Rakesh was extremely agitated by how his instructions had not been followed by Jamal, one of his team members. This had happened far too often and he had already made up his mind that this would be the last time his words would be ignored. He rushed into Jamal’s office and yelled at him for always defying orders. Rakesh was actually feeling quite relieved that he had finally spoken his mind and felt sure that Jamal would now change his ways. This did not happen and Rakesh could only feel a bit flabbergasted.

Far too often, we are quite taken up with what we have to convey and focus a great deal on getting our message across. We tend to think of how it will serve us and feel sure that our urgency, emotion or passion will carry us through and the entire purpose of speaking or writing will be served. More often than not, it is not true. As was the case with Rakesh, he spoke at a breakneck speed and Jamal, who wasn’t as comfortable communicating in English, could barely follow his words. Additionally, some of us feel certain detrimental emotions and are nervous or uncertain; this leads to our missing out on identifying the best plan or strategy to get our message across effectively.

Communication is a two-way process and unless we can engage the interest and attention of our audience, we cannot think of it as having been effective. Focusing on how to do this and spending some time and making an effort is essential; in the absence of this we may as well not communicate at all.

In addition to planning what to say, we need to plan how to convey our message to best suit our audience. Finding a way to make our audience feel like the spotlight is on them and that they are really important to us, is a huge step towards having them on our side. Be it a task or action that we need from them, or for them to lend a willing ear to all that we convey. Winning our audience over, counts for a lot. If our audience feels alienated or distanced, there will be a natural tendency to almost go through the motions of paying attention.

Making sure we do not seem to be underestimating the intelligence, knowledge or maturity level of our audience is a clear demonstration of respect. In fact, when we  address every one as if no gap exists,their response is surprisingly gratifying. Another important part is, as a sender of any message it is essential for us to feel that our audience holds us and our message in reasonably high regard and the only way to accomplish this is to be respectful of everyone we communicate with. Feeling disrespected is one of the most demeaning experiences and the obverse holds true too.

Planning our message so that the spotlight is on the person or people is only a part of the solution; there are certain things we need to bear in mind while delivering the message too, especially if it is oral. The non-verbal part of the message needs to match our words. Ensuring that the tone we use and our body language, are among the more important parts of the non-verbal aspects to be taken care of. Most importantly, keeping the spotlight on our audience has to be genuine; we have all come across people who speak with us and seem too warm and friendly and all the time what we want to say to them is ‘What do you want? Get to the point, you don’t need to mollify me!’

At the foundation of the ability to respect others are certain aspects of our self-respect. If we respect ourselves, it shows in the way we hold ourselves, the way we speak, the enthusiasm or passion with which we broach any topic and the ease with which we present all our thoughts. It also includes how we appear, taking care of grooming and looking neat and tidy is as much a reflection of our self-image as it is a sort of indication of where we place others. In the current scenario of working from home, several people seem to forget this and end up conveying that they don’t really care about the impression they are making on those who are viewing and listening to them. That the audience would in turn, not really care to pay attention and respond as desired is but natural.

Display of consideration is another key to winning our audience over. It is a way to make our audience feel like they matter; one can go so far as to say that, being considerate aids all of the factors mentioned so far. Often, our own problems seem so large to us that, it becomes hard to think of being considerate of others. This is, in reality, not an excuse. An essential part of being considerate is keeping a keen eye on our audience and pausing to allow room for their doubts and needs. One could say that being genuinely courteous is just a synonym for consideration.

Lending thought to how to win our audience and all the people we deal with every time and doing so consistently, will reap rich rewards. Everything we do has an impact: it could be beneficial or damaging. The degree of effort we make to try and win over our audience will most definitely enrich our communication.