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    Sparkplug to Creative Communication
    Sparkplug to Creative Communication
    Sparkplug to Creative Communication
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Sparkplug to Creative Communication

    By John Bittleston

    ()

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    About this ebook

    We all know that communication lies at the centre of the human race. It is what has enabled us to develop beyond instinct. It is what gives meaning to life and the chance to exchange information and ideas that form the basis of our development. Yet the more we hear how important communication is the worse it gets.

    You can be as meticulous a communicator as you like but if you cannot handle the person or people with whom you are communicating, it counts for nothing. As with all leadership, some will carry the torch, others the fire-extinguisher. Both must know what the other is doing; both must work in harmony. If they do not one will surely set fire to the other and the other will smother the one with foam.

    Good communication is when two people tell each other the truth without fear of misunderstanding or offence. Telling the truth requires you to trust the person in whom you are confiding. How do you establish that trust and, once established, how do you keep it? Paradoxically, as you trust others less, so you are even less able to trust them. The more you trust others, the more you will gain and keep their trust. But you then have to live up to it.

    This collection of articles has something for everyone – whether you are in a management position or being managed, whether you’re a start-up or long established MNC. Each has been written with the aim of helping us think more creatively about the way we communicate, in order to spark conversations that help us do so better, no matter where we are in our lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Bittleston
    Release dateJun 4, 2012
    ISBN9781476120812
    Sparkplug to Creative Communication

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      Book preview

      Sparkplug to Creative Communication - John Bittleston

      Introduction

      Those who find their own purpose discover the purpose of life.

      _____

      If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. – Nelson Mandela

      Whether managing or being managed, whether start-up or long established MNC, whether rich or poor, the hardest job in today’s world is to make an impact. There is so much noise out there, lots of people giving you help and advice, so many making demands on your time.

      We do not have the time to pay attention to what really matters.

      The following articles are three-minute, easy-to-digest reads on the key points about making an impact. I hope you find them useful and worth sharing with others.

      They do not have to be read in any particular order, or all at once. You might even find it useful to return to a particular article from time to time.

      I invite you to learn more about what we do at www.terrificmentors.com. If you would like to learn more from us, please write to me at the email address below.

      Happy reading!

      John Bittleston

      Founder Mentor

      john.bittleston@terrificmentors.com

      Connect on LinkedIn and Twitter @TMIPL

      From Our Mentees

      Encouraging words

      Thank you pointing me back in the right direction, and providing the moral boost I needed at that particular moment of my life. Your advice was clear and to the point. My professional life has turned around for the best, and I look forward to the PASDAQ test later this year... Yours is a relationship I want to keep and nurture to improve myself.

      – Jean-Pierre Bousquet, Broadcast and Media Professional Services

      When I came to terrific mentors, I was clueless as to the direction I should take in my career. I enrolled in the career and job package and discovered during the process that in life, there are no fixed rules, no boundaries your life is absolutely as you want it to be, anything is possible. I had the privilege of working with both Denise and John and both of them have helped me see things in ways not apparent to me before and I have a clear picture of how I should live my life and where the answers come from. The Mentors have not only been of great counsel in my career but have also been great friends who sincerely care about my well being. I am very grateful to have met both of them and for the guidance they have provided me with. They have taught me how to seek for the answers which lie within myself and to learn to trust myself, knowing that I can live the life of my dreams - but only if I allow myself to.

      – Aaron Chua, Accountant and Banker

      01 How To Communicate

      Most people think they communicate well; very few do. Why?

      Overlooking the obvious

      In his contribution to The Daily Paradox, Prof John Richardson made a simple but vital point. We communicate most of the time today by keyboard and yet we do not teach keyboard skills. So obvious that we seem to have overlooked it. That is often the case with the obvious. So it is with other forms of communication.

      What is your answer?

      In our PASDAQ Review (Personality, Ability, Skills, Dreams, Ambitions, Qualifications) we ask over 100 questions. One is this: If you were with someone who was dying what would you say to them? We get all sorts of answers to this question but seldom the right one. Can you figure out what it is?

      To get attention, give attention

      The clue is that while most people devote part of their lives to attention giving each of us is attention seeking most of the time. There is nothing wrong with this. As a baby we want attention to get us onto our feet. As a teenager we seek approval for our gauche and destructive behaviour. In our early loves and marriage we need the affection and attention to reassure us that we are a whole, complete and satisfactory person.

      Perhaps the hardest time to get adequate attention is middle age when we are weighed down with responsibilities and our lives may seem not to have been as successful as we had hoped. Even into old age we seek attention to smooth the path we recognize but do not fully understand. Old age can be a great time – if we get the right sort of attention.

      All our communication training is based on attention. To get attention, give attention is our guiding principle for successful communication. How do we achieve that? Developing interpersonal skills is easy when you are trained to recognize the other person – their understanding, their mood, their interests, their ability to comprehend, their needs and how good their hearing is. Realising how few of the words we speak ever reach the other person’s brain will make us enunciate more clearly and confirm that we are being understood.

      It’s NOT about you

      Mentees going for job interviews are often under the misapprehension that the interview is about them. There will, of course, be questions for them to answer but the interview is essentially about the interviewer, as a person first and

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