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Do You Really Know How to Communicate?
By: Mary Ann Massey, Ed.D.
I know this is a silly question to ask grown ups. You probably present yourself well, say what you mean and mean what you say. You are usually clear, direct, specific, and even fight fair. You know how important it is to acknowledge the other person's content (feelings, ideas, plans - no matter how ridiculous they sound to you). I suspect you have even attended several seminars on the subject.
No doubt, if you are male, your female partners, friends, and/or spouse have accused you of not listening to them well. If you are female, your male partners, friends, and/or spouse have probably asked you to spare them the details and get to the point. Maybe you are quite pleased with the way you present yourself and receive others in business situations, but still have trouble feeling satisfied with normal exchanges in your personal and family relationships. All of you can call to mind exchanges that got out of hand, and you still do not know why.
THE PROBLEM
We've been introduced to the gender-related problems during the past ten years. They are real and I will address them later. We have been psychologized by my peers regarding the influences of our natural environments - families, culture, school, and Church. We have seen, heard, and grieved over the effects of abuse on young and old alike. We have (or an organization for whom you’ve worked has) paid lots of money for communications courses, leadership training, and counseling. But we have not yet compensated for the limited attention span of the average professional American on the run whose life resembles that of the white rabbit at the mad hatter’s tea party.
One local information specialist received 658 e-mail messages in one day. He told me that was normal. Another colleague gets over 1000! I was kept on hold with AOL for 50 minutes in the middle of a weekday afternoon waiting to be connected to a representative. When I tried to deal with my feelings without chopping her head off, she told me she had 342 calls on hold after me. Tom, a project developer of a major communications organization, had 24 meetings scheduled in one day. He said that was a little high - he averaged around 20. Please note that I have not even mentioned customer relations folk at utilities companies, financial institutions, airlines, car rental groups, or the thousands of other businesses which engage hundreds of other average people who are squeezing in the appointment or the phone call during lunch or while on a sales call. Everyone has an important problem, everyone wants to be recognized NOW, and everyone anticipates where the other guy is headed...at least some of the time. People on both sides of the counter or phone or desk feel bruised and beaten and stand guard for an unwanted manipulative ploy. It's the sign of the times.
How do we listen well, take in the other's reality, and even process it, let alone respond to it in an affirming manner with such limitations? I hate to say "It's easy" but "IT'S EASY!"
Prerequisites to THE SOLUTION
Because this is really advanced communications, I’ll call this Communication 505, we need to review Communication 101. Nothing I offer can be utilized without a solid grounding in the following:
Be prepared to give up being heard first.
Be prepared for your listener to disagree with your brilliant ideas, conclusions, summation, story, or solution. Agreement is not the foundation of communication, understanding is.
Be prepared to utilize the basics of that communication training which taught you to speak for yourself with "I" statements and eliminate "you should..." from your cache of sentence openers.
Be prepared to eradicate "always" and "never" from your vocabulary. I am sure this is a lot easier to do with your colleagues than with your teenage son or daughter. Do it anyway. The process is the same everywhere.
This is the toughest of all: Figure out how to keep your resentments, annoyances, wounded ego, and unfinished business from exchanges with others out of the conversation at hand. How easy it is to jump down the throat of someone - anyone - who makes a statement even remotely related to a lingering problem from earlier in the day that left you feeling one-down. Unconsciously, we grab the metaphorical whip and stop the newcomer in his/her tracks with "...and another thing..." when we couldn't find the right words to say six hours before.
THE SOLUTION – Communication 505
With the above intact, you are ready to follow a simple formula based on a both/and philosophy. Acknowledge the other's reality; Negotiate to a place of comfort for you; and Deal with Differences.
A--Acknowledge the other's reality:
You don't have to agree, support, sign your name to, give your car keys to, or even believe the other. You do need to acknowledge him/her. Most often, arguments begin right here. When you feel attacked, do you tend to counter-attack, defend yourself with righteous indignation and perhaps some under the belt beebees, and miss the intentions of the other completely? You may be the CEO, the President, or some other head honcho. Even you have gotten hooked. Here are some examples.
