Respect their time: prepare to be brief with one clear message.
Respect their intelligence. Assume they will understand complex things as long as you explain them properly.
Respect their curiosity by providing enough background and context to achieve common understanding.
Respect their humanity by engaging face-to-face.
Respect their interest by telling stories with heroes, jeopardy, and resolution.
Respect their patience by solving their problems, not your own.
Respect their basic human needs; especially if they’ve been up all night or have to piss.
Please, respect their values. People rarely adopt your point of view because you degraded or offended their perspective.
Respect their input. Communication is a two-way street. Start listening.
Respect their need for bedside manner. If you must, build rapport through useless pleasantries, then check in often to confirm understanding.
Respect their starting point. You prepared for this engagement, and maybe they should have, but maybe they didn’t. Build on-ramps.
Respect their bandwidth. Are they rushed, fighting, distracted? Wrap it up, because they may only be up for Chapter 1 today. Set up Chapter 2 and figure out when they’ll be ready for it.
Thank you for reading.
(Photo by Lance Cpl. Jesula Jealous, DVIDS)
