It’s a loud season in the United States. People sometimes act like shouting over others provides communication impact. We beg to differ. Here’s a short chapter from our book Wisdom for Effective Communication: The Little Book of Big Ideas that helps you navigate this bumpy terrain.
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Use Kind Words
Wisdom for Effective Communication
By Chuck Finney with Jan Shober
Saying sweet nothings. Buttering up. Flattery. Is this affirmation? Well, at my firm, and in my personal life, I say no.
Dictionary.com defines affirmation as: confirmation or ratification of the truth.1
Here’s my take on it: Affirmation is saying what is true and kind without a critical “but.” It’s speaking the truth in love.
Flattery is stretching the truth. “You’re so good that you make everyone else look bad!”
Criticism is a truth that is negative. “You should have taken more time with this project, and now it’s a mess.”
But consider affirmation. There is always something to be recognized, something that says “you matter” and “you are important.”
“You did a remarkable job locating all the quotes.”
“Your birthday says to me that God had a purpose for you to be here today.”
“How is your little girl? I remember how well-behaved she is for a four-year-old.”
Affirmation is a salve in a wounding, critical world. It creates a welcoming atmosphere and sets you up to have a better reception for whatever communication will be taking place.
I didn’t naturally realize this, and I certainly wasn’t born with the inclination to affirm. But over the years I noticed things. And I learned.
For example, I met a friend, who I’ll call Joe, who rocked my world on interpersonal communications. The first time I met him was at the offices of Arbitron (now Nielsen Audio), a company that measures radio ratings. As I walked into the room, he turned around in his chair, got up, and walked across the room, making eye contact to greet me. He extended his hand and said, “It’s so good to meet you. I’ve heard great things about you.”
Twenty years later, it’s the same. He is unfailingly affirming. More interested in talking about me and my world. He asks me to go first in conversations. In those twenty years, we’ve talked probably a thousand times. I feel better, more affirmed after each conversation, even when the discussion is about bad news.
Another thing I noticed over time was that there were differences among radio programming consultants (which is what I am). There was a consultant who was outstanding at in-person communication yet struggled helping clients grow their impact with listeners. He had little trouble getting hired.
There was a different consultant who was harsh, dogmatic, and critical. When they used him, stations’ ratings would go up. He was one of the smartest radio folks I’ve ever known. But his autocratic “my way or the highway” style resulted in fewer and fewer folks hiring him to help.
Bottom line: the first of the two—the affirming, less effective consultant—was the one getting hired!
I’ve found that there are plenty of critical people in many businesses, including radio. They are likely “right” and direct, but ungracious in how they deliver the news.
It’s the guy who is obsessed with making a change and harshly says so whenever possible—whether it’s at 2:00 p.m. or 2:00 a.m. Perhaps it’s a whisper in the ear that tears down a child, a team member, or a spouse.
This raises a very important question: can critical people make a comeback once they realize that kindness counts?
I think the answer is yes.
Just think about young parents, struggling to raise unruly children—they haven’t done this before! Maybe they’re yelling too much. But they come to realize that coaching works better than yelling. They make changes to their methods, and coaching becomes their default.
Once we realize that we need to work on this area, there are many books and guides that can help us set new habits.
One habit that helps me to affirm people is remembering specific life details. For example, when my two daughters were younger, I was vague in my conversations with them about what was going on at school. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested, but I hadn’t prioritized knowing when they were in which class. I knew that Catherine was in ballet and that she was now dancing on pointe, but I didn’t know which days/times her ballet class was. I put their school schedules on my calendar. Now I knew. I had always cared—and now I sounded like I cared.
We usually do care—we just have jammed memories. The question we face is how to do all this remembering in our busy lives. How can we recall the details of our friends and work associates? For me, it’s my calendar or my notes section in my phone contacts. I put important things to remember about people right where I can see it when I’m about to reach out.
In 2018, the Finney Media Why Listen?® survey found that 81 percent of Christian radio listeners indicated they were very likely or somewhat likely to turn off or tune out a radio station or program that has a negative, angry, or judgmental tone. That’s the opposite of affirmation, with statistical evidence of its effect!
Recently, in a group meeting I was in at a Christian radio station, the team was involved in an exercise that would help mirror Christian values on the radio. I asked each person at the meeting to think about a difficult person in their life. Once they had that person in mind, I asked them to think of something that was true and kind—that is, affirming—about that person. We then asked each person to say out loud what truth they had thought of, with no “but” statement after it.
I knew one of our friends in the meeting had been through a difficult divorce, and I suspected correctly that he was thinking about his ex-wife. When it was his turn, he said of his ex, with tears of joy: “My daughters would not be the Godly women they are without her.”
Now that’s affirmation!
Making it Personal
- Do you have a way to keep track of what’s important about people in your life?
- Who have you affirmed today?
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For more help with the vital yet everyday tool of communication, download the e-book or paperback of the book WISDOM FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION: THE LITTLE BOOK OF BIG IDEAS.