A colleague calls you before your first sip of coffee with: "Why didn't you tell me you worked out a deal with department X to co-sponsor Y. You should have told me before I had dinner with them last night!" Hmmm. That's a pleasant way to begin the day, eh? What are your choices? You could justify your action, defend yourself, explain the circumstances, or even apologize. If you do any of those from a reactive plane you will build resentments that will affect exchanges the rest of the day. There is only one starting place - with his reality. It doesn't matter if he's wrong, if you left a memo, if you told his wife, or if you really goofed. Acknowledge his feelings, his view, and his need to vent. You do not have to agree with him, just acknowledge that you have heard him and heard how he feels. For example: "Wow, Charlie, you really sound upset. Your encounter with Y must have been pretty unpleasant." Whatever you do, don't talk about the facts as you know them yet. Talk about him. Stay with his feelings until he can listen. He is too full of his own conclusions and woundedness to hear anything you have to say until he calms down.
Here's another example: Your five year old has just fallen off the bike and done a number on her knee. You've watched the happening, run to help her off the ground, and hear her crying how much her leg hurts. She is focused on the bleeding and probably thinks she's more hurt than you have ascertained she is. She gets a little hysterical, says "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!" and cries harder. How do you respond? I have heard some very good parents say, "Shush now, honey, it's not bleeding, nothing is hurting, and everything is okay." I don't think so!!! Not from her vantage point. Acknowledge her reality: "You sure are bleeding, and I bet it hurts a lot. We'll wash it off and see what we have to do to make it better."
Another example: You and your spouse arrive home from work within minutes of each other. You have each nonverbally organized the other's evening to correlate with last minute plans you have made. One of you starts: "Honey, I called a babysitter for tonight so that we could attend the concert at the convention center. My brother had two extra tickets. Can you be ready in an hour?" Nothing unkind here. The speaker is excited, anticipates your 'of course' and never even thought to ask you if you had plans. You have choices here. You could remind him/her of that, you could raise some smoke about spending an evening with your brother-in-law, you could get angry about five other times in the past year your spouse has selfishly ignored your desires in favor of other interests, or you could acknowledge his/her reality. This is a tough call. You really feel violated here and can't find a way out. You probably are also angry.
Rule #1 in the prerequisites suggests you need to give up being heard first. Set aside your own reality and focus: "Gosh, these tickets are a real coup, aren’t they? I know how much you love this band." If you can say the above honestly and compassionately, then you have created a good foundation for the conflicting interests that will become apparent shortly. If your spouse is willing to hear your differing plans and you are both willing to do that which seems best for you, even if you go separate ways for the evening, then all will be well. If you decide that acknowledging your partner's reality means you have to give up your own, then you have a problem. You do not own each other, neither of you is more important than the other, and choosing different activities on a given evening will not end your marriage - unless you believe that your marriage is based on a trade-off system whereby periodically one or the other of you gives up needs based on the other's felt higher need. But I am sure you are beyond that. If so, then you are in about 45% of the married population. If you are in the other 55% of the marrieds, then you are heading for divorce, because you are systematically trying to control each other, lock each other up, and stand on some moral ground in so doing. (How about that for loading the dice on you?)
N--Negotiate for your needs:
Negotiation is good; it allows for two winners. If your belief system discredits negotiation, then you espouse one that supports one mind, one way, the right way (whose?), creates love as a weapon (if you really loved me, you would see it my way), and holds another hostage. Many people are afraid to negotiate for fear of losing. It seems to me that non-negotiating guarantees at least one loser and maybe two. Too many spouses believe that negotiating is for business but not for love. Too many parents believe that negotiating is for business but not for dealing with teenagers' curfews. Our societal beliefs about loving need to change to allow the minor discord and conflict engendered in the negotiating process to sustain a fruitful exchange.
Let's follow the couple who have differing agendas for the evening to the negotiation table. Perhaps, the husband is able to hear his wife's reality and creates a good foundation. Let's also say that he has no intention of going to the concert. He has two tickets to a ball game, and that's that! But he has no need to hurt her, put her down, discount her desires, or play higher moral ground on some obscure point. He wants her to be happy, too. Negotiation in its purest form has two winners. "Sweetheart, I have a similar story. Sam gave me two tickets to the ball game. I'd really like to go. I am not very interested in the concert or spending time with your family tonight. What can we do about this dilemma?"
If he speaks in a respectful manner, she might say: "I have no desire to go to the ball game. I will miss you but I understand. I would like you to meet us for dessert and coffee afterwards at X's house. Will you be willing to do that?" If she is able to be gracious and not beat him up for his choices, he might be able to say: "That I can do for you. Yes. But I am not willing to rush out of the game. I will promise to come as soon as I comfortably do so after the game. Can you live with that?" "Yes, and thanks." Negotiation complete.
