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One book i can recommend on the topic is People Skills by Robert Bolton. He lists 12 Barriers to communication in it, divided in 3 categories: Judging: - Criti

by scns 6y ago

One book i can recommend on the topic is People Skills by Robert Bolton. He lists 12 Barriers to communication in it, divided in 3 categories: Judging: - Criticizing - Name-calling - Diagnosing - Praising Evaluatively Sending Solutions: - Ordering - Threatening - Moralizing - Excessive/Inappropriate Questioning - Advising Avoiding the other's concern: - Diverting - Logical Argument - Reassuring I was shocked how many of them i "used" to sabotage my communication.

BeetleB 6y ago
To expand on some of these: Judging: The NVC book refers to it as evaluating, but yes, it is high up on things not to do. What surprises many, but I found to be quite refreshing, is the inclusion of "praising evaluatively". People don't realize how often their praise can be a turn off to the one they are praising. Praising non-evaluatively is underappreciated. For the advising portion of "sending solutions", I once had a miserable job where everyone was an expert, and I was just a junior non-expert who was working on an unusual side project for the team. It was very common that I'd be stuck somewhere and I'd get a lot of "help" (solicited and unsolicited) in solving my problem. About 50% of the times, their help was useless because they never understood my problem correctly! They would always transform the problem into something that fit into their expertise and suggest something else. It would always take a gigantic effort to convince them that they are not solving the problem I had - often more effort than if I hadn't asked at all. It got to the point that I had to be very careful not to mention my blockers in front of certain coworkers so that my time wouldn't be derailed. As I was the junior non-expert, it was always assumed that I was the one who didn't understand the problem. This would have been solved had they practiced basic "reflecting back" to ensure that they understood my problem correctly.

by scns 6y ago

BeetleB 6y ago

To expand on some of these: Judging: The NVC book refers to it as evaluating, but yes, it is high up on things not to do. What surprises many, but I found to be quite refreshing, is the inclusion of "praising evaluatively". People don't realize how often their praise can be a turn off to the one they are praising. Praising non-evaluatively is underappreciated. For the advising portion of "sending solutions", I once had a miserable job where everyone was an expert, and I was just a junior non-expert who was working on an unusual side project for the team. It was very common that I'd be stuck somewhere and I'd get a lot of "help" (solicited and unsolicited) in solving my problem. About 50% of the times, their help was useless because they never understood my problem correctly! They would always transform the problem into something that fit into their expertise and suggest something else. It would always take a gigantic effort to convince them that they are not solving the problem I had - often more effort than if I hadn't asked at all. It got to the point that I had to be very careful not to mention my blockers in front of certain coworkers so that my time wouldn't be derailed. As I was the junior non-expert, it was always assumed that I was the one who didn't understand the problem. This would have been solved had they practiced basic "reflecting back" to ensure that they understood my problem correctly.