Navigating through labyrinth of Straight talking
Straight talking, the fancy term heard around a lot these days. Indeed its an huge asset for any organization, team, relationship or an individual even. But what its all about? Lets jump right into it!
What is straight talking essentially? And why we are discussing it?
Straight talking is a skill of delivering no nonsense, absolute facts or opinions on a subject matter without any hidden agenda. If done wrongly or simply if not done in proper manner, this might hurt or offend a lot people who are involved in it. This could be very bad for everyone, including the positive intentions of the straight talking done in first place.
Usual practices and common approaches to it
Whenever people hear this term or they are asked to practice this in their daily life, it just results in chaos. Yes, you heard me right! The Executives, Managers and Leaders often have time only to mention this important term, but fail to spend some time in inculcating this in young minds. This results in grave situations rather than benefits it is supposed to bring about.
Some common conversations that would happen that day will be like, “Oh my gosh, the Senior was so unusually authoritative”, “Gee what has gotten into these youngsters these days, full of rude stuff!”. Nope, this is not what expected when we say Straight Talking.
Straight talking works fine along with assertiveness, but they both require some basic principles and ground work to be leveraged to fullest potential.
Setting up some ground rules now
This is not the must or the only right way to do things, rather, they are some suggestions from my experiences.
- Establish a connect with the person before bulldozing them with all the straight talk. This connect helps the receiver to listen with an open mind. If there is no time for it at least set a context before proceeding with it.
- Explain the rationale or update them with the behind-the-scene stories first before expecting them to understand your point.
- Start with some good examples to get their attention and trust which are very much essential. The examples will also help you to land your point more concretely.
- Promote discussions at this point, by keeping them alive and allowed. When I say allowed it means the receiver should feel comfortable to talk out their perspective of things.
- Please seek out the receiver’s opinions and thoughts. Encourage them to speak out their minds, you might be even surprised by the results!
- It never has to be within confined walls. Meeting rooms or Manager’s room might be a tad uncomfortable for these kind of conversations. Take them out for a walk! Buy them something to drink, fresh juices are healthier option.
- If you are going to have this conversation with a higher-up, then drafting up an agenda, formulating the points, topping up with ample amount of examples and making things professional is definitely an advantage.
- Beware, sometimes bosses don’t have all the time in the world for these conversations. So keep things concise.
Labyrinths are there to be conquered!
I have provided some points to aid the development of your straight talking skills. These might help you out,or sometimes you might need to handle things differently. But at the end of the day, straight talking is something that should help us to stay on track towards progress. Go for it confidently!
Please let me know your thoughts about this article, share your experiences with straight talking in the comment section.
