill, the next two steps become easier to do.

3.  Listen actively

If the goal is to make an idea common, you must work to understand the other person’s thinking before you can truly communicate. Active listening involves much more than just hearing the words. It involves total focus on what the other person is attempting to communicate. For more thoughts, you can check this post on listening skills.

4.  Get and give feedback during the communication process

It’s easy to say something and assume that the other person heard what you meant. It’s also easy to hear something and to assume that you understood what the other person meant. Until you confirm mutual understanding, you will be operating on assumptions and interpretations rather than on facts.

Well phrased questions (combined with some active listening) form the basis for effective feedback, and a mis-communication could happen in either direction. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post with some ideas for confirming that the other person understands your words the way you intended them. To confirm that you understood the other person they way that they want to be understood, you can use the questions listed here.

Frankly, communication can be difficult. We do it virtually every day, and we often do not communicate as clearly as we think or intend. One of my favorite quotes on communication (I think I have quoted it before on this blog) is by George Bernard Shaw: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

I find that I have to frequently remind myself of key communication concepts in order to apply them with any consistency. For the next week, I encourage you to consciously focus on these four ways to improve your communication and watch the positive difference they will make in your communication effectiveness and the reduction they will make in your stress and frustration levels when you interact with others.

(I recently wrote a special report that amplifies these ideas a bit and presents a five step model for better communication. You can get a copy here.)

The communication process really should be easy. You say something to another person. They hear it. They act in a way that is consistent with what you said. End of discussion.

And, it’s not quite that easy.

In reality, the process for spoken communication goes like this:

1. You get a picture in your mind of what you want to communicate.
2. You convert that picture into words, tone, and body language that describes the picture as you see it.
3. The other person hears the words and notices your tone and body language.
4. The other person converts the words, tone, and body language into a picture in their mind.
5. The other person reacts to the picture as they see it.

The reason the real process doesn’t always go as smoothly as the ideal process lies in two key phrases: “as you see it” and “as they see it.”

The challenge in communication is that we often use words, tone and body language that mean one thing to us and something very different to another person. The difference might only be small, and still it is different. As the differences get bigger they can cause major miscommunications that result in wasted time, effort, and energy. In high-stakes or emotion-charged situations, even small differences can drive the conversation in a negative direction.

One way to bridge the differences between how you interpret a message and how another person interprets the same message is to include a feedback loop – you might say an understanding check – into your communications strategies.

As I wrote before, I am not a big fan of silver-bullet, one-size-fits-all communication techniques. I think you need to consider the whole situation before you apply any specific technique or tactic.

At the same time, I think there are some phrases and approaches you can add to your repertoire in preparation for high-stakes or emotionally-charged situations so that you can respond better when you are under pressure.

The communication feedback loop is one approach that I recommend in my private coaching sessions and in the communication workshops that I lead. In my last post, I wrote about the feedback loop in terms of how to apply it to make sure that you understand others more clearly. Today, I’m offering the other side of the communication feedback loop – checking the other person’s understanding of what you said.

In many respects, this side of the feedback loop is a bit more delicate than repeating back what you heard. In this case, you are going to ask the other person to tell you what message they received from your communication effort. Done poorly, asking the other person what they heard can come across as condescending or aggressive. So, you have to work extra hard to add more words, to soften your tone, and to choose non-threatening body language to make this work.

Here are six questions you can use to make sure you have communicated effectively:

• “Would you please say what you heard me say, so I can be sure that I was clear?”
• “So that I can make sure I communicated clearly, would you please tell me what you heard me say?”
• “I just want to make sure that I am clear. Would you please tell me what you understood me to say?”
• “I’d like to make sure I said that clearly. Please tell me what you heard?”
• “I’m not sure that I am conveying my idea the best way. What have you heard me say?”
• “I may have said that in a way that does not really communicate what I’m trying to say. If I did, I’d like a chance to rephrase it. What message did you hear?”

As I suggested in my post about the Five Questions to Make Sure that You Understand Others Correctly, I offer this list as a starting point for you to develop your own. As you develop your list, remember the underlying idea – if there was a miscommunication of any kind, you take the responsibility.

I’d love to see ideas you have for other ways to check understanding. Please add them in the comments section.

Before you start looking for the right communication technique or words to use to convey an idea, you must consider three critical factors. They are not complicated. They are important. Failure to include them in your thinking, could lead to a failed communication.

Proper consideration of these three factors coupled with understanding the underlying principles of communication and conflict resolution will lead you to successful, powerful, and effective communications.

