In this episode of the CEO Podcast, Scott and Vince focus on communication in the workplace, emphasizing its significance, particularly in the context of organizational structure and culture. Scott De Long, an expert in communication, highlights the importance of listening to understand, rather than merely replying, showcasing empathy and creating connections. They delve into techniques like paraphrasing, asking clarifying questions, and recognizing commonalities to foster understanding. Vince Moiso shares personal experiences of improving communication, emphasizing the impact on relationships and successful outcomes. They conclude by discussing email etiquette and the hierarchy of communication, emphasizing face-to-face interaction as the most effective, followed by video calls and then phone conversations, with email serving primarily to disseminate information or memorialize conversations. The conversation ends with anticipation for a continuation in part two due to the depth and significance of the communication topic.
Transcript | Season 1, Episode 2
Vince Moiso
Welcome to the CEO Podcast. I’m Vince Moiso. And I’m here with Scott De Long. Today, we will talk about communication, specifically communication in the workplace. We’re going to discuss everything from email etiquette to how to improve communication across an entire organizational structure and how that impacts culture. Now, I have some background because, you know, Scott, here, is a Ph.D., and communication is at the top of his list of what he’s an expert at. We’d like to spend a few minutes just to get the background on all the work that you’ve done around communication.
Scott De Long
We do a series of courses that we take in small groups, and we teach communication within a corporate environment. We did that with your company, as well. Basically, what we deal with in communication is how people communicate with each other and how to take responsibility for your part of the communication. Probably the most important portion of communication is the listening skills that we try to teach. And listening is a little bit different than, you know, there’s. There are typical listening skills where you say nod and Mirim and paraphrase. And all of that’s important, no question about it. But there’s more to it than that. And it goes back to what Stephen Covey talks about. I know you like Covey. And that is listening to understand, as opposed to listening to reply, which is what most of us do. Here’s how that works. I meet somebody new in a setting, and it doesn’t matter what the setting is. And they start talking to me about their interests. And I immediately jumped in because I wanted to make a connection with them. And they say, oh, yeah, I’ve been to Costa Rica too. And I start this and get in. And all I’ve done is deflate that conversation because the guy or gal, whoever I’m talking to, didn’t even get into their story. And then I stepped on him. So, I’m listening to replies with good intentions. My intentions were to make a connection. But what I really did was push them further away because I wasn’t spending the time hearing them. Right. Listening to replies is a big portion of it. More than that, though, is that listening to understand creates a sense of empathy, with people getting to know who they are from their point of view. I’ve got a saying that I use all the time: communication is what they hear and understand, not what I say; there have been situations where you get into a group of people working for you, right? And you say, Okay, here we go. Given A, B, C, D, E, and F, you’re really clear in your communication. Does anyone know what I mean? Right? And they all nod their heads because they know what you mean. Now they know what they heard. A week later, the report comes in, and there are six different versions of what you meant. And from your point of view, I was, well, they were clear on what they heard, as well.
Vince Moiso
I spent half my career, Scott, making that very, very mistake as a leader, you know, just assuming that everybody understood exactly what I was saying; I know I did. Right, and never realizing that they heard their version of what I said. Hence, it’s important to have people repeat back to you what they heard. So you know that you’re in alignment, and I practice that daily. And I can’t tell you how many times I created false expectations myself. But I can’t tell you how many times where I was just disappointed. I was disappointed in the report that came back to me, the things that came back to me, and what I was so miserable, right, just in this constant state of disappointment and not understanding what the source of the
Scott De Long
So here’s something else that I learned, and this was a long time ago that I learned this: when everybody else looks wrong, it might not be them. What’s my part of this? And as you said, get in the pair, have to repeat what it is that you said but not to parrot it, not to say the exact words. You want to hear a paraphrase to make sure that they’ve understood you in their language. And that gives you an opportunity to say exactly or not quite what I meant was right so that you get their understanding and their feeling. So, I think that the paraphrasing portion is really important. But what’s more important is here I am talking, but what’s really cool or needs to find out what the other person is thinking. Find out and listen to them. Yeah, listening is so much more important than talking in most cases, right? That’s two ears and one mouth, so you don’t listen twice as much as you speak. I need to practice that a little more myself. But that’s a big part of it.
