A few years ago, my wife and I took our 3-year-old daughter Georgia shopping for her Halloween costume.<\/p>\n

She wanted to be a black cat, so we got her a black leotard, white gloves, black velvet cat ears, and a cat nose with whiskers.<\/p>\n

We stopped at home to put the costume away in the hall closet, and then took her to The Educational Review Board (ERB) to get her into a private school.<\/p>\n

The woman giving the test said she would allow us to sit in the room but we could not signal to Georgia or interrupt the testing process in any way. We sat in a far corner on two tiny chairs\u00a0while she and Georgia settled down to play with blocks.<\/p>\n

She showed Georgia a picture of a shape and asked her to make the shape with the blocks<\/a>. Georgia responded well to the exercise, and after a few similar tasks, they put the blocks\u00a0aside.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow Georgia, what are ears for?\u201d the lady began.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor my costume,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The woman smiled and leaned forward. \u201cCome now, Georgia, where are your ears?\u201d she teased.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt home, in the closet,\u201d said Georgia. The woman pulled back and made a mark on her clipboard.<\/p>\n

I glanced at my wife. Was our daughter going to miss out on a first-rate education because of this ridiculous exchange? Was she still obsessing over her Halloween costume, or was she just\u00a0trying to be funny?<\/p>\n

I began to raise my hand to explain, to put her response into context, but the woman cast a cold eye in my direction, so I lowered my hand.<\/p>\n

We sat through the rest of the test, and Georgia did fine from there on out. She got into a wonderful private school and stayed there for three years until we moved to New Jersey,\u00a0where she attended our town\u2019s excellent high school.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t realize until recently that we witnessed a great lesson in that little classroom: Communication <\/a>is not what you mean to say; it\u2019s what your listeners take you to mean.<\/p>\n

As business communicators, our listeners<\/a> live on an island of their own interests<\/a>, just like my three-year old daughter who couldn’t wait for Halloween. It\u2019s our job to find out what their island is like, and build a bridge<\/a> to it, a bridge made of words.<\/p>\n

In my experience, many business communicators<\/a> fail, not because of the innate inferiority\u00a0of their products, services, or ideas, but because they fail to build a bridge to their listeners.<\/p>\n

Friends! Clients! Speakers! Lend me your ears! Know your audience! Speak<\/a> the listeners language! Start where they are, not where you are! Make your expertise relevant and compelling to the immediate needs of your audience!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, my wife and I took our 3-year-old daughter Georgia shopping for her Halloween costume. She wanted to be a black cat, so we got her a black leotard, white gloves, black velvet cat ears, and a cat nose with whiskers. We stopped at home to put the costume away in the… Read More »Lend Me Your Ears!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":""},"categories":[960,144,336,149,1],"tags":[603,18,618,145,146,596,904],"yoast_head":"\n