3 insights for better communication

One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, check!

That's good, checking his mic. Is it working?

It is.

What a lovely song, Chris.

Thank you very much.

And what happiness you've brought to my day.

I'm glad I did.

It's all about happiness today. I'm Matt.

I'm Chris.

And this is another Monkey Monday.

It is.

So when we talk to our customers, we love - we really love - exploring what makes them tick, what makes them happy, what makes them have a good culture. It drives an awful lot of what we do. And we've found three resources we think you'd be really interested in if you care about this sort of stuff.

Yeah, and it's about how to make everyone happier - your customers, your clients, the people in your business, yourself.

Yeah, exactly. And we can see the threads tied between these videos and it's mostly a little bit of empathy, isn't it. Understanding those people around you, and understanding what drives them and what makes them tick, and adjusting maybe your own behaviour to help relationships blossom.

So the first one is a book by Thomas Erikson called Surrounded by Idiots, which is really great. It divides into four different types of category, denoted by colour. So different personality types - I'm a yellow, apparently, I think. Dobby.

Yeah, I'm a yellow, but have other tendencies, I think.

Yeah, and there is crossover. So, we're optimists, though, so me and Chris are kind of yellow people. Red people are a little bit more driven than we are, and then you've got the blue people who are opposite us and they're more attention to detail and spreadsheety, I guess.

Yeah, and slightly more introverted.

And green people, as well, who sort of sit with the blues but are a bit more creative and more people-centric. It's a really really interesting way of understanding people. But what's nice about the book is it talks about how you can group these people together in a business sense, and what types of people work well with other types of people, and how to avoid saying things that might trigger, I suppose, or anger, even, these different personality types. And it also really helps, once you understand what drives them, how you can make their lives happier by giving them the stuff that they're really asking for. So it's a really good read and will really help you make your teams more cohesive, make them glue together. And even actually it will help you with your meetings, how you talk to your customers, and everything. It's a really great thing.

Yeah, I find it sort of fascinating how we've ended up in our business with yellow people and other people... have we designed it to be that way, or have people just come along and that's how they are? I'm not quite sure. Have we looked out for these people?

It's interesting, because if we'd learned about it before they came I suppose... But an entire business full of yellows would probably be--

Oh, horrendous.

A little bit exhausting. So I think having a good mix is what you really want. But understanding how they interact with each other is the key thing. Great book.

Number two, Chris.

Number two is 'Rethinking Happiness' by Derren Brown. It's a video. It's also a book, I think it's just called Happy, the book. I'm mid-forties and obviously going through a midlife crisis where you would normally go out and buy a motorbike or a speedboat, or whatever, and I went on holiday and thought, 'Well, maybe we should have a look at happiness and what makes us happy, and just explore that a little bit.' And he comes up with some really great ideas about when you're happy, or when you're in a circle of people, you compare yourself to them all the time, to see how much better off, or how much worse off you are than them. But you never compare yourself to like David Beckham or people on a different planet, and that's how you see the world from social media, say - you're always comparing yourself to people who are posting things going, 'I did this thing really well,' which is their perfect life that they're trying to portray. We're just sort of competing on a weird sort of level. And how to get away from that, really.

And the thing I took away really was the bit at the end, and he talks what would happen if everybody was removed. What if you were just alone in the world, all of a sudden? And you could have any house you want, would you really go and live in a giant mansion? You probably wouldn't. You know, would you start caring about designer clothes? Probably not. So many of the drivers people put behind happiness - so many of the things, the sort of cosmetic things, they think are gonna make themselves happy... Chris' new speedboat (which you should definitely buy, by the way)--

In Nottingham?

You know, these things that people think are going to make them happy probably won't make them happy - and once you strip all of those other people away, the things that probably will make you happy are things that maybe you already have - you know, shelter, warmth, things like that. So it's a really interesting thought experiment to help you focus on the important things.