Vince Moiso
So, I had a code coach who challenged me. At the time, I was going into a meeting with two of the assistant athletic directors of the University of San Diego, and I was pitching the launch of what is now the Terrero Football Club. Okay, so this was many years ago at this point. And I was building basically a booster club for the program that never existed before. But you know, there are a lot of nuances when you’re dealing with academia. As you know, we’ve had this conversation, but it’s different.
Scott De Long
It’s all politics; this is different from what we’re used to.
Vince Moiso
Here’s what my coach said: You need to sit down and just listen. You’re going to state what you want to do, you’re going to listen, and then this is what he said; you can only repeat or paraphrase what you hear. You’re not going to object; you’re not going to give them some other solution. You’re not going to listen to Saul, listen to respond, you’re not going to do any of that. You’re just going to listen. And then, when you feel like it’s the moment that you’re done, you’re simply going to respond with a paraphrase of exactly what you heard. I thought he was crazy. I told him on the phone, you’re out of your fucking mind. And I know I use that word appropriately right here. So, I’m going to recommend a direct quote. So yeah, I went into this meeting with so much anxiety. Scott, I’d never done that before. And I thought this meeting was going to be a total bust. However, I was game to follow what my coach’s advice was. And I did exactly that. At the end of the meeting, they said, Well, great. Let’s schedule with everybody involved next week so we can get this thing off the ground. That’s how it ended. I stood up, and I thought to myself, this is the craziest lunch meeting I think I’ve ever had; I got in the car. I called my coach. I said, I don’t know what Jedi mind trick I just pulled. But I did exactly what you said; I never solved for anything and didn’t have to sell anything. I didn’t sell anything. I just listened. I just responded by paraphrasing and making sure we were in alignment with what I heard. And at the end of it, I reached an agreement that we were going to move forward with a true football club. And to this day, I’m sitting there. I still can’t tell you how that happened. It was magic. It was magic.
Scott De Long
There’s actually science on how that happened. And it’s, I say, science, but it’s really a simple human thing. People want to feel like they’re being heard. Dr. Mark Gholston talks about how people want to feel felt, right? If you can do that, if you can make people feel heard and understood, that is your instant connection. It’s amazing how fast you can build that connection, that trust and Respect, and all those other things that end up coming from that. There’s another technique: instead of just paraphrasing, there’s another thing that you can do to really let people know that you’re listening to them. And that’s asking clarifying questions about something that they’re saying. And not just one question but multiple questions. You know, the concept of the five whys, if you’ve ever heard that, which is, you know what, when somebody brings you something into the doctor, or Captain Jack Sparrow from Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean, then the issue is not the issue, the issue is your understanding of the issue something along, right, because the thing I bring you is really not it. But it really comes from something more deep-seated. If somebody tells you something you pick, pick out the keyword in what they’re telling you. You can tell the keyword because of their animation or their facial reaction or something; you can even see what an emotional connection to a word within that is. Ask somebody a question about that word. We want to get to the why. Right? You want to you want to get to why without asking why. Remember, it makes you sound like you’re being if you ask somebody why. So, I use an acronym called Ted. Tell, explain, or describe. That’s what the acronym stands for. So, how do you use that? So you can get to a story. You can get somebody to tell you a story by asking by saying, well, that’s really interesting. Tell me more. Tell me more about Judy Smith; tell me whatever they were talking about. Right? So that’s a good way of getting to the why they will tell you a story. The E is for explanation. You can use this one. You can say well, help me understand it. Can you explain to me how that would work in the real world? Or describe, hey, describe a scenario where that has happened to you before, right? Each one of those statements or questions sounds like a statement; it’s really a question; we’ll get them to tell you another story. And that story will be a level deeper than the original story that they told you. Yeah. And then find something in that second story and say, again, tell me more?
