Communication, communication, communication – PART II
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
In this 2nd article about communication, I will discuss two further elements of communication; firstly, I am exploring more tools about asserting my preferred way of communicating, from I-statements and active listening to mirroring and negotiating my communication style and space. In the second part of this article, I am going to look a little bit deeper into how I communicate beyond words in every-day life and what effects this might have to other people’s understanding and interpretation of those messages I send out to the world.
One proven method for effective communication is the use of I-statements. Most of you probably know or have heard about these, but I will briefly explain here. I-statements have 4 parts: I state how I feel about a situation that happened and then ask what I need to happen or to be done. For example:
The last few months I feel trapped and anxious about the new project that I was allocated to coordinate, and I’d like to have a meeting with the other owners to discuss planning and reallocating responsibilities.
This is a very generic example of what I might discuss with my manager in reference to this task that’s been assigned to me, and I find it difficult to execute for a variety of reasons, one being the workload and also the communication and collaboration with the other stakeholders. One thing to notice is that in an I-statement I avoid blaming other people, so I stay clear from saying things like your behaviour, their actions, you are doing this, etc. This is to avoid accusing and as a result putting someone in a defensive mood. By declaring my own feelings, I create an undisputable statement. Compare this to a different statement such as:
My colleagues at the task are not pulling their weight and I end up doing everything for the project, and I need to have a meeting with the other owners to discuss planning and reallocating responsibilities.
In the latter one can undeniably say that this not true or that this is a very subjective view, and they might contend the sharing of workload, while in the former I-statement no one can dispute your own feelings. The latter one gives a message of criticism and blame, regardless of whether it is true or not.
I use here an I-statement to start the conversation. Naturally, the conversation will lead to other details about this given situation; as expected the other person will ask more questions to clarify and get more information. I-statements are useful both at work and in personal life situations and create a trusting and honest environment between interlocutors.
And on the topic of trust and honesty it’s important to explore here the notion of active listening, in the sense that I am not only telling and asserting my communication, but I am also listening to what other people need and what feedback they might give me. Let’s not forget, communication is a two-way system (giving and receiving messages), and the participants’ aim is alignment in this respect. So, although my I-statement’s purpose is to express my feelings I am not closing my ears to listening to the other person. In active listening I am exploring more the other person’s communication style, by observing, listening with my whole body and mind and by asking questions with curiosity and no judgement; is more about ‘tell me more’ than ‘why are you are doing this.’ This is perhaps what the position of your leader should be in response to your I-statement mentioned earlier.
During active listening I intentionally and exclusively focus on what my interlocutor is saying so I can understand, and at the same time I lose my desire to perform, the urge to share my story or even to plan my reply as I might do in a normal conversation. By developing active listening skills, I am developing empathic listening, that supports stronger interpersonal relationships, closer connections and deepens my own sense of empathy. I hope the examples above draw a clear picture of how this specific communication should go and how it should be, more or less, structured.
The notion of mirroring (also called the chameleon effect[1]) is also at play here; it describes our mimicking behaviour of others’ expression, gestures, verbal and non-verbal signs. We do this spontaneously to build rapport and trust both in professional and personal settings e.g. sales reps use mirroring to achieve more positive connection with the client that ultimately leads to more sales. Mirroring also increases empathy and connection, and in personal life can lead to better and more proactive communication and rapport.
Mirroring is also a two-way process and the same way we mirror another person’s behaviour they do the same with ours, so we both constantly adjust and move towards each other to align and reach a better connection. Obviously, this is not always successful; we know that sometimes first impressions might give us a totally negative signal about someone and the communication and connection might break down before it’s even established. There are many factors that affect the end result.
I often refer to these elements are the 3 misses i.e. miscommunication, misunderstanding and finally, misalignment.
We can think about this as a negotiation approach e.g. my first impression is that we use very different styles to communicate, so I am trying (and hopefully you do too from your side) to adapt a little bit to your style searching for this middle ground where we can meet. Obviously, some people are better or more open at implementing this negotiating methodology and at adapting more readily to their interlocutor’s style. Others might be more rigid and assertive. It is about both sides moving towards each other to find this space, embracing this middle ground. Such moving back and forth is constantly adjustable depending on the situation, person and context.
Communication beyond words
When someone says to me that I don’t want to comply with the standards set in the workplace or in business in general, I am totally up for it. Rebel and be authentic and original, wear what you want, talk as you like, be the person you want to be. We know, however, that human brains are full of blind spots, stereotypes and other unconscious biases so first impressions do matter (because even if someone is super-aware of those, our brains still take shortcuts and fall into the same patterns). So, how can I avoid these?
Let me start with an example, from life rather than work related. Imagine you are selling your property, and you have a potential buyer for a viewing. You make a reasonable effort to have everything organised and tidy so the viewer can imagine themselves living in your property. You are trying to appeal to them, so they end up buying your place; that’s the purpose of this viewing. So, for example you wouldn’t leave dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, right? Even if you are very anti-establishment and you want to prove a point about how wrongly humans are approaching first impressions and how judgmental we might be, and considering that in theory we all know that in a given kitchen it’s ok to have dirty dishes in the sink (that’s the purpose of the kitchen/sink after all), you will still make an effort to present a clean kitchen/sink to the viewer. Right? In my mind this is not just complying with social conventions and constructs but accommodating a judgmental mind (the human mind) pre-empting it from making very fast assumptions from first impressions, in this case something along the lines of ‘goodness what a messy person/house’. And equally our minds would probably do the same, even though we have tried so hard to be aware and to move beyond biases and first impressions etc. that’s why such biases are called unconscious.
Have our minds changed over the millennia? Some maybe have changed, a little bit and with great effort, but collectively, there’s still bias and fast judgments at play, happening mostly unconsciously. So, if I cannot control my own or others’ minds, I might be able to control other factors in the environment that affect our judgment, i.e. leaving dirty dishes in the sink! The bottom line if there’s a time to be nonconforming against all this, this is not a good time or by extension, when I try to be authentic at work etc. I can start working with my own mind first before I stretch to others’. Obviously, my example of the dirty dishes in the sink and authenticity they are not exactly akin. The point I am trying to make is that we all make everyday decisions about various elements that communicate something to other people (be it my dirty dishes, or my clothes or the shoes I am wearing or even the way I address other people) and these are often crucial for the messages we want or don’t want to convey to the others and how much we care or we don’t care about specific messages.
We are all pushing the boundaries all the time and this is a good thing. We wouldn’t have progressed if we didn’t but again, I want to consider what is a balanced approach that takes into account those multiple factors and that helps me decide what’s useful to do and what’s not. Can you find your middle way? Can you find a way that it’s both original and authentic and true to oneself and at the same time challenges the status quo but in a way that conveys the right message? And by ‘right’ I mean the message the way you wanted to be conveyed.
Ultimately, it’s not about ‘I don’t care what other people think’ or ‘I don’t care if people judge me’. It’s not really about the judging; that takes effort and thought. It’s about side-stepping other people’s unconscious bias and stereotypes and entertaining these first impressions that there are often, out of our control. Then it’s your time to shine with the real you!
In the 1st article about communication, I mentioned that everything we do, wear, say etc. communicates something. In this article I have expanded further into the area of unconscious biases and how our communication style draws boundaries.
The choice is yours and how you feel about communicating (or not) those solid messages (if they matter to you or not) and how strongly you might feel about specific messages that you want others to receive. There is always a factor of ‘I like something and I don’t care if other people share the same opinion’ or even ‘by liking this I belong to a certain tribe and people in the same tribe will share my liking.’ It’s a call that we all must decide every day and in every situation.
