Lo and behold, I learned something interesting from a Joan Chittister newsletter.  I learned that the term April Fool’s referred to people who would not accept the new standardized system of defining the beginning of the year. You see, April 1st was originally the first day of the year – not January 1st.  Those who resisted standardizing calendar time and discarding April 1st as the beginning of the new year, were called April Fool’s.

Don’t we often resist giving up or discarding those things which, if we lost them, wouldn’t make an iota of difference? What are those things you’re holding onto that you cannot DISCARD?

Photo Credit: Baejaar

In my last post, I talked a bit about why listening can be difficult – especially when the conversation is a tough one; the stakes are high; we are feeling offended or we feel accused of something.  This time, I want to talk a bit about some things we can be aware of or we can do, that can help us to listen better.

Five Tips for Better Listening

1. Recognize that “I’ve been triggered” feeling. When you are feeling better (not triggered, that is), see if you can unpack the trigger and the feeling either by yourself or with the person that you were triggered with (make sure you feel emotionally safe). Ask yourself, “what was it about what that person said or did or emoted that made me react like that? Be gentle on yourself, it may take some time to get there.
2. Suspend your agenda. Suspending your agenda means inviting the other person to say more about what they are thinking or feeling so that you can gain a fuller understanding of what they are trying to communicate. This is hard because we want to be heard – we all want to say our part.
3. Don’t assume that you know what is coming next!  That isn’t listening – that is prediction and it will get you into difficulties.
4. Put aside your judgments of the person who is speaking. Don’t assume that they don’t have something valuable to say.
5. If someone says something that feels critical to you –remind yourself that underneath your feelings are some negative thoughts about criticism. Try to remind yourself that uncomfortable but accurate evaluation is an opportunity to grow.

We all need help and practice to improve our listening ability.  Are there other techniques that you use to help yourself stay focused on listening?

Why is “listening” so hard in difficult conversations?

You know the difficult conversations that I’m talking about… the ones where you are confronted about your choices or your behaviour or something you said. Or the conversations where you feel criticized and put down.

There are many reasons why we won’t (or is it that can’t?) listen – especially in difficult conversations.

• We are emotionally triggered by someone’s mannerisms, choice of words, voice or tone. Because we are triggered (and usually feeling pretty defensive), it becomes really hard to “listen” – to receive the communication from the other person.
• We have an agenda of what we want to communicate in the conversation. We have a point to make, a lesson to teach or a comment that will “change the other person’s perspective” and we can’t wait to get it out!
• We think that we already know what the other person is going to say. How many times have you noticed that people don’t listen because they already assume that they know what you are going to say?
• Listening is difficult when the speaker has low credibility in our eyes.
• Our feelings get in the way of listening: when someone points out a mistake, they never say we are incompetent or stupid, but we sure can feel like that is the message…

Listening is an art. But listening can also be painful. I’ve shared a few examples of when we find it hard to listen and hear but I am sure that there are many more.  Now it is your turn… when do you find it difficult to listen or hear people?

Next time, I would like to talk about how we can improve our ability to listen. Stay tuned…

Can you remember a difficult conversation that you had recently? What made the conversation difficult? Were you happy with the outcome? How about the person that you had the difficult conversation with – were they satisfied with the conversation?

Intimate conversations or conversations that revolve around disagreement are difficult.  Are there some conversations in particular that are difficult for you? I recently asked a group of people (okay, it was a seminar on Making Difficult Conversations Easier) and here are some of the conversations that they found difficult to engage in:

•   Money conversations – (asking for a raise, asking for money back)
•   Delivering bad/hard messages (you’re fired)
•   Being vulnerable about my feelings (I love you)
•   Confronting behaviours
   

What makes these conversations difficult? 

Sometimes we don’t know the outcome… usually difficult conversations have some risk involved with them.

Sometimes we actually know the outcome and we worry about how we might be perceived by the person that we are having the conversation with. Other times, the stakes are high; we might be misunderstood and we may not achieve the outcome that we want or envision.

Our difficult conversations can hurt the people we care about. We worry that our anger will get the better of us. We might make the situation worse. Or there might be a backlash – we might get punished for speaking out.

To Have or Not to Have

It’s hard to decide whether to have a difficult conversation or not. If you don’t you might feel taken advantage of. You might harbour lingering negative feelings about someone. But if you do have the conversation… things might get worse. In fact, you may already have tried and you have suffered some of these consequences:

•   You were verbally attacked and you didn’t know what to do next
•   You were rejected and (as my father used to say) you were “put in the deep freeze for your trouble”
•   The relationship deteriorated

Do you avoid difficult conversations?

Sometimes when you suffer the negative outcomes of failed conversations, you avoid having them in the future. How do you avoid conversations?

1. Did you decide that you will never initiate a difficult conversation again? For some of us, certain conversations are so threatening that we will continually overlook an issue or leave the relationship rather than engage. The problem with this kind of avoidance is that trust cannot be built in the relationship nor can the relationship grow or develop.
2. Did you take some indirect action without having a conversation? Some times we decide that we will not discuss an issue or behaviour but we will stay on the alert for repeats of behaviours that have offended us. We no longer trust the other person and will be wary of the other’s motives and intentions. While we have managed to avoid the danger and risk of having the conversation, we destroy the fabric of trust in the relationship.
3.  Were you willing to start the difficult conversation but you gave in when the going got rough (your thinking is “okay, you are so upset that we will do it your way”). In this scenario we value peace more than valuing our own boundaries. We fear losing the connection with our friend/lover/partner/child so we give in.

Engaging in difficult conversations

Just as we can avoid difficult conversations in a variety of ways, we can engage in them in just as many ways. We can:

1. Approach the conversation with an “I will win and you will lose” attitude. I am right and you are wrong. With this stance, the issue is more important than the relationship and a successful outcome for both people is unlikely.
2. Approach the conversation with an attitude that I want to hear what you have to say. Although this is a difficult conversation, I will engage in the discussion because I care about you, I care about the issue, I care about the relationship. With this attitude, there is a great possibility of being able to navigate through the issue and come out the other side with a stronger bond between us.

Where are you on the difficult conversation spectrum? Do you avoid? How do you avoid? Do you engage in them? And what stance do you assume when you do engage…  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.