Posts Tagged ‘Communication Skills’

Last week, my wife and my youngest daughter experienced a communication breakdown. In short, my daughter, at age 13, changed her plans without consulting my wife. This created a problem for two reasons:

1. My daughter moved to a different location than the previously agreed upon location for pick-up, and
2. My daughter’s schedule directly impacts my wife’s schedule.

Understandably, my wife felt frustrated and angry. Rather than address the issue while she was angry, she waited until we could speak about it on Saturday morning.

As we discussed the appropriate parental response, my wife’s frustration from the previous day came to the surface. For a brief moment, she considered “punishing” my daughter. As we spoke, I asked one question: “What is your objective? Do you want to punish her because you are angry or do you want to make sure this behavior does not happen again in the future?” (I’m not convinced that I phrased this question in the best way for her in the moment.)

She stopped briefly. Then she said: “When you put it that way, I suppose I want to make sure this does not happen again in the future.”

In that moment, my wife’s intended actions began to move towards appropriate and natural consequences for my daughter’s behavior and away from consequences that would likely communicate vengeance and anger.

My daughter did not intend to cause problems for her mother. She just did not think through all of the implications of her decision. She has some things to learn. My wife and I need to help her learn them.

My wife did not intend to harm my daughter, she wanted to protect her from making poor decisions in the future. In the emotion of the situation, she initially had a difficult time seeing past her anger.

I had the “emotional upper hand” in this situation. I was not emotionally involved in the events of the previous day. I could easily, in this case, make an objective, third-party observation. My wife lived the situation, and her emotions were directly involved. She had a more difficult time making the switch in thinking because of her emotional investment. She did it. It just was not easy for her to do.

After my wife shifted her thinking about the situation, we then discussed it  further. After a few minutes, we came to an agreement about how to handle the situation in a way that would improve our odds of achieving our real objective – teaching our daughter a life lesson that will serve her well beyond the time she lives with us.

Monday Momentum Message – Be clear about your real objective before you confront another person.

On Monday, I offered Three Tips for Heading Off Conflicts Before They Start. My third tip was to work to ensure open lines of communication.

In situations where you work closely with people over a long period of time, it is easy to start getting a bit “relaxed” in your communications. This relaxed communication approach has both good and bad implications. It can be good because it can foster openness. It can be bad when we lose the communication discipline to carefully consider what our words and actions communcate to others.

For example, my wife tends to communicate in a direct, bottom-line, high-energy fashion. When she gets really worked-up on a topic, I have difficulty telling the difference between passion about the topic and anger directed at me. Even after nearly twenty years of marriage, I still cannot easily distinguish between these two emotional states.

She is aware that her passion sometimes looks like anger to me. She works to control her expression and to tell me in words what state she is in rather than leaving it to me to interpret her tone and actions. She works hard to communicate more clearly, and she is still a human being. Sometimes she is tired, in a hurry, pressured, or otherwise distracted, and she forgets the discipline she normally works so diligently to apply to her communications.

Because we know that these moments will happen despite her best efforts. We have agreed to two code words that help me to quickly understand her thoughts and feelings. In our case, we have agreed that I can ask: “Sandra, are you angry or are you just passionate about this topic?” When I ask that question, she tells me her mental state in one word. As a result, I know exactly how to interpret the situation and how to best respond to her.

In about 95% of the situations where I would naturally interpret her behavior as angry, she is actually just passionate about the subject. In most situations, anger never even crossed her mind. Using these code words has helped us head off more conflicts than I can now count.

You can apply this same concept with the people in your life either at work or at home.

Thought for Thursday: Discuss this idea with some of the people close to you. Identify potential areas of misunderstanding or miscommunication between you, and develop code words that you can use to immediately clarify the situation for both of you.

     I’m excited to announce that I’ll be the guest speaker on a free teleseminar hosted by Kevin Eikenberry. Kevin is a great friend and colleague of mine. Our topic is all about creating dialogue for mutual clarity and benefit. (Yes – it really is free! Kevin is picking-up the tab on this one.)

     Kevin will bring his normal wit, wisdom and knowledge of leadership and learning to the call. I’ll contribute insights on human behavior and how different people might hear or say the same ideas. I think it will be a great call full of insights and tips for creating more dynamic and effective dialogue with others.

     The Time: Thursday, February 12th at 2:00 pm Eastern Time.

     The Place: Your office (or wherever you call in from)

     To Register: Kevin Eikenberry Teleseminar Registration

     Won’t you join us?

