Monday, November 29, 2010

"That's Not What I Meant!"

Impact - Not Intent - Is What Matters


Most of the time, we really don't want to irritate or upset the people with whom we communicate. Misunderstandings and hurt feelings happen anyway, and we have our own personal syntax that shows up in how we respond to them.

In a conversation at O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 Summit last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke about how they are managing privacy and user control issues as Facebook becomes nearly ubiquitous. It provided an interesting angle on the impact of our communications on other people.

On Facebook or any electronic messaging system, you make judgments about who will want to receive what messages. The Web 2.0 Summit discussion focused on who gets to control 'opting in.'

If your friend wants to send you something - or put you into a group where any group member can send you something - the friend is gauging what you want to receive.

This weekend I received about 20 messages in a language I don't speak, because a friend included me in a group of mostly Croatian psychologists. It was a curiosity, not a nuisance, to me, illustrating the ripples we send across our global network. If it multiplied I would for sure be opting out!

On Facebook, we can opt out, often without letting the sender know. We may have to set controls in order to keep some sanity in our inboxes. Our friends may or may not know whether or how their messages are received.

At a personal level, when we are communicating face-to-face or voice-to-voice, we are gauging our listener's interests and state of mind as we express ourselves. People may opt out and we can probably tell when they do!

Whatever our intention, sometimes others will respond in an unexpected and possibly unhappy way. It's part of being
human that we can't always gauge how our listener will take something.

A big differentiator of mature communicators is being accountable not just for your intention, but for the impact on the other person.

A friend confided in me about a breakdown in a new dating relationship. When the guy insisted she had confirmed a date that was only tentative in her mind, she checked with a third party who heard the conversation to ensure that she remembered it correctly. Even though she was right, he hadn't heard it that way.

Surely, if he consistently hears something she hasn't said, she may want to opt out altogether. In the short term, what is important is the impact, not her intention.

Being right in this case would just continue a dispute that is probably unnecessary. Right and wrong are pretty much irrelevant in misunderstandings. What's relevant is to clear it up going forward, not going backward.

As you spend time with people you know well this week, you may want to be especially aware of your impact. If you hear yourself beginning to defend your intention, "That's not what I meant," consider reframing and putting your attention on what the other person received. That is what will determine how the communication proceeds from there.

To get the ball rolling, a gentle, "What did you hear me say?" (NOT accusatory, please) can tell you what the meaning of your communication was for the other person.

For good communication, it's impact, not intention, that matters.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Communicators' Rule No. 1

What is the biggest obstacle we face when we are dealing with a communication breakdown? Whether it's the spouse not doing XYZ when they said they would, the boss who isn't hearing how overloaded we are, or the customer being difficult, we can be blocked by the "common cold" of communication: making someone wrong.

In our own thinking, we document our side of the case and its reasonableness. Of course we are right. That means the other person must be wrong. What is up with them?

Discussions intended to prove our position and clear everything up - just speaking my truth, you know - don't have a high rate of success.

Years ago I learned from master teacher David Crump, in his famous Essential Experience Workshop, to remember Rule No. 1.

It is simply, "No one is made wrong."

This was especially challenging for people who were tapping into anger and disappointment from their childhoods, or people who were certain that if the other person in their life would just change, things would be fine. When we heard stories that would lead us to judge someone as hopelessly and maybe harmfully wrong, David would suggest that we all "take a bath in Rule No. 1."

Sitting with the intention to make no one wrong eventually produced a deeper, different way of resolving the issue. Often it led to a healing that had seemed impossible.

Most of the time, we run more subtle versions of making people wrong. It's an easy trap to fall into when something is not working out according to expectations - or when we are not clear ourselves or are afraid of speaking up.

Even more insidious is how we make ourselves wrong. "No one is made wrong" includes us.

Three things to keep in mind about this right-wrong bias:

1. It always has a cost. Whatever your argument, whatever your "rightness" in the situation, being right will come at the cost of someone being wrong. That will come back to bite you one way or another.
2. You do not need to give up your position, your choices, or your perceptions. Knowing that the other person has different perceptions doesn't mean that one is right and one is wrong.
3. Getting hooked is an opportunity to learn. When you find yourself stewing or feeling old familiar feelings, use the opportunity to catch the thread of one of your own old stories: how you are a victim or how other people don't measure up. By yourself or with a skillful friend or therapist, follow the thread and release energy that has been bound up in that story.

As a communicator, the first and perhaps most helpful thing you can do in communication breakdowns is to invoke Rule No. 1. The process of adopting it may take a little while. Once people get there, there is room for everyone to be heard. Forward motion becomes more likely.

This is a good time of year to bring Rule No. 1 into our conscious awareness, as shorter days, family gatherings, and work demands may all bring up sensitive feelings and interpersonal pressures.

While you're feeling buoyant and anticipating the coming months, set yourself a reminder that when things start to get touchy, no one - including yourself - will be made wrong. It's quite possible that this will lead to a new level of mutual understanding.