Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently

by John C. Maxwell

I’ve read that, on average, most people speak about sixteen thousand words a day.2 If you transcribed those words, they’d fill a three-hundred-page book every week. At the end of a year, you would have an entire bookcase full of words. In a lifetime, you’d fill a library. But how many of your words would matter? How many would make a difference? How many would get through to others? Talk is easy. Everybody talks. The question is, how can you make your words count?

Today I see my purpose as adding value to others. It has become the focus of my life, and anyone who knows me understands how important it is to me. However, to add value to others, one must first value others.

“We aren’t in the coffee business, serving people. We’re in the people business, serving coffee.” Nabi gives this advice to people in the service industry: “You have to have a service heart. You have to be prepared to serve the needs of those people you come into contact with.

There’s no substitute for personal experience when we want to connect with people’s hearts. If you know something without having lived it, your audience experiences a credibility gap. If you’ve done something but don’t know it well enough to explain it, the audience experiences frustration. You have to bring both together to connect consistently.

“The exact words that you use are far less important than the energy, intensity, and conviction with which you use them.” People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

“I don’t believe charisma is a function of personality. It’s a function of attitude.” He then explained how people with charisma possess an outward focus instead of an inward one. They pay attention to other people, and they desire to add value to them. I have come to realize that Dan is right. People with “presence” have an unselfish attitude that causes them to put others first. They possess a positive attitude that prompts them to look for and focus on what’s right instead of what’s wrong. And they possess an unshakable confidence.

“Four Unpardonable Sins of a Communicator”: being unprepared, uncommitted, uninteresting, or uncomfortable.

energy is required to connect with others, I’m not saying that you must be a high-energy person to connect with others. Nor do you have to be an extrovert. You must simply be willing to use whatever energy you have to focus on others and reach out to them.

to add value to others, they must make themselves more valuable. You can’t give something you don’t have. You can’t tell what you don’t know. You can’t share what you don’t feel. No one gives out of a vacuum.

When I prepare for these meetings, I use a list similar to that of a journalist doing a story. I ask: Who are they? What do they care about? Where do they come from? When did they decide to attend? Why are they here? What do I have that I can offer them? How do they want to feel when we conclude? Could I go into one of these roundtable meetings and just wing it? Probably. Would I be able to connect with people as well? No. Would I add value to them the way I would like? Absolutely not!

Leaders constantly ask themselves questions like these as they bring people together in their organizations. They spend a great deal of time and energy asking questions, gathering information, preparing to meet with people. They know that if they want to cast vision, they have to bring clarity to the people in their organizations. The responsibility rests on their shoulders, not on those of the people listening to what the leaders have to say.

Good connectors don’t always run the fastest, but they are able to take others with them. They exhibit patience. They set aside their own agendas to include others.

The human spirit senses and feeds on a giving spirit. The spirit is actually renewed by a teacher with a giving spirit—this is proven by the fact that when people hear what you have said many times, they are still filled.

A few times a year I lead a roundtable leadership session with fifteen to thirty executive-level leaders. Here are the guidelines I always follow with them: • Before the session begins, I go to each person and introduce myself. • I ask each individual a question to discover something unique about him or her.

• At the beginning of the session I give them ownership of the meeting. They ask me questions, and I do my best to serve them. • If some are hesitant to enter in the discussion, I draw them in by telling the others about their uniqueness and how it relates to the subject. • I end our time together by asking people how I can help them be more successful.

confidence, which comes from preparation, brings energy. Passion, which comes from conviction, brings energy. Positivity, which comes from believing in people, brings energy. The more energy you bring to the process, and the better you are at conveying energy to your audience, the better your chances of connecting with them.

it’s difficult to connect with and enjoy speakers who are uncertain. Their doubts about themselves make you doubt them, and that becomes a distraction. It becomes impossible to settle in and be at ease as a listener because their lack of certainty brings up questions concerning their credibility.

take the four things mentioned above for connecting one-on-one and expand them to apply to a group: • Show interest in each person in your group. Do this by asking each person questions. • Place value on each person by pointing out his or her value to the others in the group. • Make it your goal to add value to everyone in the group, and let them know that is your intention. • Express your gratitude to each person in front of others.

Before we can communicate effectively, we must establish our commonness—the better we do that, the greater the potential for effective communication.

Those who lack humility are dogmatic and egotistical. That masks a deep sense of insecurity. They feel the success of others is at the expense of their own fame and glory.”

Anytime you aren’t sure about how to bridge the communication gap, don’t start the process by telling people about yourself. Begin with moving to where they are and seeing things from their perspective. Adapt to them—don’t expect them to adapt to you.

This willingness to see things from others’ point of view is really the secret of finding common ground, and finding common ground is really the secret of connecting. If you were to do only this and nothing else, your communication would improve immensely in every area of your life.

While educators often take something simple and make it complicated, communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

Everyone likes clarity. Even people who are not bottom-line thinkers want to know the bottom line. Good communicators give it to them. Of

If you are communicating with others, whether you’re speaking to a child, leading a meeting, or giving a speech to a large audience, your goal should be to get to the point as soon as you have established a connection with people and to make as great an impact on others as you can with as few words as possible. Great leaders and speakers do this consistently.

even if people do buy into a vision, they can eventually lose their passion and enthusiasm for it. They can even lose sight of the vision altogether. Because that is true, leaders must continually repeat the values and vision of their organization so that employees (or volunteers in churches and other nonprofits) will know those values and visions, think in terms of them, and live them. “The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time, it’s learned.” —WILLIAM H. RASTETTER

“Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick, convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood.”5

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand. When you speak clearly and simply, more people can understand what you’re trying to communicate. Being simple as a communicator isn’t a weakness. It’s a strength!

You can hardly go wrong by keeping things short when you communicate. But there are a million ways to go wrong by talking too long.

What They Know + What They See + What They Feel = Inspiration

If I see someone as a 5, I’ll treat him or her as a 5 and speak to this person as a 5. And more than likely, after a while I’ll convince this person to act as a 5. What’s the value in that? However, if I see someone as a 10, he or she will sense that and is likely to respond in a positive way. If we treat people as who they can become, they will be inspired to rise to the level of our expectations.

When people trust you, they will listen to you, and they will be open to being inspired by you. If you are a one-time speaker, people will often give you the benefit of the doubt, as long as your credentials are good. But if you’re going to speak to the same people time and again, you have to work to maintain credibility.

A trustworthy person’s character does not stop when the words do. Rather, it continues in the conduct of his or her daily life.

Vision without passion is a picture without possibilities. Vision alone does not inspire change. It must be strengthened by passion.

As time goes by, the way people live outweighs the words they use. If they live well, time is their friend.

When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment, you create trust.

“We all know that perfection is a mask. So we don’t trust the people behind know-it-all masks. They’re not being honest with us. The people with whom we have deepest connection are those who acknowledge their weaknesses.”

Does your character emphasize what you say, or does it undermine it? Does your character help you to follow through and keep your promises, or does it work against you? Where do you need to improve?

Are you doing what you ask others to do? Does your track record support your communication? Can people depend on your performance and your willingness to put the team first? If not, you need to make changes to improve your credibility.