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

     I owe the inspiration for this post to Kit Cooper over at The Best Life Practices Blog. Kit interviewed longtime diplomat Dennis Ross, and Dennis shared this quote during the interview:

“I tell people that work with me that one of the most important skills in negotiations is active listening. I believe in not always asking questions with the purpose of getting the other side to reveal things. There is immense, untapped benefit to getting a deep understanding of what drives them and you certainly build good will with such an approach. “Why is that issue important to you. I want to understand it the way you understand it. I don’t want to have a false impression. Explain to me why that matters so much to you. Where does it come from? Why does it create an imperative?” You can’t find the underlying sources of behavior and issues unless you ask questions in this way. In my personal life, this skill has made me more interested in others and in turn made others more comfortable with me. When people see that I am curious by being an active listener, they get a message of respect from me. And of course you have the benefit of actually learning something.”

     Later in the post, Kit indicates that he has observed the tendency of some people to bring every conversation back to themselves in an effort to make themselves more interesting. From there, he suggests that “the best way they could accomplish their goal of being liked is the opposite approach.”

     First, I could not agree with Kit’s observations more. Second, I would like to add this conflict resolution spin to Kit’s posts. As Dennis Cooper points out and Kit builds on, listening intently and actively to another person opens communication and understanding in a way that speaking never will.

     I don’t know that I can add more powerful or persuasive words to the discussion than what I found in Dennis Cooper’s statement or in the rest of Kit’s post. I suggest you take a look at Kit’s post and that you commit to actively listening to your coworkers, your spouse, your children, your neighbor, and your boss. I’m making the commitment to focus more intently in this area. Won’t you join me?

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

     I am standing at a “laptop bar” in the Orlando Airport, and I am working quickly to post this thought before my plane boards for Indianapolis. I may have actually written this before. I’m in a hurry. I don’t really have time to check my archive. So, at the risk of repeating myself, I’m posting this thought because it is so important.

     When you communicate with another person, avoid the trap of assuming that you understand them or that they understand you. Push for absolute clarity. To do that, I recommend that you master the use of two questions:

1. When you want to ensure that you understand correctly, ask the following question – “Can I repeat back to you what I heard yoou say so that I can make sure I understood correctly?”
2. When you want to ensure that you have been understood,  ask this – “Just to make sure that I communicated clearly, could you repeat back to me what you heard me say?”

     You can ask these questions in many different ways if you remember this key point: whatever words you use, make sure that you take responsibility for any misunderstanding or miscommunication.

     Asking the right question allows you to engage in dialogue (rather than mutual monologue) with the other person so that you minimize the chance of a miscommunication. Taking responsibility for any miscommunication reduces the risk that they will be offended by the question.

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

     I picked up this book because of the title. I constantly look for good resources to help me and my clients learn to communicate in better and clearer ways. This book accomplishes that goal.

     In many ways, the subtitle – “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear” – communicates the main idea in this book.

     The author, Frank Luntz, polls people to find out what they heard and how they responded to what they heard for everything from political campaigns to product launches. He has many years of experience in this field.

     The book is filled with communication principles and stories that illustrate the principles.

     On the downside, I felt like the book moved a bit slowly. However, I think that the pace of the book is a minor issue. The lessons learned are well worth working through the content.

     If you want to understand which words work the best and how to use them most effectively, you will want to add this book to your library.

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer

     Have you ever been absolutely sure that you were right about someone else’s bad thoughts, hostile feelings or harmful intentions only to later find that you were wrong? I have.

     During the time that you held this mistaken view of their perspective, did you act in ways that made the conflict worse? I did.

     When you later learned of their true thoughts, feelings, or intentions; did you then realize how harmful your own words and actions had contributed to the escalating conflict between you? That was my experience.

     The title of this post has become one of the most powerful conflict resolution concepts that I personally work to apply. Learning to question my perspective before judging someone else’s (my spouse, my kids, my colleagues, or clients) has saved me from speaking or acting in harmful ways on more occasions than I can now recall. Sadly, when I don’t question my perspective and rush to action based on my judgment of someone else’s intentions, I usually get it wrong.

     In an effort to offer some practical guidance to assist you in this process, I’ll give three questions you can ask yourself the next time a conflict starts to brew:

1) Did they mean what I think they mean?

Maybe they really are angry. Maybe they did mean to insult you. Maybe they want to harm you in some way.

Or, maybe they are hurt. Maybe they didn’t realize that you took their comment personally. Maybe they are reacting to fear with a desire to protect themselves but no desire to harm you. Before you get angry, find a way figure out what they really meant.

2) Is there something going on here that I don’t understand fully?

Are they angry, or are they tired? Did they have a tough night with their sick child last night? Are they sick? Are they frustrated over lack of progress on a project? Any of these issues could cause the stress to push people to say and do things they would not ordinarily say or do. Before you judge too harshly, find out what’s happening in their life.

3) Did I do something to trigger that response in them?

Do I owe them something that is now late? Did they have an expectation of me that I did not meet? Did I say something that they received as an insult or put down? Even if the action was unintentional, any of these could generate a negative response from they other person. Before you decide that they are the problem, check your own past actions.

     Learn to question your perspective. It can take the edge off of your response so that you resolve conflicts faster and more productively.

     Guy Harris, The Recovering Engineer