A friend of mine is a retired teacher. She was a master teacher long before the catch-phrase became a buzz-word in educational circles. To this day, her opinion on matters of either classroom discipline or at-home behavioral issues is routinely sought after. When I was actively teaching, there were times when I'd run a scenario past this friend to seek her thoughts on possible alternative solutions. Her ideas were always grounded on common sense, respect, and reality. One of her oft-recited responses was, "It's all in the tone." As my years went by and I became more proficient at reading people and situations, I, too, became adept at delivering words, not always popular words, in a way that lead to an outcome that was palatable to all, including me.
Another piece of my "tone" training came from my work days at a YWCA. This particular "Y" had a history of consumer complaints regarding front-desk employees' treatment of the general public and at the time of my hire, an employee-education series of seminars was just being launched, so I was on the front end of a public-relations skill-training period for me, arming me with abilities that would remain for a life-time. One of our first exercises involved the simple sentence, "How may I help you?" Working with the instructor, in a one-on-one setting, we had to state the sentence five times, each time emphasizing a different word in the sentence.
"How may I help you?"
"How may I help you?"
"How may I help you?"
"How may I help you?"
"How may I help you?"
With inflection changing in every sentence, each one communicates a slightly differing message to the listener.
Tone. It makes all the difference in communicating with any other human being. There are many among us who could use a human-relations training session or a refresher course.
Guess I'd better go listen to myself.
Ancora imparo
