The Key of the Communication - Listen
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The Key of the Communication – Just Listen
Below is what I shared in PCE Club in 2010:
When it comes down to communication techniques, the first thing that comes to our mind probably is how we talk to other people, the words we use, the tone we talk.
On this Friday I took my son to watch movie “How to train your dragon”. Below are some conversation between a 8 years old son named Hiccup with his Viking leader Dad.(I copied below from a book) which touches upon on the topic of listening
Conversation 1:
“We have to talk,” Dad says.
I nod. “I have to talk to you, too, Dad.” I take a deep breath. “I‘ve decided I don’t want to fight dragons---“
“I think it’s time you learn to fight dragons,” Dad says. “You get your wish. You start dragon training in the morning.” He holds out his giant axe.
I don’t take it. “I don’t want to fight dragons.”
“Yes, you do, “ Dad counters.
“Let’ me say that another way,” I argue, “I can’t kill dragons.”
“You will, “ Dad replies ”It’s time. This is serious, son!” He pushed the axe into my hands. “When you carry that, you carry all Vikings with you. You think like us. No more.. you. Deal?”
Conversation 2:
“You’ve been keeping secrets, “ Dad accused. “Just how long did you think you could hide it from me? So let’s talk about that dragon.”
“I’m so sorry,” I reply quickly. “I was going to tell you. I didn’t know how…”
Dad erupts in laughter, and I stare at him in confusion.
“I was hoping for this! I just wish you would’ve come to me first,” Dad says , smiling.
I gulp in surprise. Clearly we’re not talking about the same thing.
Conversation 3: after son failed to fight/kill the dragon at the ring
Dad marches into the Hall of Heroes to berate me, but he’s so angry that he can’t speak.
“You don’t understand. “ I say softly. “He(the dragon) was protecting me.”
Dad faced me, his fists clenched, He huffs in disbelief.
…………….
Dad’s eyebrows furrow in an expression I recognize—he has an idea.(go to the nest to kill all the dragons)
“Dad, no, “ I say. You don’t know what you’re up against. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
He strides toward the door, and I run after him and grab his arm.
“No!” I cry, “For once in your life, will you please listen to me?”
Dad flexes his arm, throwing me to the ground.
“You are not a Viking,” he growls. “You’re not my son.” Then he storms out.
When I watched those episodes, I couldn’t help but felt heart–wrenching.
How many times when you and your child are in heated argument, your strong emotion and desire at that moment is just to win the argument and impose your will. You keep talking and talking until your face turning blue, at the end, your child says to you with great frustration “Mom, you just don’t get it! You never understand me!” You throw your hand to the air and say to yourself “I can’t believe he said that to me! What I have done deserve this? What more does he want from me?” It leaves both of you in deep emotional hurting.
So what’s missing here?
I recently saw a book in the bookstore, its title had caught my eyes. “Just Listen – Discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone” by Mark Goulston.
After reading this book, I have learned that the most powerful tool to get through people is not talking, it is LISTENING. The importance of listening is often overlooked by us. It doesn’t matter what message you are trying to give to your child, at the end, it is what message your child preceives that matters, in other word, when we talk to our children, our goal is not for the sake of talking, we need to be mindful on how effective our communicating to our children. How well we listen is indeed a skill that is even harder to master. Words like “Son, tell me what you are thinking, I am here to listen” could be such powerful ice-breaker that sets the stage for a meaningful heart-to-heart conversation. Listening well to your child lies in the strong desire to understand your child’s point of view by listening with great sincerity and love. In other word, practicing empathy is one of the foundations for keeping any kind of relationship healthy, all the communication techniques are just built on this foundation. (If you have read my previous postings in PCE Club forum, you could see I am big believer of empathy ).
Children watch and learn from the way we communicate with others. If you think 声大才证明有理, and using yelling in order to get your child’s attention and compliance, or by using put-down to prove your idea/action is right, it is very likely your child would follow your style. Family is the most important source where our children learn from, we should never underestimate the enormous power and impact we have on our children. To teach our children the good communication skills, we need to start from ourselves.
“Just Listen” is not a parenting book, but his points of view are very interesting and makes a great sense to me that I feel that I could apply some techniques to my parenting. How effective the Marks’ techniques are? One of his areas of expertise is training FBI and police hostage negotiators to handle life-or0death situations. “The same tips I teach these professionals for building empathy, de-escalating conflict, and gaining buy-in will work in any situation, “Mark says.
He said “Most people upshift when they want to get through to other people. They persuade. They encourage. They argue. They push. And in the process, they create resistance. When you use the techniques I offer, you’ll do the exactly the opposite-you’ll listen, as, mirror, and reflect back to people what you’ve heard. When you do, they will feel seen, understood, and felt-and that unexpected downshift will draw them to you.”
