Communication, Persuasion, Eloquence

Author: Hao Shizhao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The "on-the-spot eloquence" for young people in the 21st century to achieve success! Eloquence is a skill in life and career development. Communication broadens interpersonal relationships and enhances social skills; persuasion and reaching consensus lead to greater success. This book, starting from practicality, cites numerous compelling cases of communication and persuasive eloquence, allowing readers to experience and learn from others' experiences, understand what eloquence is, its key points, effectiveness, application, and techniques. Communication is the amplifier of human synergy. Perfect communication and eloquence will help you overcome the awkwardness of having nothing to say in front of strangers, blanking out and stumbling over words when facing superiors, and making you articulate and at ease in crowded situations or unfamiliar settings. Persuasion is the key to execution. Only by persuading effectively can you smoothly accomplish the tasks you set out to do and achieve the final goal. Excellent persuasive eloquence is engaging and effortless, winning people over and enhancing your charm.
◎ Indirect Approach
Many people seek psychological comfort through self-deception and baseless blame. For example, seeing someone unfavorably, they might blurt out, "Look at her attitude—she's so snobbish!" Or when receiving attention from the opposite sex, they might arrogantly declare, "Someone's trying to date me? Who does he think he is?" This creates unnecessary conflicts. In reality, the cause of such outcomes often lies not with the other person but with our own attitude. Whenever we adopt such attitudes, regardless of our thoughts, we at least alienate others because we fail to use indirect communication methods. During communication, people adopt different attitudes based on the level of trust. If your attitude is not positive or good, the communication outcome will undoubtedly be poor. Those skilled in using an indirect approach may appear weak on the surface, but they will certainly not cause trouble for your intentions. Think about it: Have you adopted an indirect attitude when communicating with others? When interacting with colleagues or friends, pay attention: Is their attitude problematic? Are they adopting an antagonistic stance? If so, meeting them head-on makes communication meaningless and yields no correct feedback. Although everyone knows the effectiveness of indirect communication, many still don't understand the best ways to employ it. Therefore, we will focus on two types here: compromising and evasive approaches.
The compromising approach means abandoning both extremes and choosing the middle ground. Compromise is both decisive and cooperative, making it a form of "smooth" communication. In interpersonal communication, attitudes vary based on the level of trust. If your views conflict with the other person's and cannot be reconciled, the best attitude is to give in a little while also persuading the other person to do the same. As long as they share your willingness to communicate, attitude determines everything—compromise comes into play. If you refuse to compromise, the communication outcome will be poor.
The evasive approach has two meanings. One is to avoid making decisive decisions or actively collaborating with the other party during communication. Such an evasive attitude only escalates conflicts and leads to abandoned communication intentions. The other is to sidestep the issue, find common ground through alternative methods, and then restart the communication topic on that common ground. This indirect approach holds positive significance for communication. Some people always avoid communicating with you, unwilling to engage or make decisions. For example, real estate developers often argue with new homeowners about this and that during the residency process. This isn't necessarily because they refuse to accept slightly flawed houses—it's because they fear no one will take responsibility if problems arise, or they will pass the buck and avoid accountability. This kind of avoidance is escapism and should not be encouraged.
P13-14