That dialogue could have gone awry. If either attacked the other for not sacrificing other plans, blood could have been drawn. Even then, one of the partners could have acknowledged the other's hurt and turned the tide again. Acknowledgement has power.
Negotiation augments the power. It allows members of a family to be real with each other. Deeper love is born out of such respect, out of honoring each other's intentions to love even when their choices of the moment are "all for one and one for all."
Consider negotiating with your teenager: Your 17 year old son wants the car for a date and has requested a 3 am curfew. Do you dismiss him, laugh at him, scold him, deny him the car because he has gone too far? What do you do? If you believe in negotiating, then use it. This is a time to empower your son to give and take, to get some of what he wants, without having to have it all, for him to be happy. "Son, I can't live with a 3 am curfew. I would not be a good parent to allow you that much freedom. I am willing to hear what's important to you and am open to some other ideas." If the son has learned in this family that goodness comes from telling the truth, then the parent and the son will reach a mutually satisfying conclusion. The son will feel supported and the parent will feel greater respect for the son. If this family only knows coercion, then "no" means rejection, non love, and no options. The son attacks the parent wherever the vulnerability lies and the parent plays god. No one wins...Maybe the child complies, maybe he sneaks out... either way love has been bruised.
Negotiation requires TIME. Who has time? In lieu of time, we want what we want the way we want it. The white rabbit cannot even hear the problem all the way through - he's always on to the next place even before leaving the old place. He hears what he expects to hear and says what he decides will clear that problem off his plate so he can go on to the 412 that are waiting.
A family dilemma: If everyone in the family believes that "if you loved me, you would see that I am in a jam and ease my problem," then that household is starving, overworked, and pressured. Everyone thinks his/her binds take priority. Of course, they do! Personal problems always carry more anxiety for the owner than anyone else's. Conflict runs away with itself when people think others need to change to help them out of personal jams. Negotiation derives its authenticity and power in conflict. If changing my plans to accommodate to yours doesn't matter to me, then we don't need to negotiate. Negotiation is born in conflict. Its exquisite richness is realized by two people who resolve conflict by surrendering unconscious predispositions to force the other to someone else's "right" way, all the while maintaining love feelings and respectful conversation.
D--Deal with Differences:
I start from the large picture and you start from the foundation. I use a lot of words, you use few. I want to create a committee, you want to work alone. I want to make friends with our benefactor, you want to show him your authority. Who's right? I like to have dinner parties, you hate them. I believe in strong discipline, you believe in greater leniency. I want us all to go to Church together, you want to worship God in your own way. Do you divorce? I want to paint, you want me to play football. I want to study architecture, you want me to study medicine. I like movies, you want me to like opera. I like to tell jokes, you think I'm being too silly. Who am I? Do I give me up to connect with you, or do I explore my own outer edges knowing I may lose you? Does it have to be either / or? Does it have to be better than and worse than, good or bad, right or wrong?
Maybe we can think about each other as different, not less than or better than. This is an age old dilemma. Movies, books, and songs abound with examples of people who forged a path despite great odds, or who lived lives of insignificance because the odds were too great. We contribute to each other's difficulties by hierarchizing differences. Businesses are learning the value of personality graphs to utilize the best of a staff.
Families are not so enlightened as yet. Differentness stands out as unacceptable. We can laugh at someone's drawings if we think art is a waste of time or look with disgust as someone spends hours tinkering with cars because we wouldn't spend our time that way. Your boss is a woman who is brilliant. She can take on many projects at the same time, stay connected to you and your department's needs, and advances the name of the company nationwide. But...she is so disorganized, at least according to your way of organizing. Maybe she's not really disorganized, but has a structure different from you. Perhaps, your colleague psychologizes day in and day out. It is annoying to you. You are not interested in that stuff. You are a bottom line person. All those possibilities have no meaning for your practical head. If you had to work on a project together, you would need to negotiate the amount of interpersonal comments you could live with. She's not bad, you're not good. The differences will always be there. And believe it or not, they can quite exciting, enhancing, and enjoyable.
Relationships at work or at home in the new millennium require a millennium mindset – Both/And is in; tug of wars are out.
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