The Persuasion Cycle Mark describes:
Form resisting to listening
From listening to considering
From considering to willing to do
From willing to do to doing
From doing to glad they did and continuing to do
He then provides the powerful and simple techniques(The Nine Core Rules For Getting Through to Anyone and 12 Quick And Easy Ways To Achieve Buy-In And Get Through) to show us how to speak with them in a manner that would take people from beginning to the end of the Persuasion Cycle.
Below is the excerpt:
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#5 Core Rule: MAKE THE OTHER PERSON FEEL “FELT”
Making someone “feel felt” simply means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. One explanation to the effectiveness of making a person “feel felt” lies in the mirror neurons. When you mirror what another person feels, the person is wired to mirror you in return. Say “I understand what you’re feeling,” and other person will feel grateful and spontaneously express that gratitude with a desire to understand you in return.
It’s easy to focus so intently on getting something from someone else—that you lost sight of the fact that inside every person is a real person who’s just as afraid or nervous or in need of empathy as anyone else. It’s an irresistible biological urge, and one that pulls the person toward you. If you ignore that person’s feelings, you’ll keep hitting the same brick wall of anger, antagonism, or apathy. Make the person “fee felt,” on the other hand and you’re likely to transform yourself from a stranger or an enemy into a friend or an ally. You’ll get less attitude, less obstruction, and more support-and you’ll get your message thought.
#6 Core Rule: BE MORE INTERESTED THAN INTERESTING
Don you ever think in frustration: “I could get somewhere if only I could get this person interested in me?” That’s exactly what I’m talking about, but here‘s the thing: embodied in your statement is the reason you’re not getting through.
Why? Because you’re focusing all your attention on what you can say to make that person think you’re cool or smart or witty. And that’s your mistake, because you’ve got to backward. To figure out why, look at what one of the world’s most successful people do.
“Deep listening: is one of the terms most often used to describe Warren Bennis, founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the Universality of Southern California . Warren is one of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet, but when you’re with him—I don’t care if you’re the guy parking his car, or the CEO of Google—he is more interested in you.
I saw this talent recently when I was invited to a dinner with some of his close friends who were all smart, thoughtful, and driven. As the evening progressed, lively dialogue turned into heated debate. Back and forth, these brilliant people fired salvos at each other, eventually reaching a point where I heard much more talking than listening.
Through it all, Warren sat with rapt attention and said nothing. At one point during a lull in the conversation, when the debating parties paused to reload their verbal ammunition, Warren stepped in and said to the more unrelenting of debaters, “Bill, tell me more about that point you made about that philosopher.” By not entering into the debate and by inviting one of the participates to exhale, Warren changed the entire tenor of the conversation to made it better.”
What wise men like Warren Bennis instinctively know is that the way to truly win friends and influence the best people is to be more interested in listening to them than you are in impressing them.
From a brain science standpoint, here’s why: The more interested you are in another person, the more you narrow the people’s mirror neuron receptor deficit-that biological hunger to have his or her feelings mirrored by the outside world. The more you do that, the more grateful the person is toward you in return, and the more empathy the person feels toward you.
The more you try to convince people that you’re brilliant or charming or talented, the more they’re likely to consider you boring or self-centered. That’s especially true if you step on their stories in a rush to work in your own.
Don’t just act interested – be interested
So: how do you master the skill of being interested – and be sincere when you do it? The first key is to stop thinking of conversation as a tennis match. (He scored a point. Now I need to score a point.) Instead, think of it as a detective game, in which your goal is to learn as much about the other person as you can. Go into the conversation knowing that there is something very interesting abut the person, and be determined to discover it.
When you do this, your expectation will show in your eyes and body language. You’ll instinctively ask questions that let the other person fully develop an interesting story, rather than trying to trump that story. And you’ll listen to what the person is saying, rather than thinking solely about what you’re going to say next.
Ask ”How did that (work project, cooking experiment, etc) that you were going to do turn out?” This will show that you don’t just care abut the person but also take the extra care to know what’s going ion in his or her life—and be interested in it.
#7 Core Rule: MAKE PEOPLE FEEL VALUABLE
People need to feel valuable. We need this almost as we need food, air and water, it’s not good enough for us to know in our own hearts that we’re valuable: we need to see our worth reflected in the eyes of the people around us.
When you make people feel important, you give them a gift that beyond price. In return, they’ll often be willing to go to the ends of the world for you. That’s why, if your emotional IQ is high, you’ll find ways to show the people you value – parents, children, a partner, a boss, a key coworker – how much they matter. You’ll find ways to tell them that they make your world happier, funnier, more secure, less stressed, more entertaining, less scary, or just all-around better.
#13 Quick And Easy Way: THE MAGIC PARADOX
Benefit: shift another person from resistance to listening—from “nobody understands” to “you understand.”
This technique lets you break through to people in the most difficult part of the communication cycle: at the very beginning, when you need to shift them from resisting to listening and then to considering.
To see how the Magic Paradox works, picture this scenario. You’re Art’s manager and he’s not producing. You know he’s going through a divorce, and you’re cutting him as much slack as you can, but now he’s imploding and your project is in danger as a result.
