For the Love of Effective Communication

Those of us who speak publicly on a regular basis have inevitably felt the pressure to be good, to rock the speech, to knock it out of the park. When we do, when our audience embraces our message and goes willingly on the journey that we are asking them to travel, it feels amazing. When we fail (by our own estimation or others’) and we don’t get the response we are hoping for, it feels like we die a little inside. But we’re lucky that feeling is just a feeling. It passes. We survive. We learn from our mistakes, and we look forward to the next chance to get it right.

Last August, I sat in my car listening to an NPR news report of an attempted elementary school shooting in DeKalb, Georgia. After shooting at the police outside the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, a 20-year-old man entered the school brandishing a semi-automatic AK-47 assault rifle and 498 rounds of ammunition. What followed was extraordinary. A school clerk named Antoinette Tuff, who was reporting the incident to police over the phone, started talking to the shooter. She talked, and talked, and talked. NPR played excerpts of the 911 recording, and it was riveting. Over the course of 25 minutes, the shooter moved from rage-filled threats to emotional demands to sorrowful apologies. And it was the expertly calibrated, gentle communication skills of Antoinette Tuff that were largely responsible for his transition from potential killer to disarmed, repentant young man.

She remained calm throughout. She really listened to him. She communicated his demands to the police without a trace of judgment in her voice. He began to open up to her, telling her that he wasn’t on his medication and that he wished he had gone to the mental hospital instead of showing up at the school with a gun. Her response to this?

“I can help you. Let’s see if we can work it out so that you don’t have to go away with them for a long time.”

When he started to talk about suicide, she followed with this:

“No. You don’t want that. You’re gonna be okay. I thought the same thing. You know, I tried to commit suicide last year after my husband left me, but look at me now. I’m still working and everything is okay.”

Eventually, having gained his trust, Ms. Tuff was able to convince the shooter to put down his weapon and surrender to police. As they moved in, she said to the young man:

“It’s gonna be alright, sweetheart. I just want you to know that I love you, though, okay? And I’m proud of you. That’s a good thing that you’re just giving up and don’t worry about it. We all go through something in life.”

I sat in my car, moved to the core, awed by her extraordinary grace under unfathomable pressure. All of this — this thing we do at ARTiculate: Real&Clear — this teaching and coaching and encouraging our clients to hone messages, to breathe, to find their voices, to reach their audiences — it all comes down to this:

Being able to communicate well — to listen, to respond in kind, to empathize, to be believable, to CONNECT authentically with another human being in an elementary school or with hundreds of other human beings in a huge auditorium — it matters. Sometimes it matters to make the sale, or to convince the jury, or to persuade the investor. In this case, it mattered for the lives of Antoinette Tuff, her fellow staff members, and the 870 small children who woke up that morning, tied their shoes, packed their lunches, double-checked their homework and got on the bus. 870 precious, little lives.

We never know when our effective communication skills will be tested and needed. The afternoon of August 20th, 2013, in DeKalb, Georgia, Antoinette Tuff’s skills were tested and she exceeded all expectations, even her own. Listening to her calm, assured voice on the radio in my car, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for human expression and mutual understanding and the power of words.

written by Diana Dresser

elevate executive presence

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