In my upcoming 4-week Workshop we're going to talk in the first week about the importance of Relationships. As I mentioned in this post, relationships are the key to success.
Even though they don't teach relationship skills in school, I've been lucky enough to have taken a lot of leadership and healthy communication classes throughout my career. One of the most powerful classes that I took many years ago was 7 Habits for Highly Effective People.
In particular, I'll always remember the exercise we did to demonstrate “Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood®”
We split up into pairs and we were asked to role play through a conflict. We each were given a scenario that explained what our point of view was to be, so it was all hypothetical. One of us held a stick when it was our turn to speak. The other person needed to listen to the other person's point of view with the idea of really understanding, even if they didn't agree. It was only after they convinced the person with the stick that they understood, that they could have the stick themselves.
The instructor told us that in order to convince the other person we understood, how we spoke -- the tone of voice we used, the body language we used, would be necessary to convince the other person of understanding. If we just repeated their words back to them in a sarcastic tone, or we rolled our eyes as we said, "You think blah, blah, blah" they will not believe that we really can see their point of view.
Our natural tendency is to want to argue OUR point of view... to tell the other person why they are wrong and we are right. (This had been definitely true of me in my youth, as I'm sure my siblings would tell you.) When we do this, we both usually dig in our heels more to our point of view driving us further apart.
The video I shared in today's post is one I saw this morning on my Happify Feed: How to have Productive Conversations Instead of Arguments. The speaker, Julia Dahr, makes some great points including "Choose curiosity over clash" and "Finding a common purpose."
There are a lot of frameworks and systems out there that would help us communicate more effectively. The problem is, in real life, we both usually haven't taken a class. In the heat of an argument, we don't usually say.. "Hey... let's get that talking stick!" (And, from personal experience, I can tell you that even when you have explained the "talking stick" concept, the person you are arguing with may not be in the "mood" to hear about Habit 5.)
However, if we can get in the habit of listening with curiosity all the time, we may not get in the conflict in the first place!
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Interesting ideas to think about! Julia Dhar's video reminded me of an episode of the Life Kit episode called "How to Win an Argument: Brainstorm Instead"--see summary https://www.npr.org/2020/08/28/907043503/make-all-your-arguments-win-win-stop-fighting-and-start-brainstorming.It features Kwame Christian, the director of the American Negotiation Institute. He shared the Compassionate Curiosity Framework, which involves three steps: (1) Acknowledging and validating emotions, (2) Getting curious with compassion, and (3) Engaging in joint problem solving. He states that curiosity involves open-ended questions that start with "Who," "What," "When," and "How," but not "Why." Questions that begin with "Why" can trigger someone's defenses because it can sound judgemental--for example, "Why would you disagree with that?!" He also suggests that we use this framework on ourselves before engaging in a conversation so that we have a better understanding of where we stand. I also liked his suggestion of thinking of these conversations as micro-negotiations. For example, first negotiating on whether they are open to having a discussion about the issue, followed by negotiating whether they are open to entertaining a different perspective, and then negotiating on adopting a different perspective. One thing that I think is implicit in both Kwame's and Julia's approaches is that there is an assumption that the person initiating the discussion does so intentionally. I think people oftentimes find themselves in a debate without realizing it. For example, an argument that occurs during dinner or a casual conversation over the phone suddenly makes someone upset and both people become reactionary. In other words, I think many people would benefit from also practicing ways to cope with distress and discomfort to apply this framework when disagreements spontaneously occur. Julia's talk also raised another critical issue: trust. Curiosity can be perceived as condescending or insincere if the other party (or parties) does not trust the party initiating the discussion. Again, fascinating things to think about. Thanks for fueling my curiosity!
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