Here‘s what you don’t do if you’re smart. You don’t go to Art and say something like, “Look, I know things are tough but you need to get your act together. You know how to do this job, and I know you can pull it off. Just set some targets, and I’m sure you can get caught up in time. All of us are under pressure, and we’re counting on you.”
If you do this (as most manager would), odds are Art will get defensive and hit back with “Yes.. but there’s not enough time.” Or, “yes.. but nobody’s giving me any support.” Keep pushing, and he’ll back further into defensiveness and lash out angrily or even quit.
That’s not what you need. And it’s not what Art needs. So instead do what Art least expects: Empathize with his negative thoughts.
For example, say: ”I‘ll bet you feel that nobody knows what it’s like to be scared that you can’t pull this project off. And I’ll bet that you’re upset because you think we’re all feeling let down by you, what’s more, I’ll bet you feel that nobody can possibly understand how hard it is to deal with all the stuff that’s happening in your life.”
Now watch the magic. Because you’re empathizing with Art’s emotions, you will eliminate his mirror neuron receptor deficit and cause him to feel understood by and connected to you. And there’s the first paradox: by saying explicitly that you know he feels that nobody understands, you‘ll make him realize that you do understand.
Here’s the second paradox: When you spell out all of Art’s reasons for being negative, you’ll shift him into a more positive attitude. Initially he’ll probably rise to ambivalence, that in-between place where he says, “Yeah, it’s godawful right now. But I know you need me to do this, and I’ll see if I can pull it off. Just don’t expect miracles.” At this point, you’ll have enough forward momentum to nudge him to make the leap all the way to acceptance:” I know I’ve screwed up. But I can do this. I really can. If you just give me a few days. I can make up for lost time.
How does the Magic Paradox work? By setting into motion a cascade of “yes” coming from the other person(“Yes, you’re right, my life is a mess, and I can’t take it anymore”). You shift the person’s attitude from disagreement to agreement. Once you establish that rapport, the person is emotionally primed to cooperate instead of punch back.
#14 Quick And Easy Way: THE EMPATHY JOTL
Empathy is a sensory experience: that is, it activates the sensory part of your nervous system, including the mirror neurons. Anger, on the other hand, is a motor action-usually a reaction to some perceived hurt or injury by another person. So by taking people out of anger and shifting them into an empathic behavior, the Empathy Jolt moves them from the motor brain to the sensory brain.
To put it another way, anger and empathy-like matter and antimatter—can’t exist in the same place at the same time. Let one in, and you have to let the other one go. So when you shift a blamer into empathy. You stop the person’s angry ranting dead in its tracks.
And what about the person who’s on the defensive? Suddenly and unexpectedly, however, the blamer knows just how sand, angry, scared, or lonely the defender feels and spontaneously turn into an ally. When the defender feels understood by the blamer and that they are on the same side, there’s nothing to defend against. The relief from no longer feeling “fear or loathing” toward the blamer spontaneously triggers a tremendous rush of gratitude and –miraculously –the person’s quiet rage turns into forgiveness and beyond that, a willingness to work toward solutions.
When you use the Empathy Jolt, avoid the mistake of interjecting your own opinion during the process-even if they’re positive ones. Your goal is to get two people to mirror each other. And they can’t do that if you’re standing between them. So facilitate, but don’t butt in.
#20 Quick And Easy Way: SIDE BY SIDE
Benefit: Lower another person’s guard and move the person from resistance to listening.
Side by Side is based on the following three facts.
Sitting people down and lecturing them rarely works, because makes them defensive- and when they’re defensive, they hide things from you. Work side by side with them in a cooperative activity, however, and you’ll lower their guard and get them to open up.
Questing works better than telling. That’s why Will(father) didn’t tell Evan, “Don’t let your friends get you into trouble.” Instead, he asked questions that made Evan(son) think, “Who’s likely to get into trouble, and what should I do if it happens? In other words, Will didn’t talk down to Evan, or talk at him. Instead, the two talked side by side emotionally as well as physically.
when you allow once revelation to lead to another without getting in the way, you learn even more. So rather than doing a “bait and switch” by luring his son into conversation that ended with a lecture(“Well, you’d better avoid Jake, or he’ll get you into trouble too”). Will employed a conversation deepener(“Really”) and a second question that enabled Evan to share even more.
The Side-by-Side approach is simple: join the other person in an activity(preferably one in which you can be helpful—but even eating lunch together is good), and then ask questions designed to gain insight into what the person is doing, thinking, and feeling.
The side-by-side technique is easy to use, but it comes with three cautions. The biggest one is: When you get people to lower their guard, don’t violate their trust. Do not use this technique to troll for negative information, or people will feel like you’re trying to spy on them or trap them rather than trying to learn from them. Accept negative information with the grace, but don’t seek it out.
Also, don’t argue with the person you’re talking with. If he or she says something you disagree with, resist the urge to explain why you’re right. Instead, deepen the conversation by asking another question.
