Everyone Communicates, Few Connect

If you can connect with others—one-on-one, in groups, and with an audience—your sense of community improves, your ability to create teamwork increases, and your influence skyrockets.  People who connect with others have better relationships, experience less conflict, and get more things done than those who cannot connect. Leaders who have learned the art of connection are able to communicate their ideas persuasively, establishing buy-in and attracting followers.

Good communicators have enough humility to recognize that they are not the expert authorities on all matters. They endeavor not to impress people with knowledge, but to connect with others authentically in order to gain the opportunity to influence them. As such, they patiently seek to understand their audience before speaking.

Audiences respond to how a communicator makes them feel rather than to what a communicator has to say. Our actions, tone and style communicate far more than our words. Experts estimate that 90% of the impression we convey has nothing to do with what we actually say.