The general principles, concepts, and mindsets of effective communication are simple to say. In fact, they pretty much reduce to:

• Assume the other person has benign intent until you definitely learn otherwise.
• Communicate in ways that do not project a threat to the other person.
• Make it easy for the other person to receive your message.
• Close the loop on your communications to make sure you understood correctly and that the other person understood you correctly.

This list is probably not inclusive of every key communication principle. It does include the basic, underlying ideas for most of the techniques and approaches that I teach in workshops, help coaching clients to implement, and that I work to apply in my personal life. They are simple enough to express, and they are often difficult to apply.

Application becomes difficult because of the three critical factors I mentioned above. The foundational principles and core ideas combined with the three factors accounts for the wide range of possible communication strategies you could apply in a given situation.

The three factors are:

Your Message

In many cases, this is the first factor that most people consider, and they often consider it only from their perspective.  If stated out loud, most people’s thinking would probably sound like this: “Here’s what I want to say.”

In reality, your message has two parts:

1. The message you are attempting to deliver, and
2. The message that the other person receives.

The second part of your message – the other person’s perception of it – is at least as important as the message you intend to deliver. As you choose your approach, make sure you consider both sides of the message.

Your understanding and consideration of the next two factors significantly influences how the other person receives your communication.

Your Relationship

The nature of your relationship with the other person must figure in your thinking as you communicate with him or her. While the general principles remain the same, the specific strategy for communicating with your supervisor is different from the strategy you would use with your colleagues or with people who report to you.

If there is a power mismatch between you and the other person, it could increase the perception of threat felt by either party. Keep this in mind as you plan your communications. If you are the “superior” party, you might have to work a little harder to take any subtly implied threat out of your communications.  If you are in the “subordinate” position, you might hear threats that are not intended.

The Context

Where are you during the communication? Is it spoken or written, on the phone or face-to-face, one-on-one or in a group setting? Each of these situations – contexts – calls for a different consideration as you choose your communication tactics and techniques.

The bottom-line is this: if you are looking for silver-bullet, one-size-fits-all communication strategies – look no further. You will not find them.

Work on building your communication tool kit, develop and practice multiple approaches and phrases to use in different situations and with different people, and learn to read situations so that you can choose the best communication tool for the job. Do these things well, and you will become a remarkable communicator.

As you look for the right tool for the job in various situations, remember the three critical factors to improve your odds of success.

Communication breakdowns are a common cause for conflict, and poor communication strategies can lead to rapid escalation. Likewise, effective communication strategies can help you correct these miscommunications to move conflicts quickly towards resolution.

One idea that can help you choose the best communication strategy for the situation comes from what I call the communication continuum.

The continuum runs from passive strategies on the left to aggressive strategies on the right. In passive strategies, you communicate in a way that protects the other person’s interests at the expense of yours. Aggressive strategies represent the other extreme where you communicate in a way that protects your interests at the expense of the other person’s.

Assertive communication strategies lie in the middle. These strategies depend on approaches that protect the interests of both parties in the communication – yours and the other person’s.

Assertive communication approaches represent a range of techniques rather than a single point on the continuum. Some of the approaches lie a little to the left of middle – they are a little more passive – and other approaches lie a little to the right of middle – they are a little more aggressive. Wherever they lie on the continuum, all assertive strategies have this in common – the interests of both parties are protected. Depending on the situation, you might choose to go a little more passive or a little more aggressive within the assertive range.

Whether it sits a little left of center or a little right of center, the guiding principle behind all assertive communication techniques is that the technique allows you to effectively express your needs and concerns in a way that respects the needs and concerns of the other person.

Here are some guidelines for communicating assertively…

1. Use “I” statements.
   State your perspective as your perspective or interpretation without resorting to statements that blame the other person. For example, “You made me angry”  is aggressive while “I felt angry” is assertive.
2. Focus on behaviors.
   Avoid the desire to slip into interpretations like calling the other person rude or insensitive. Comment on their behaviors or words without labeling them.
3. Keep your responses short.
   The longer you talk, the more likely you are to slip into either passive or aggressive techniques.
4. Monitor your tone of voice and non-verbal messages.
   You can choose just the right words and ruin it with a sharp tone or aggressive posture.
5. Listen.
   Pay close attention to what they have to say as well. If you do not listen, you will become aggressive.
6. Maintain appropriate eye contact.
   Too little eye contact and you could be perceived as dishonest. Too much eye contact and you could come across as aggressive.  In most situations in North America, relatively steady eye contact with brief breaks every few seconds is probably appropriate.

