Communicating congruently.
Congruency is having consistency between your values and beliefs, and how you live your life. The more alignment you have the more congruent you are.
How can we communicate with congruency to increase our influence with others? Is there a way in which we could begin any discussion that would stack the odds of influence in our favour? Can this method apply to influencing groups as well as individuals?
The answer to all of these questions is, yes. The first thing to understand is that our communication is comprised of 3 components.
1) Words 7%
2) Tonality 38%
3) Physiology 55%
When we consider that our words only comprise 7% of our communication, we can get an idea of just how important it is to communicate with congruency. If we are not congruent, we may mistakenly believe we have conveyed our message because we said all of the correct words. What happens if our tone and physiology are screaming a contrary message?
Communicating congruently means that every part of you is conveying the same message.
It is helpful to break congruency up into 3 parts and look at each one more closely:
1) IDENTIFY OUTCOME
Do you have a clear outcome in mind for how things will be when the conversation ends? If you start with a clear outcome your behaviour will be congruent with your words. This is critical because only 7% of communication is verbal. 35% is tonality and 55% is physiology. This means that you are communicating in ways that you cannot even consciously understand. Trusting that you will communicate with greater congruency when you know how to hold a strong intention is very important. Hypnosis depends upon this principle in order to work. The intention I hold when working with a client is every bit as important as the words I use to put them into a hypnotic trance.
2) IDENTIFY BEHAVIOUR
Identify the behaviours you wish to see from the other person upon the conclusion of the conversation. How do want the person to act? What specific behaviours would you like to see them exhibit? What would you like to hear them say? What tone would you like them to use when the say it? Be specific when you go through the list of behaviours and visualize them coming to fruition.
3) IDENTIFY STATE(S)
What state would you like the person to be in upon the conclusion of the conversation? Would you like them to feel a sense of compassion? Or maybe a feeling of cooperation? If you are delivering a talk to a group of people, maybe you want to lead them through a series of states. You may wish to start with curiosity and leave them with clarity. You can only lead a person into state that will produce the results you want if you identify the state(s) in advance.
When you have clarity of outcome you will find your tonality and physiology will automatically support your message.
You do not have to be so conscious about standing a certain way, smiling at just the right time or hitting a pregnant pause for emphasis like you practiced before your speech.
Somehow, these things just flow naturally and that is what makes for a congruent delivery.
Congruency is not just for hypnotists. Anybody that wishes to be more influential can benefit from breaking congruency down into these 3 easy steps.