Vince Moiso
Well, doesn’t that go to, you know, Carnegie’s book, right, How to Win Friends and Influence People? He just talks about when, you know, people want to talk about themselves, people want to tell their story. And if you express genuine interest in what they have to say, and you truly listen, and you ask the clarifying questions, as you just described, wow, I mean, you’re just going to get deeper on that relationship, your communication is only going to improve I know, I, both you and I know this, because we put it both into practice. It’s not it’s not just a thing we teach. And the coach is this thing that we practice every single day; I practice it in my relationships with my wife, with my daughters, with my employees, with my friends, with my mom, my siblings, I mean, just anywhere I can do that. I’ve radically changed in probably the last five years, especially since it’s radically changed my relationships. So multiple things
Scott De Long
happen. One, you get more information by asking them from their point of view; that information can help you frame your next sales pitch or attack, or debate. Having that information from their point of view and understanding what’s important to them helps you with your case. But more than that, it helps with relationships when they feel felt they feel that you care, and care is what is what matters to people. They want to know that you care whether you’re a leader, whether you’re a husband, whether you know a child, it doesn’t matter. People want to know you care,
Vince Moiso
builds a high level of trust. No question. Well, you’ve, you know, you teach on this regularly. It’s something that you’ve built out; you’ve built what I consider to be just a top-notch course around communication. Obviously, I brought you into my own business, and you’ve worked with several of our employees, specifically with the sales group, as well as others. And I think you’ve done the communication course a couple of times. Then, you went for several weeks where you had the weekly meetings, and then you worked with some key managers. And I can tell you that the positive results from that communication have become a cornerstone of what we discuss every month, so when we go on to our one page, and we’re reviewing it, we’re doing our monthly Strategic Plan sessions. Communication is the first thing we start with; this is what we asked the entire group to rank from one to 10; right now, how is communication in this business? And we want to hold, and if somebody says it’s a six or a seven, then we just dive in, why is it a six or a seven, what exactly is going on, and then it becomes a priority. And it goes on there as a goal or a task, and there are some things in this department or wherever that need to change as a result of that. I mean, really, communication is to the point that without it, we’re not doing the things that we’re doing successfully right now.
Scott De Long
So here’s the problem with communication or saying your communication: We all think we communicate well. Yeah, we just do. It’s easy. We talk, they listen, we’re communicating. And the fact of the matter is, we really don’t. We don’t communicate well; there are so many misunderstandings. I was just working with a couple of people from another organization. And these two people couldn’t stand each other like they couldn’t stand in the same room. They were new to each other, and they couldn’t stand each other. So we tried to find out what the problem was. Well, she said this, and she said that, and this is probably some minor little, tiny thing that just didn’t hit right on time that spiraled into something that was just negative, right? So you got to reverse that. And how do you reverse that as you get people to recognize that that’s a human being you’re talking to, oh, they care? They care about the company; they care about their families, they care about whatever it is, just like you, so in this case, what we did was I hadn’t beach this was really I had never tried this before. I had a beach write a separate list of the things that you believe you have in common with this other person. Right? Neither of us have kids. We both made it to a vice president there, and they started with two or three things that were okay. I’d rather uncommon, so I didn’t go back and do it again. And then they got more things; they started going down more and more and more. And we got down to it. So, so cool, because it got down to you to have more in common than you have in difference. The only difference that you have is your style. Your style is communication. One of them even put it on their list, and I ate this since we’re not talking about who it is one of them put even put on their list; we both have great fashion sense and had nothing to do with business; it had nothing to do with families, they she liked the way the other girl dressed. Right. And she takes pride in herself on that thing. And fine, there’s another thing we have in common. So it goes back to this, we’ve talked about this in the past, this circle of trust that’s developed, and we’ll talk about trust later. But there are two, three of the four components of that the one is to be with Respect for and not the Respect is earned another respect that says, Oh, no guy can throw a football 65 yards. Sorry, I respect him for that. He can drive the team, or you can get no respect for human dignity. I just Respect him. Yeah, they’re trying to do the best they can to that, like these are these are people that are doing the best they can with the information they have. Can you start with the things we haven’t caught? Yeah, okay, that’s trying to raise, you know, a good family or be a good human. Great start there. Listen and understand the next step. Alright, so we talked a little bit about that earlier. Then, this other component is this; this EO component came from the entrepreneur organization, this Gestalt language protocols, what they call it, and it’s really just sharing from experience, as opposed to telling somebody what to do, right? I’m not allowed to tell you what to do. I have no idea what you should do. Right? So, there are two reasons you don’t do that. The first one is it’s pretty arrogant of me to assume I know what you should do, too. I don’t have your experience; I don’t have all the details, right? I just have your side. And the other one is, you’re not going to do what I tell you to anyway; you’re a full-grown human being who has been successful. And, like, it’s just wasted advice, and then I’m going to get pissed for giving you them. You’re not taking my advice, right? So why would I do that? And then the last piece of this is delivering on the promise: just do what you say you’re going to do. Pretty simple. Build trust that way. But at all, and most of that’s about communication. It’s mostly listening to understanding and sharing from experience; they are pretty simple deals. Tell me a little bit about what you’ve taken the communication, and let’s put that into the written communication that happens to business. The number one written communication in business is email.
