THE "COMMUNICATE FAIRLY" RULES #5

Excerpt 3 Off the Tee:  Targeting Success

In any communication situation, you are both the sender and the receiver, and when you’re communicating fairly, you expect certain things to happen as you play both roles. To help you communicate fairly, I’ve put together a list of my favorite communication rules to help you play—or communicate—fairly. Here they are:

5)   Decide if it’s worth the fight. Take the temperature of the person you are about to talk to. Is the person in a good mood and comfortable? It may be better to postpone serious discussion if the timing is bad.

a.   Use your abilities to shift feelings positively. Ask thoughtful questions, show respect for others, boost morale, encourage involvement, and reduce stress.

b.   Sometimes people have intense feelings that may predate their current relationship. If they have sensitive or anxiety-driven feelings, you can develop nurturing regimes and interests that do not demand so much from them. By allowing others to answer questions, you allow them to stay in charge of themselves even when you are guiding them. They can face the mirror instead of defending themselves. This is necessary and especially potent with people who harbor memories of abuse. They develop self-preserving mechanisms to protect themselves and may find it difficult to open up and communicate comfortably.

c.   Sometimes people have strong attitudes that need to be reworked. If you come across as being too aggressive, demanding, or offensive, you can force others to shut down. For example, if you use expressions that demand change, your words may pack an additional punch that could be perceived as an attack. For example, when someone says, “If you had done your work earlier…I would have made my deadline,” they imply that it’s your fault that they didn’t make their deadline.

At this point, the hair stands up on your neck because you are angered by the perceived accusation and you feel that you are being manipulated into believing that you are in some way at fault.

By reworking attitudes, we can be more direct and effective in our style. Perhaps a new approach such as, “It would really help if you could get your portion of the project done by this date so that we can all make our deadline,” would be a little more effective and a lot less antagonistic.