And the other thing I read, actually, a while ago, is there was another survey - I can't remember the name of it, so we can't reference it - and it talked about buying things versus employing people. So you might buy a speedboat - we love speedboats here - or you might spend money on, I dunno, paying someone to sort your garden out or put a fence up or clean your house, or something. And apparently you get a lot more happiness from that kind of exchange than you would from the thing that you're buying. So that's another interesting thing as well.

I mean, I haven't finished the book yet, but a lot of happiness comes from having a purpose in life. So that goes back to the Simon Sinek things in business, where teams really want a reason to be, a purpose, a noble cause, I think he calls it.

Yeah, seeing where they fit in the puzzle I think is another really good thing. So again when we talk about - if you check out OKRs - Google it - really interesting way of sharing really cool objectives in your company that people can feel that they have a purpose driving towards, is another really good way of doing it.

Yeah, especially, people don't really want to work for 40 years of their life and then look back and go, 'Well, I've just worked for money, and that's it.'

'What have I got? A speedboat.'

Yeah, exactly.

The last one. This is fascinating, this is. This blew my brain. You might've seen this online actually, some of it's been trending on social media, and it's about inner monologues.

Yes, so when I'm talking to you, I have an inner monologue going, 'Why don't we talk about this next, der der der der,' but in the video, there's a boyfriend who has an internal monologue like that, but the girlfriend has nothing.

This blew a lot of people's minds on social media. They were like, 'What do you mean people don't have an inner monologue? And not everybody does?' And the people without inner monologues are going, 'What, are you insane? You have like a voice in your head?' And there are loads of studies now being done and it's just fascinating.

We chose this video in particular - because there are loads out there talking about this - but we chose this one in particular because it goes even further, because she's got aphantasia, and that means that she has no mind's eye either. So she can't form pictures in her mind, she can't even picture her own face.

Yeah, that is odd, isn't it.

Or the colour red, even. It's like she can't remember what her boyfriend looks like when she's away from him. It's only when he comes back that she goes, 'Oh, there you go, yeah that's him.'

But what we think is the takeaway really for you guys is to understand that everybody's brains work very differently. So when we thread these three videos together, understanding that people have different types of personality, and will react in different ways, and have different drivers and different mechanisms, understanding that they need a purpose, and their happiness will come from finding that place of fulfilment and purpose, and not from maybe massive amounts of commercial stuff. And that some people don't have even the literal same way of thinking and problem-solving and internal vision and creativity. Everybody is very different. So I think understanding those things is going to give you a level of empathy that will make you a much happier marketing team or leader, or whatever you might be.

Yeah, and if you're trying to communicate with people, maybe there isn't just one way to do it. Maybe because there are so many different types of people, maybe you have to do three or four to make it land in every person. It's kind of tricky. It gets more complicated the more you look at any of this stuff.

It does. In fact, we'll just do one more really quick thing - I know this one's gone on but we have a customer and they use some of this terminology actually, and they talk about yellow enablers. And these yellow enablers are guys that are enthusiastic and go, 'Yeah, I wanna buy your thing!' but when they take it away and try and put it in their business, there are a load of technical people there, who are the blue preventers. And they're like, 'No, how's it gonna integrate with our network, how's it going to do this, where's the accreditation?'

So those guys need two forms of communication. They need to sell the idea to the yellow enabler, and then they need to reassure the blue preventer with all the stuff. And that's why you'll have top level cultural marketing saying one thing, and then supporting material that's reassuring. Technical documentation for those that need to go through it. So multiple communication for multiple people, and understanding who they are is great.

Well, we've just made business more difficult, haven't we.

Sorry everyone.

Well, that's it, and good luck. Let us know what you think about the videos, actually, it'd be really interesting to see.

Yeah, are you a green person? Are you - what do you care about? What drives you? And do you have an inner monologue? Are you rabbiting off in your own brain, like I am now? Shut up, Matt. Shut up, Matt.

I think I can hear your inner monologue.

Oh crikey, he's going to do some sort of annoying voice over now I'll bet.

Anyway, thanks very much.

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