Connecting with the Right Balance of Distance
Communication thrives on the connection between the sender (the speaker) and the receiver (the listener). Establishing a connection with an employee, supervisor, customer, or prospect while maintaining the right distance—neither too close nor too distant—is a challenge for many.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a CEO or an intern—in the end, most of us struggle to find the right balance.
How do I connect with my employees?
In the U.S., many communication professionals use a technique that is completely unknown in Europe. I don’t know anyone outside our center of excellence who uses it: the technique of personal energy management.
With energy management, we can structure our communication in such a way that we can effectively engage employees and ensure our message is received exactly as we intend.
What is energy management?
Energy management means being able to control your personal energy and adapt it to the situation. We all intuitively know what energy is, but we can’t quite grasp it—so here’s a quick example.
Example: Frank and the Team Leader
An employee—let’s call him Frank—has to present a team project to senior management. The team leader is present during the presentation. The planned PowerPoint presentation has 10 slides. However, for reasons currently unclear to the team leader, the presentation ends up having 20 slides.
During the presentation, Frank clicks through all 20 slides, pausing at each of the 10 slides that were discussed and simply skipping the remaining 10. The executive team seems a bit confused, but the presentation is well received nonetheless. Frank is thrilled.
Option 1: The team leader approaches Frank, inwardly annoyed: “Frank, your presentation was good, but what were those 10 extra slides for? They really threw me off!” Frank senses the pressure, loses his enthusiasm, and says, almost sadly, “Those were my backup slides.”
Option 2: The team leader approaches Frank enthusiastically and matches his energy. “Frank, the presentation went over well! Good job. I do have one more question: I noticed that, in addition to the 10 slides we agreed on, you had 10 more that you skipped. What was your thinking there?” Frank replies with a smile: “Those were my backup slides for additional questions.”
Energy matching determines whether feedback is received or whether it gets lost in the wrong emotional state.
The 4 Energy Quadrants
We can divide energy into 4 quadrants:
- High and Positive, enthusiastic, motivated
- Low and Positive, Relaxed
- High and Negative, Angry
- Low and negative, Depressed, sad
Why Energy Matching Is Important
As leaders and managers, it’s our job to motivate, engage, and inspire employees. To keep employees motivated, we need to guide them into a state of high, positive energy.
However, if we don’t meet them where they are right now and simply impose our own current emotional state on them, we’ll overwhelm them. After all, we don’t show up to a funeral completely motivated and enthusiastic.
The problem: Very often, employees don’t talk about their emotional states, even when it comes to issues within the company. The good news: We can intuitively sense where employees are in the quadrant.
How to Connect with Your Employees
Most misunderstandings in communication arise because we don’t meet the other person with the same energy—we either overwhelm them or drag them down without even realizing it. In doing so, we send a message that the other person can’t receive at that moment.
Match your employees’ energy level, stay positive, and guide them from there toward a high and positive energy state.
Communication is the only tool we have to lead employees. Energy management is an effective tool for responding appropriately in everyday situations and connecting with employees. That’s why we incorporate energy management and energy matching into all our programs.