The Winning Manager’s Playbook

Humans are like radios

To gain some insight into this dilemma, imagine that you operate a radio station and that you send your signal out at 97.5. If one of your potential listeners has a radio tuned to 103.5, she won’t receive your signal. And it won’t matter how loud you broadcast or how fast you talk—she simply won’t hear you.

Now imagine that the person with whom you’re communicating, in a face-to-face discussion, is also a radio—his brain is the biological equivalent of the radio tuning knob! You’re job, then, is to figure out what “frequency” he uses to receive messages so that you can broadcast effectively.

So how do you do this? First, throw out The Golden Rule!

Instead, “Communicate with others as they wish to have you communicate with ...