Signaling
Verbal and non-verbal cues that can be used to indicate whether your audience should be in a divergent or convergent mindset.
When to Apply Signaling
Anytime you need your audience to switch their thinking styles. Specifically, when you require your audience to generate possibilities, you can signal that it is time to be in a divergent, or more expansive, mindset. Likewise, when it is time to make choices and narrow your selection, the act of signaling cues your audience to move away from generating options and shift to making deliberate choices.
"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said"
– Peter Drucker
Management Professor & Guru
How to Practice Signaling
- 1
Role Play Intention Always start by thinking about your audience and plotting out how they may interpret the meaning of your communication.
- 2
Set Expectations: At the start of a meeting or a session, signal to participants what type of behaviors or mindset you would like them to inhabit. (e.g. I want you to critique this, I want you to help build out this idea)
- 3
Practice Using Key Expressions: There's no substitute to simply trying out a variety of expressions that are powerful in signaling. (e.g. This is not the right idea, but hear me out..., Here's a raw idea that needs improvement...)
- 3
Use Game Play: Rather than be received as being preachy or condescending, model for others how to signal by making it a game. The game can ask for players to withhold judgment for a period of time. By seperating the mindsets it signals your intentions.
- 4
Non-Verbal Practice: Since 93% of our communication is without words, try out NOT using words when trying to signal your intention and see the reaction (e.g. Smiling & Nodding, Gesturing, Cheering motion or a thumbs up/down).
- 6
Incorporate Artifacts: Sometimes the use of props or physical items can help to convey your meaning without saying a word. For example, using a prop such as a gavel to signal that whoever holds the gavel speaks and everyone else listens.
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Deliberate Signaling Guide
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