Are You Communicating to Connect — Or Communicating to Create Distance?

Most people never ask themselves this. They just assume that because they meant well, it landed well.

In this OYBS episode, there was no one else I'd rather sit down with than my dear friend Sha-En Yeo (MAPP, CSP) — Singapore's first Happiness Scientist, 2x TEDx speaker, and Immediate Past President of Asia Professional Speakers Singapore. 

What most people don't know: Sha-En was bullied as a kid for being small, and for years she was ashamed of how deeply she felt things. Now that same sensitivity is the exact instrument she uses to read a room and lead a team.

Here’s where the whole episode kept circling back to: the problem was never how honest you are.

It was never your personality, your "directness," or how "authentic" you were being. 

It's this — your intention is irrelevant if your delivery wasn't built for the person receiving it.

According to SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), 76% of employees say workplace miscommunication increases their stress. Not disagreement. Not conflict. Miscommunication. 

The point - 3 out of 4 people are quietly stressed by messages that never landed the way they were meant to.

Let's chew into the crackling bits with these tips:

Tip 1: The Messy House Beats the Clean Insult 

I grew up between two grandmothers. Grandma 1 ran a spotless household with military precision and ten kids in line — and told me my clothes stank. Grandma 2 barely cooked, rarely cleaned, and just showered me and called me sweet names. I still, to this day, don't know why I loved being at the dirtier house more. It’s in this ONE thing: connection isn't about competence. It's about whether the person feels dismissed or wanted.

✅ Before you speak, ask yourself which grandma you're being — not how right you are, but how the other person will feel standing in front of you.

Nobody remembers how spotless your house was. They remember whether you made them feel like they belonged in it.

Tip 2: Their Nod Is Not Agreement. It's an Alarm Going Off. 

When someone feels attacked, their brain doesn't process what you're saying — it goes straight into fight, flight, or freeze. At work, this shows up as enthusiastic nodding and "mm-hmm, got it" — followed by work that comes back completely wrong. That's a person whose emotional alarm went off three sentences ago and never came back online.

✅ If someone's face-saving instead of engaging, stop talking and ask a real question — not "do you understand," but "what's your preferred take on this."

Deer in headlights nod exactly like compliant employees do.

Tip 3: Stop Golden-Ruling People Who Need the Platinum Version 

The golden rule says treat others how you want to be treated. Sha-En's platinum rule flips it: treat people how they need to be treated — same message, different wrapping. I watched the golden rule fail in real time with a coaching client of mine. Her boss buried five pieces of negative feedback under one throwaway compliment, technically nailed "the sandwich method," and she walked out and told me straight — this is bullshit, man. The formula was correct. The person wasn't.

✅ Before a hard conversation, ask how this specific person receives hard truths — not how the formula says to deliver it, and not how you'd want to receive it.

Treating everyone the way you like to be treated is empathy dressed in your main character syndrome.

Tip 4: Give Them Their Airtime Before You Finish Their Sentence in Your Head 

The fastest way to kill a conversation is deciding you already know where it's going. Someone starts talking, you've "heard this before," you interrupt — except they hadn't finished forming the thought yet. Now it's two people talking at each other instead of a conversation, which Sha-En describes as a ball going back and forth, not two people lobbing at once.

✅ When you feel the urge to jump in, that's your cue to pause instead. Let them land the sentence before you respond to the sentence you assumed they were building.

You can't have a real conversation with someone whose ending you've already written.

Tip 5: Clarity of Communication Begins With Clarity of Thought 

I once coached a C-suite client heading into a TV interview. Eloquent, confident, told me he didn't need to prepare — he'd "just be authentic." Two minutes into the interview, his emotional alarm went off, and what came out was — his words of verbal diarrhea that made zero sense. Sha-En's line for this is the one I'm stealing for life: he was authentically spaghetti-brained.

✅ Before any important conversation, write your two or three key points down first — even messily. A jumbled mind cannot deliver a clear message, no matter how "authentic" it feels walking in.

You are authentically spaghetti. And spaghetti was never a strategy.

Tip 6: Swap "You" for "I Noticed" Before You Trigger the Defense 

The moment a hard conversation starts with "you," the other person's brain slams into defense mode and stops listening for the rest of the conversation. Sha-En's litmus test: imagine someone walked up and told you flatly, "you sound like a pig." You'd want to fight them, not reflect. Now take the exact same feedback and route it through "I noticed when you were speaking earlier, I found it hard to follow you" — same content, opposite nervous system. 

Her structure: open with "I noticed," name the impact on you specifically, then stop talking and ask what they think. It turns a monologue into an invitation.

✅ Rewrite your next piece of feedback starting with "I noticed" instead of "you." Then ask a genuine question and actually wait for the answer.

The second you say "you," they stop listening and start drafting their rebuttal.

Tip 7: You're Not a Prisoner of Your Circumstances. You're a Prisoner of Your Narrative. 

Confession time. I called a Grab driver after a full day of training — heels, luggage, exhausted. He didn't get out to help me with my bag. I decided, on the spot, that he was lazy and rude, loaded my own luggage while fuming, called my husband to complain loudly in the back seat, and finally snapped at the driver to help me with my bag when we arrived. He turned around and calmly told me he was wearing a pacemaker and wasn't supposed to lift anything heavy. I have never apologized so fast in my life.

✅ The next time you feel triggered by someone's behaviour, ask what story you just wrote about them with zero evidence — before you act on it.

The story you tell about someone else's behaviour usually says more about you than about them

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Tip 8: Don't Force-Feed Someone a Chili Fish Ball Before They're Ready 

Timing-awareness is a life-skill. Sha-En admitted she used to launch into her day the second her husband walked in — while his mind was still elsewhere — and then feel hurt when he wasn't fully present. The fix wasn't a better opening line. It was waiting until he was actually ready to receive it.

✅ Before you deliver anything important, check if the other person is actually present, not just physically in the room. If they're not, the timing is the message.

The right message at the wrong time is just noise with good intentions.

THE WRAP

Here’s my take as this burrito wraps up.

Check your intentions, Consider the other person’s readiness, and Correct your own blind spots in communication.

Positive communication is about whether the person on the other end can actually receive what you're saying — and that depends far more on your delivery, your timing, and your self-awareness than on how honest or "authentic" you were being.

And seriously — what's the point of being right if nobody around you can actually hear you?

Sha-En Yeo (MAPP, CSP) , thank you for bantering with on me on my grandma, your hubby, and the pacemaker-adjacent chili fish ball metaphors.

Now fly forth, my friends — before your next hard conversation, pause, ask if the other person is actually ready to receive it, and please, for the love of connection, stop swallowing chili fish balls whole.

Catch the full OYBS episode with Sha-En Yeo: https://youtu.be/FuI6A2a3dcQ?si=VxIbOK9ZyQuXy_O4

This is Cindy Tien, EQ Maven, CSP - Empowering teams to Break through Blind Spots & Turn Hurdles into Hallmarks.

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