Here are some ways you can apply the general guidelines to communicate assertively without slipping too far into either passive or aggressive communication:

• “When you (their behavior), I feel/felt (your feeling/interpretation).”
• “When you said/did (their words/actions), I understood that to mean (your interpretation).”
• “I see/perceive (a behavior, tone, or word choice), to mean (your interpretation).”

One of the common questions I get as I lead workshops and work with my coaching clients is:

How do I decide if a conflict is worth the effort to resolve?

I think this is a great question. Honestly, resolving a conflict can take lots of emotional energy. While I think it is generally a good idea to work with other people to productively resolve conflicts, I recognize that you do not need to invest this energy to resolve every conflict you might experience. Here are a few times when you might decide to avoid the conflict rather than work to resolve it.

• When you do not care about the long-term health of your relationship with the other person.
• When you have little concern about the outcome of the situation.
• If you are concerned that the other person will resort to physical violence if you engage in a resolution conversation with them.

I’m still thinking through other situations when it might be reasonable to avoid the conflict rather than resolve it, and I think this represents a pretty good short-list of considerations when you make the decision.

As I said, in general I suggest that conflict resolution is worth the effort even though some situations might lead you in a different direction.

I would love to see your thoughts on this topic in the comments section.

From what I could tell, he was engaged in a bit of a conflict conversation.

I could also tell that he was making a common mistake that rarely, if ever, leads to conflict resolution and almost always leads to conflict escalation. Based on the bits and pieces of conversation that I overheard, I think the person on the other end of the phone call was making this mistake as well.

The symptoms of the mistake manifested as:

• Justifying behaviors
• Explaining why he was right
• Showing the other person why he was wrong
• Rehashing what had already happened
• No focus on what to do the next time this situation occurred to make it turn out better

The root cause of the problem stems from focusing on the past rather than the future. I wrote about this challenge previously in my post about the 7 Deadly Sins of Conflict Resolution.

If you want to guarantee conflict escalation, keep revisiting the past — past statements, past actions, past reasons, past thinking, etc.

Talking about the past is like throwing out an anchor. It stops forward progress and keeps the conversation stuck in problem discussion rather than problem solving.

Problem discussion becomes negative and accusatory, if it goes on too long.

Problem solving is about finding ways to set and meet mutual expectations and how to interact with and behave towards each other so that conflicts do not recur.

If you want to productively resolve conflicts, move quickly to a future focus. Only stay in the past long enough to understand how the miscommunication or misunderstanding happened, and then look for ways you can interact with the other person in the future to stop the problem from happening again.

A little over a week ago, my wife and I drove our daughter from Indiana to Texas to begin her freshman year of college. On the return trip, we drove through Oklahoma. As is common this time of year, we encountered road construction marked with a sign similar to the one above, and I felt frustrated as I thought about the coming  delay.

We then saw another sign with additional information. The sign with additional information gave us an estimate of both the actual speed and the estimated time in minutes that we could expect to drive through the construction zone, and I felt relieved.

The actual speed was much slower than the posted speed. The estimated time we would drive in the construction zone was longer than I wanted to experience. The delay was the same, and, still, I felt relieved.

At that moment I gained a powerful insight into heading off conflicts before they start.

As I wrote previously about why your natural response to conflict is probably wrong and how conflicts escalate, we often feel angry or frustrated as conflicts get started — just as I felt frustrated when I first saw the construction signs.

In my driving situation, the frustration dissipated when I got further information. The speed I could drive and the time I would likely spend in the construction zone did not change. The delay I would  face did not change. Nothing about my experience would change.

The change in my frustration level came from knowledge about what to expect.  And that is the insight I had about heading off conflict.

When you communicate clearly about what people can expect in the future — even when they do not like what they will experience  — you will probably reduce the frustration and anger levels they feel as a result of the experience. By reducing their frustration and anger levels, you can reduce the emotional energy that they bring to their interactions with you about the issue in question. When you reduce the emotional energy, you reduce the risk that the communication will escalate to a destructive conflict.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post in the ABC’s of Life series on forgiveness. Today, I got a comment from Aled Davies with a link to a post on his blog about 5 Steps to Forgiveness.

I really liked what I read over at Aled’s blog, and it got me thinking: one of the key components I see in the 5 steps he wrote about is patience.

