Practical Genius (13 page)

There are three things she does when she tells a story that I learned from her. First, take your audience someplace else. Get them to use their imaginations to go on your journey with you. If your story causes the imagination switch to turn on, you’re halfway home. Second, make your audience run the gamut of emotions with you. Plug them in to your power source. Finally, always tell a story that has resonance and meaning for the audience. It’s the ultimate leave-behind.

What I really learned from my grandmother is both the value of an authentic genius story and how important it is to know how to tell it. This is a gift, to be sure, and she’s living proof of that. But there are a few simple ways we can tell our stories better.

As I have learned from my writing experience, everything I want to say can be said better with less. It’s true. Less is always more. And so it goes for the story you want to tell. Don’t get bogged down in minutiae or blow-by-blows that distract from your message. Be concise, clear, and consistent. But don’t skimp on the details that make the story yours.

For example, when I tell my elementary school story, one small detail that resonates every single time is this: “As any good Latina would do, my mother marched into the principal’s office the very next morning.” This detail is kind of funny but very easy to picture and makes a strong emotional connection with my audience. But just so you know, that sentence
was edited about a thousand times and ways before it was just what it needed to be. Play with every word of your story to make it tight and right.

The fact that you edit and practice your story doesn’t make it less authentic or real. It just means you care enough about it to get it right, to be telling exactly the story you mean to tell. Being deliberate is genius; being random is not.

Believe it or not, being a good listener is one of the most important qualities of being a good storyteller. Be an active listener, and the active listeners in your audience will respond in kind. Be thoughtful and generous about timing. It takes patience, consideration, tolerance, and discipline to move smoothly between listening and speaking. But the impact of your story will increase exponentially as you master the rhythms and the give-and-take of conversation.

Listening is one of the most important skills you can have, and today, with the abundance and overflow of messages and communication, I think our ability to really listen to one another is in peril. How well you listen has a major impact on your practical genius at home, on the job, and also on the quality of your relationships with others.

First, there’s the simple rule: Pay attention to whoever is speaking to you, period. Put down the BlackBerry, give them your undivided attention, and fully absorb and acknowledge the message. To give speakers confidence that they are being heard, look at them directly and avoid being distracted by anything. Anything!

Quality listening can be hampered by noise, which can be aural or visual. What’s going on outside the window on a nice day or a hot waitress walking by, for example, can be classified as noise. When you care about a conversation—and practical geniuses care about
all
of them—look for a quiet place to talk where you can invest yourself in the exchange.

Watch for nonverbal signals. Effective listening involves listening for nonverbal signals as well as verbal input. Crossed arms, a slumped posture, a smirk—all are nonverbal cues that should be part of what you “hear” when interacting with others.

To avoid making incorrect assumptions, you should paraphrase what you hear. Summarize what you’ve heard, and ask if you understand correctly. That’s “active listening” in a nutshell.

Watch your filters. Some stories can easily become misunderstood as a result of our filters, assumptions, and judgments, which is unfortunate but true. Be open and try to listen without judging the person. Don’t be afraid to ask questions at the end of the conversation; you want to make sure that the speaker knows you understood their message.

Your voice can convey your authority and authenticity—or not—more than just about anything else about you. What a shame if you had the world’s best story to tell and no one got it because all they could hear was your squeaky, nervous, uncommanding voice? Your best voice is natural, not stagey or singsongy or stiff. Be who you are, even when you’re telling the most important story of your life! A solid, deliberate, unwavering voice says, “You should listen to this. It’ll be worth your while.” A weak, wobbly voice says, “I’m not sure about this. Maybe you should be listening to someone else.”

I remember sitting in a meeting where one particular female executive was pitching a group of executives, and I could hear her voice rising and even cracking uncomfortably. I felt her pain and wanted to shake her out of it in the bathroom during a break, but it wasn’t the right time for me to give her a reality check so I had to bear her presentation while watching everyone else grinding their teeth
in response. It was painful, and the saddest part is that she was not aware of it at all. She was a talented, smart woman with great ideas, but her lack of ability to reach her audience confidently had a negative impact on her credibility and reputation.

When I speak, I think of what I’m saying as the melody of a song and what my body is doing as the harmony. When your voice and body work together to express what you intend, it’s music. When your mouth is doing one thing and your body’s doing another, it’s dissonance. Your eyes, your hands, your posture, every gesture—they are all powerful punctuation to your story. The pioneering research of the interpersonal communication expert Albert Mehrabian showed that just 7 percent of our attitudes and beliefs are conveyed to others through words we speak, while 38 percent comes from our tone of voice and 55 percent from our facial and other body expressions. Yikes! All the more important to get our stories synced up with our voices and bodies.

Be mindful of the physical messages you send and the ones you receive from others. They can be highly effective when used carefully. For example, Reverend Chris Jackson of Unity on the Bay speaks to his congregation with his eyes along with his words. His movement, his tone, and his powerful glances are always in sync, and he is one of the best messengers I’ve ever witnessed. By watching him, I’ve learned how to dance with my audience with my eyes.

The opposite of this delicate physical choreography also exists. Those who communicate loudly, in a sometimes vulgar or impolite way, with their body language are often engaged in something known as “micromessaging.” For example, one time I was meeting a president of a marketing agency for lunch, and throughout the entire lunch he kept getting up and excusing himself from the table to speak with other folks who happened also to be in the restaurant. The first time it happened, I thought he had just bumped into an old friend, but the second and third times he left the table, I knew I was being told I didn’t matter. During the few minutes he did share his attention with me at the table, he continued to scope out the room
for more acquaintances. I knew I would never do business with that guy and actually gave his partner, who was a complete gentleman trying to overcompensate for his counterpart’s rudeness, my feedback on the entire experience. I never received an apology and had to acknowledge that the entire experience was a strong example of micromessaging. Micromessages are subtle and not-so-subtle signals that represent the core of the message someone is sending, and they usually demonstrate inclusion or exclusion. The warm or frequent touch of a person’s forearm during conversation or a steady, locked-in, paying-attention-to-only-you gaze are examples of inclusive type of micromessages.