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About this lesson
Asking colleagues for clarification is a helpful way to confirm important details while also demonstrating listening skills and building trust.
- 00:04 So your meeting is about to finish.
- 00:06 You can tell the person speaking to you, briefing you, talking to you,
- 00:10 has pretty much said everything they want.
- 00:13 There may come a point when the person says to you, okay,
- 00:18 you got it, any questions?
- 00:20 Don't try to be Mr. or Ms. smarty pants and say, nope, I got it all, no questions.
- 00:26 Now's the time to try to summarize, let's make sure you actually got it.
- 00:32 And this is the perfect time to glance down at your notes.
- 00:35 Look at your notes, look back at the person, you can just say,
- 00:39 if I'm understanding you correctly, what you really want me to do is bom, bom, bom.
- 00:44 Now, you've got a couple of options here of what could happen.
- 00:47 Let's say you got something wrong, now you're not spending the next three weeks
- 00:52 on some project that was not the focus of what your boss or client wanted.
- 00:56 It can be corrected right away.
- 00:58 And typically someone speaking to you is happy to put you right
- 01:03 on the best track and to correct you.
- 01:06 They appreciate the fact that you really listen, that you took notes, that you're
- 01:11 trying to get it, and you need a little bit of a course correction, a calibration.
- 01:17 So there's no damage done in the eyes of the person speaking to you.
- 01:21 In fact, your respect will go up in their eyes,
- 01:24 because you were trying so hard to get it, and they're able to help you more,
- 01:29 even mentor you more in some office situation.
- 01:32 So that's great.
- 01:34 On the other hand, if you're getting what it is they're talking about and you're
- 01:39 throwing back to them the summary that's exactly what they wanted you to get.
- 01:44 Especially if you use some of their words and it's clear that you understand them
- 01:47 and you're not just using buzzwords, they're going to think you're a genius.
- 01:51 They're going to think, finally I've got an employee here, or a vendor,
- 01:56 or a consultant who actually gets it, who actually listens to me.
- 02:01 So many people in life feel like nobody listens to them.
- 02:06 And when you can summarize what somebody says, and not just a sentence or
- 02:12 two, but in a descriptive way, it's very powerful.
- 02:17 You have to use your judgment, of course.
- 02:18 If the meeting is running way over and it's after 6:00 on a Friday,
- 02:24 now's not the time to spend seven minutes summarizing the previous
- 02:28 half hour presentation, or meeting, or briefing.
- 02:32 But certainly, you could spend 30 seconds on it.
- 02:36 If it's not a rush situation and it's an incredibly important presentation,
- 02:41 if your boss just talked to you for two hours about a whole new strategic shift,
- 02:46 and it's 11:00 in the morning.
- 02:48 I certainly might want to spend five minutes summarizing
- 02:53 my notes to the boss to make sure that I got it exactly.
- 02:58 So summary is fantastic, because it further cements the ideas in your head.
- 03:05 If you know you're going to be doing it, it forces you to listen more actively.
- 03:10 It's a chance to correct anything you got wrong at no penalty.
- 03:16 Imagine in college, you can just give out your answers and say,
- 03:19 is this the right answer?
- 03:20 And the teacher says, no, that's the answer.
- 03:21 Well, you'd make an A on every test.
- 03:24 You gotta look at it this way, this is a way to get an A on every test.
- 03:28 You just ask the person speaking to you,
- 03:31 the role of the teacher in this case, are you getting the right answers?
- 03:36 And they'll tell you whether you are or not.
- 03:39 Either way, they're going to like it.
- 03:42 And they're going to like the fact that you're trying hard, and
- 03:47 especially if you get it.
- 03:49 As I mentioned,
- 03:50 if you tell them exactly the message they were expecting using some of the words,
- 03:54 they're going to think you're a genius, and you'll be in great shape.
- 03:58 So don't forget in business communication, summarize again,
- 04:03 pretty much anytime unless you have severe time constraints.
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