The patience to:

• Slow down your emotional response
• Consider that the other person might actually have a positive intention rather than a negative one
• Carefully consider what might be the other person’s perspective

I have noticed that people who are able to successfully resolve conflicts generally exercise great patience with others, with themselves, and with the process of reconciling differences. They seldom push or rush either the other person or the process, and they work to remain open to alternative explanations for events rather than assuming people meant harm by their words or actions.

While I am not always patient with others, that is my goal. As Benjamin Franklin said:

Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.

Personally, I would love to be a genius at something, and resolving conflict seems like a good, productive area to be a genius about.

Won’t you join me in pursuit of conflict resolution genius by working to exercise greater patience?

I am not always “on my game.”  Teaching conflict resolution, problem solving, interaction dynamics, and leadership skills does not make me perfect at applying them. It does make me aware, and that awareness helps me to correct my thinking more quickly. It also makes me work on practicing the skills so that I keep getting better.

And still, I have moments of insight about myself, my thinking, and my conflict approaches that are new. I’ll share a recent insight with you that I hope also helps you. First, two quick scenarios to frame the insight:

Scenario Number One:

A few days ago, a colleague of mine received a request from a customer to address a challenge, and she did not have all of the information necessary to fix the problem. As she sought information to solve the customer’s problem, she contacted a third person who she thought would have the information and authority to correct it, and she got, from her perspective, no real assistance.

Out of frustration and near desperation, she called me to see if I could offer any insights or perspective that could help her to address the customer’s issue.

As we talked through the scenario and the various techniques she could use to move the situation towards resolution, I had what my father calls “a blinding flash of the obvious”:

I could fix the problem for her!

Scenario Number Two:

I received an email from a person who had some challenges accessing information at the Bud to Boss Community for leaders. This is the community that  Kevin Eikenberry, my co-author, friend and colleague, and I launched to support readers of our book, From Bud to Boss. I really like tech stuff, like building websites, so I take care of many technical details related to that community.

As I was composing the email to let the person know how to fix her problem, I had another blinding flash of the obvious:

I could fix the problem for her!

In both cases, I entered the situation with a “Here’s the information you can use to fix your own problem” mindset. In both cases, moving to a “How can I fix this for you?” approach lead to quick resolution, clearer communication, and less conflict as I took a few immediate actions to correct the problems.

There are many situations — in coaching, parenting, and performance management for example — when the approach I started with is a better long-term answer. And, there are many situations where this approach can lead to further conflict because it fails to address the real frustration felt by the other person. Most situations have a bit of both the need for an immediate fix and some coaching about how to avoid or correct the problem in the future.

The first scenario fell in the category of having elements of both quick fix and long-term solution thinking. The second one only needed an immediate fix.

Both scenarios illustrate two key concepts to remember if you want to head-off conflicts before they start:

1. Beware of using your strengths to excess

I am logical, analytical, and relatively patient. I am good at collecting information, analyzing it, and recommending solutions to problems. I like to help other people solve their own problems so that I can equip them to better handle similar situations in the future.

That same strength, carried to excess, can sometimes stop me from taking immediate action to solve the problem and move on.

2. Ask yourself better questions

In both situations, I was initially thinking “How can I help them fix their problem?”

Somewhere in the middle of both interactions, I shifted to “How can I fix their problem for them?”

The first question probably relates to the first point I made about my strength carried to excess, and it reveals a subtle flaw in my thinking. While I wasn’t consciously thinking this way, I now realize that the first question carries a bit of  “How can I avoid getting involved so that they will go away and leave me alone?” thinking in it.

The second question is a deeper level of personal responsibility than the first. It implies personal involvement and action rather than detached analysis and suggestion.

Here are the questions I ask you to consider as you work to apply the lessons from my insights about myself:

1. Where are you using your strengths to excess so that they become a source of conflict rather than a resolution for conflict?, and
2. How can you rephrase the questions that you ask yourself so that you become an active problem solver before conflicts escalate?

Have you ever seen or been involved in a conflict conversation where one person said: “I knew that you were going to say that!”

If you have, you probably noticed that the conflict intensity escalated from that point forward.

This type of statement is aggressive. It says that how you anticipate another person will react is a forgone conclusion rather than an expectation. It leaves no room for the other person’s autonomy and self-control. It subtly places you in an intellectually and emotionally “superior” position relative to the other person.

Saying that you “know” what someone else will do or say is like saying that you can unzip his head and know what’s going on even before he does.

If you want to create more conflict and escalate the emotional level of your conversation, tell someone that you “knew” she would react however she did.

If you want to leave room for conflict resolution and effective communication, strike this type of comment from your conflict repertoire and apply these seven ways to improve your communication during a conflict.