Positive disturbance

I've admired now for some weeks one of my new colleagues, who have turned the very basic disturbing phone call question around. He asks in phone calls, that "Is it a good moment for you?" I amongst many others tend to ask the question other way around, " is it a bad moment for you?" The intention with both questions is the same, finding out if other person wants to talk with you or not. Doing it in the first way may just make the moment to be more suitable.

I've known couple of other persons who have this capability to disturb without really disturbing. It's a good asset for person who needs to cooperate a lot with others. It's not only about how you place your words, but it's also about how you present your subject you were disturbing for in the first place. If you still, after disturbing, present your subject as if you would be sorry for disturbing, then the one disturbed can feel annoyed about disturbance. If you continue as if you were entitled for this disturbance because the importance of the subject, then it's less annoying.

Being positive and believing your subject has a positive effect on communication. People tend to be much more receptive and cooperative if you believe what you say is important and worth of the moment other gives to it. The saying: "Don't shoot the messenger" isn't always right. Poor messenger might not get the message through or make the message to be less important that it really is.

Everyone knows how to speak, good communication skills on the other hand is a luxury of a few. That's the reason I try to observe others and learn from their habits, in good and bad. It takes ages to learn to communicate with different audiences and with different technologies.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen