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I can't help but feel that even in this "clear and direct communication" the author is continuing to look for ways to manipulate situations and people. What se

by lukevp 6y ago

I can't help but feel that even in this "clear and direct communication" the author is continuing to look for ways to manipulate situations and people. What seems to be lacking is empathy. The communication is based upon the value add, the reaction or positioning that the author gets at the end of the interaction, rather than on collaborating with another human and trying to get both parties to a better place. A similar strategy to this "clear and direct communication" that can devolve into the same place is the concept of Radical Candor[0]. It can begin as a "helping" to awaken others to things they may have missed, and can end up being an avenue for tearing people down instead of growing them. The only difference is the intent of the speaker. Assuming the best in people and striving to have positive outcomes tends to work better. This puts you at risk of other people much like the author was previously, who seek to undercut and deceive and manipulate, but those people show their true colors pretty quick and they end up on a different tier of communication that no longer gets the privilege everyone else is afforded. A pivotal change within my own life and communication was reading about Adler's work [0]. Separation of Tasks as a concept is very applicable to interpersonal relationships at the office. I no longer struggle with trying to explain why people are rude and pushing agendas that don't make empirical sense. None of us are infallible and we all are seeking to shape our world in different ways and it's helpful to delineate what we really care about and not. Which hills to die on. [0]: https://www.radicalcandor.com/ https://www.radicalcandor.com/ [1]: https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/lessons-from-alfred-adler-the-influential-figure-in-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-youve-never-heard-of https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/lessons-from-alfred...

tonystubblebine 6y ago
Right. It's like all of these strategies are about how he communicates but not about how he listens. Most people think they are good listeners, but I come at this from the world of training coaches. Coaching starts with being a professionally good listener which is much different than being an amateur good listener. And when you try to reach this level of listening at a professional level you start to realize the millions of ways in which you block yourself from listening. An obvious one that the author did touch on was that he recognized his prior communication as manipulative. Right! We all bring our own agenda and this is one of the ways in which we can filter what we are hearing. What has the person said that supports my agenda? What threatens it and how can I disprove that? Thinking that way doesn't allow you to realize that your judgement might be wrong. The other big ones are anxiety and need for esteem. It's like when you can't help but give advice because you are deeply desperate for validation. You're not broken, that's a very human way to be. Listening is hard and so a good starting place is to separate listening from judgement. The word I use most is curiosity. Just focus on being curious as a way to crowd out all these other feelings. Then later you can make a judgement. If you are a clear communicator and a bad listener then the result is just that you go around being clearly wrong a lot of the time.
- woodandsteel 6y ago
  Former listening trainer here. I discovered though training a great many people that a key listening problem is that people's attention wanders away and then back, and as a consequence they miss a lot of what has been said but are not aware this has happened. I found this was common even among professional psychotherapists. Also the easiest way to improve your listening skills is reflective listening. That is where you simply say back to the person the key ideas they expressed to you.
- 7532yahoogmail 6y ago
  A really nice assessment and description. Periodically I fall into "give advice because you are deeply desperate for validation". I'd like build on your words and summarize what I learned from still another person Dr. William Schutz, and deal best I can on honest communication v. perception. It's an interesting dilemma to me. First, assume that all I can do is observe behavior: what I see, hear, read. I cannot figure out why a person is exhibiting a behavior; guess sure. But know? No way. What's between the ears is between their ears and inaccessible to me. Second, assume the PCA (principle component analysis) of behavior is control, inclusion, openness. Read "Human Element" or get an old copy of FIRO from him or his son Ethan Schutz --- excellent stuff and perfect for the office: it's like healthcare on the battle field: pointed, focused, can-do, common sense, but not so simplistic and removed for the bigger world of medicine that it's silly or merely palliative. With that setup in mind: 1) you cannot resolve significance issues through control. More generally you cannot fix a problem along PCA axis 1 by doing something along another orthogonal axis 2. Often makes it worse. Giving advice is control behavior, which the writer says, was really about significance. Yep, that's me sometimes. It's helpful to know when I misuse one skill to badly fix something else. 2) Behaviors are goal seeking and directly connect right into feelings which hits right into self-esteem. See the book or smarter people here. This is feature rich location of being human. 3) I've worked 30+ years and spent the last 14 years working for large companies. As posters here have said, behavior comes with a zillion motivations. But from time to time I have dealt with programmers, managers, young, and, old who strongly point out they should --- more: it'd be dumb not to try! --- to manage perception on the other side because perception is reality. Now in some artificially distorted way, it does capture a truth but at the expense of omitting a lot of relevant context. But: -- As Schutz says, we know we ought to be open but in the fact that's the last thing we'll ever do because it's not safe. Openness requires safety. If I start being open I might say something to get myself fired. If my boss talks openly I might get yelled at. That's anxiety making. If a co-worker talks openly about me I might get fired. Better to keep quiet about that co-worker so he'll be quiet about me. Fear is a lot of what prevents openness. -- While words are pouring out one should not assume the speaker is open in two facets. First, the speaker may have low self awareness. If so, trying to make sense of that is doubly impossible. Two, the implied success of getting one over me by having the counterparty play to my perception requires low self-awareness my side. And among other things implies lack of choice/agency my side which is along the control axis to respond appropriately. So ... really where does the cause start and effect end. It's more nuanced. -- The insistence on perception as reality is seated, I feel, either in trauma or in that shadow of maladaptive behavior some people come with. But it's the insistence that to me, indicates the perpetrator is the most insecure of all: they don't believe they have control, or are significant, or would want to be included ... and so in the absence of choice through control ... lie to themselves and the world to get by. They're fragile and they cast the world in a fragile light too. https://thehumanelement.com/pages/firo-theory/ https://thehumanelement.com/pages/firo-theory/ https://www.amazon.com/Human-Element-Productivity-Self-Esteem-Management/dp/1555426123/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=human+element+schutz&qid=1591467070&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Human-Element-Productivity-Self-Estee...

by lukevp 6y ago

tonystubblebine 6y ago

Right. It's like all of these strategies are about how he communicates but not about how he listens. Most people think they are good listeners, but I come at this from the world of training coaches. Coaching starts with being a professionally good listener which is much different than being an amateur good listener. And when you try to reach this level of listening at a professional level you start to realize the millions of ways in which you block yourself from listening. An obvious one that the author did touch on was that he recognized his prior communication as manipulative. Right! We all bring our own agenda and this is one of the ways in which we can filter what we are hearing. What has the person said that supports my agenda? What threatens it and how can I disprove that? Thinking that way doesn't allow you to realize that your judgement might be wrong. The other big ones are anxiety and need for esteem. It's like when you can't help but give advice because you are deeply desperate for validation. You're not broken, that's a very human way to be. Listening is hard and so a good starting place is to separate listening from judgement. The word I use most is curiosity. Just focus on being curious as a way to crowd out all these other feelings. Then later you can make a judgement. If you are a clear communicator and a bad listener then the result is just that you go around being clearly wrong a lot of the time.

woodandsteel 6y ago
Former listening trainer here. I discovered though training a great many people that a key listening problem is that people's attention wanders away and then back, and as a consequence they miss a lot of what has been said but are not aware this has happened. I found this was common even among professional psychotherapists. Also the easiest way to improve your listening skills is reflective listening. That is where you simply say back to the person the key ideas they expressed to you.
7532yahoogmail 6y ago
A really nice assessment and description. Periodically I fall into "give advice because you are deeply desperate for validation". I'd like build on your words and summarize what I learned from still another person Dr. William Schutz, and deal best I can on honest communication v. perception. It's an interesting dilemma to me. First, assume that all I can do is observe behavior: what I see, hear, read. I cannot figure out why a person is exhibiting a behavior; guess sure. But know? No way. What's between the ears is between their ears and inaccessible to me. Second, assume the PCA (principle component analysis) of behavior is control, inclusion, openness. Read "Human Element" or get an old copy of FIRO from him or his son Ethan Schutz --- excellent stuff and perfect for the office: it's like healthcare on the battle field: pointed, focused, can-do, common sense, but not so simplistic and removed for the bigger world of medicine that it's silly or merely palliative. With that setup in mind: 1) you cannot resolve significance issues through control. More generally you cannot fix a problem along PCA axis 1 by doing something along another orthogonal axis 2. Often makes it worse. Giving advice is control behavior, which the writer says, was really about significance. Yep, that's me sometimes. It's helpful to know when I misuse one skill to badly fix something else. 2) Behaviors are goal seeking and directly connect right into feelings which hits right into self-esteem. See the book or smarter people here. This is feature rich location of being human. 3) I've worked 30+ years and spent the last 14 years working for large companies. As posters here have said, behavior comes with a zillion motivations. But from time to time I have dealt with programmers, managers, young, and, old who strongly point out they should --- more: it'd be dumb not to try! --- to manage perception on the other side because perception is reality. Now in some artificially distorted way, it does capture a truth but at the expense of omitting a lot of relevant context. But: -- As Schutz says, we know we ought to be open but in the fact that's the last thing we'll ever do because it's not safe. Openness requires safety. If I start being open I might say something to get myself fired. If my boss talks openly I might get yelled at. That's anxiety making. If a co-worker talks openly about me I might get fired. Better to keep quiet about that co-worker so he'll be quiet about me. Fear is a lot of what prevents openness. -- While words are pouring out one should not assume the speaker is open in two facets. First, the speaker may have low self awareness. If so, trying to make sense of that is doubly impossible. Two, the implied success of getting one over me by having the counterparty play to my perception requires low self-awareness my side. And among other things implies lack of choice/agency my side which is along the control axis to respond appropriately. So ... really where does the cause start and effect end. It's more nuanced. -- The insistence on perception as reality is seated, I feel, either in trauma or in that shadow of maladaptive behavior some people come with. But it's the insistence that to me, indicates the perpetrator is the most insecure of all: they don't believe they have control, or are significant, or would want to be included ... and so in the absence of choice through control ... lie to themselves and the world to get by. They're fragile and they cast the world in a fragile light too. https://thehumanelement.com/pages/firo-theory/ https://thehumanelement.com/pages/firo-theory/ https://www.amazon.com/Human-Element-Productivity-Self-Esteem-Management/dp/1555426123/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=human+element+schutz&qid=1591467070&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Human-Element-Productivity-Self-Estee...