Vince Moiso
But look, we’re not getting away from it, right? Most businesses are email-driven, right? They’ve got the email culture; it’s embedded. And it ends up being the way we often talk to each other more often than we should, in my opinion. So just, let’s backstep for a second that you know, everything you’ve talked about, and obviously going through your course, and really being a deep study of it, I love it, it’s been the inspiration for me to just take that and run with it and even expand upon it. And I’ve truly enjoyed having the ability to coach others on that. I focus a lot on listening. And then I really focus on this topic you just brought up, which is email etiquette. I think if I can do anything with a small business, especially if I can change how they’re emailing each other and get them just clear on what proper communication should look like, then wow, it’s just going to completely change that business. Let’s start here. Let’s start with the hierarchy of communication, which is really, really important. Now, when I get to that slide in the presentation, before I let anything come out, I ask the question, what does everybody think that the highest form of communication is? What’s the answer? Because I bet you get the same answer.
Scott De Long
Well, no, I’ll have a different answer because I teach this.
Vince Moiso
Everybody says phone; I died because they all say phone. And I’m scratching my head, and I’m like, Okay, let’s go ahead and start.
Scott De Long
Not even today, during a pandemic, has this phone hit the top of the list.
Vince Moiso
I have some people send email, by the way, but it is not. It’s face-to-face, and nothing takes the place of face-to-face communication. I’m going to repeat that because it’s so important. Nothing takes the place of face-to-face communication. And the reason is, we see body language, we hear the tone, how somebody is sitting, you know whether or not they have their arms crossed, right or whatever. But I would say this, too. It’s a lot harder to get upset with somebody when you’re face to face with them, a heck of a lot easier. That’s why a lot of exchanges happen via email. Yeah, because it feels very anonymous. There’s a barrier between us and even, even the phone because, you know, the person, you know, can’t see you or where you’re at. The second-best form of communication is going to be as close as you can get to face-to-face, which is what we’ve been living in for the past year and a half, which is Zoom or any type of video conference call. I think that’s incredibly effective. I’ve worked hard with my team to move to communicating externally with clients via video conference versus just the phone call.
Scott De Long
So why is that important? You could still see body language, at least the facial recognition of the body language. I tell people this. Between those two levels, like if I’m on Zoom, and I’m pretty good at body language, things I studied a lot and I pay attention to it. I can tell who’s engaged and who’s not on Zoom calls. Yeah, it’s pretty easy, right? I can tell who to call because who wants to? You’ve got that. Pretty simple, right? What I’m talking about is just watching the eyebrows or watching the smile or anything to see who something has to say about that. I know who wants to talk next that way. But the difference is when I’m face to face. I can read your body language on Zoom. Face to face, I can read your soul. I mean, I can look in your eyes and see what’s in there. Yeah. I think that’s why those face-to-face matters so much. Right? Well, I
Vince Moiso
next, you know, next is a phone. Right? I don’t want to diminish how important you know, just making a phone call camp can be, and I would say this about the phone call: You have the ability to work through problems a lot faster. If there is an objection, or there’s something that needs to be covered, that needs to go deeper, there’s a concern or something like that, that can be handled in a phone call. Which brings me to email etiquette. And really, I say as simple as this email is for disseminating information. That’s really all it should be used.
Scott De Long
There’s a secondary use. So, after my phone call with you or after my Zoom, I use it to memorialize the conversation We’ve all like who’s going to do what by when
Vince Moiso
sorry, I lump that into information. So, then we’ve already had the conversation; I’m providing you with the information about what we discussed. It’s not banter. That’s what I’m getting at. I think we’ve gone on and on about communication, Scott, at this point, and we have so much more to talk about. So, stay tuned for part two of our communication podcast, and thanks for tuning in.
Scott De Long
Yeah, getting me to shut up about this conversation is difficult, so it might take two parts.
