Hi, it’s Fliss.

In today’s insight, I want to share with you the worst advice I’ve ever been given, and explain to you why that is the tenant, the beginning, of everything that The Ultimate Advantage has been founded upon. 

That advice: to speak to people how I would wish to be spoken to. That was taught to me by my lovely mum who was very wise and has given me no end of good advice all the way through my life. But in this case, sadly, she is horribly wrong. And all of us who were taught that have been led to believe that we need to bring empathy to our communication, but that speaking to someone how we would wish to be spoken to is absolutely flex enough. 

And my message to you all today is actually we need to speak to people how they would wish to be spoken to. Otherwise it’s the equivalent of getting off the Eurostar, stepping foot on French soil and shouting loudly and slowly in English - then getting frustrated when people don’t understand what you’re saying to them. The onus is on us for our communication to be a win:win, to be successful. The onus is on us for our message to land. It’s our responsibility to be understood. It’s no one else’s. 

Everything that we do at The Ultimate Advantage is around helping our clients to understand what’s going on for them, what filters stand between them and the truth, to start to see those in other people. And then to learn the language dexterity and fluency to be able to adapt their style quite subtly, more often than not, but adapt it enough that they can ensure their message lands exactly as they intend. 

So that’s it, a really quick one today: don’t speak to people how you would wish to be spoken to, speak to them how they would wish to be spoken to. Flex, adapt. Take responsibility for how your message lands – and do let me know how that lands with you. As always in the comments below, I would love to know whether you’ve also had that advice (or whether you’ve had any worse advice). Do share, I’ll speak to you soon, thanks so much. 

Meet the Author

As one of the UK's leading experts in the applied psychology of language, Fliss has helped Boards, leadership teams, and c-suite executives from across the world to communicate with influence, integrity, and impact. A psycholinguist, voice dialogue, and NLP Practitioner, Fliss is also trained in influence and persuasion, and behavioural psychology, and is a certified empowerment coach and trainer. Fliss heads-up The Ultimate Advantage, a dedicated language and communications mastery coaching and training consultancy, as well as Zen Communications, a successful PR and content agency. She regularly speaks on all aspects of compelling communication and is a popular podcast guest.