Power Listening

Listening is very important in communication, I want to share a very interesting quote from my favorite writer on communication skills: Dale Carnegie

"So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems. A person's toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people.  Think of that the next time you start a conversation."

While communicating we are sending and receiving messages. But not all the messages sent are sure to be received %100. Depending on the attention of the listener, he may choose to receive 1,2 out of 5 or maybe all 5 of 5.

If we want to be a good listener, here are some guidelines to follow:

Power of Silence:
- Listen without judging, suspend the judgement
- Scan the environment for distractions
- If other person is speaking relentlessly, and not stopping keep this in mind: he is striving to fulfill his need to be heard, so make sure he realizes you've been listening by paraphrasing what he said.

Positive Action Language

In this class we learned that we must speak in PAL, which stands for:

Positive
Action
Language

We must express our requests using PAL.

Also there are some differences between requests and demands. And that difference is consequences!
But how do we know about the consequences?
Just say 'no' to the request and wait for the comeback. If the other person says, "No? Ok then you are gonna get...." see? It was a demand.

Needs and Their Role in Our Life

We've talked about embedded needs in our communication this week, at least this is the way I acknowledged it. Because according to this week's class, even though what we say may seem like what we desire is something else, when we go deeper and think thoroughly there are hidden needs in our sentences.

Giuseppe said "We need to develop the skills of translating feelings to needs" and I thought this was very interesting and if we could manage to do this properly we could avoid many conflicts and understand each other better. So I tried to utilize this knowledge in my daily interactions, also currently I'm doing an internship at a company and I was able to test this in work environment. The results were mixed for a reason, either it was my poor execution or there might be some gaps in the theory, maybe it's just that I need more practice :) Because most of the time I was able to tell the need in what people tell me, analyze how I can fulfill that need so that this person is satisfied and respond. But at some instances I couldn't tell what the underlying need was. As my interpretation; it can be because people sometimes talk more rationally and there's just no need being employed in forming that speech, so they are more straightforward and 'as is'. On the other hand, emotion dominated speeches tend to be loaded with needs.


Figure: Maslow's Pyramid of Needs

There's another thing which we mentioned in class and it's very important. Talking with facts rather than interpretation of facts. And if our interpretations also include generalizations too, this means we are communicating in a very wrong style. I observed bad consequences of this, mostly parents talk this way to their children "you are always doing ...., I don't want you to this!" and this leads to conflict between them. However if we talk in facts, the person at the other side of the conversation is more willing to accept his/her improper behavior and therefore be more willing to change his/her attitude.

To conclude: People do what works. Identify the payoffs that drive your behavior and that of others.

Thanks for reading my blog

Second Week and Personal Impressions

Hello and welcome to my blog. Before I start my first post I'd like to thank you for reading my opinions and I hope you enjoy it.

This week the class was about Humanistic Psychology, in other words our needs, how we serve them and the strategies we come up with to fulfill those needs.

As we were moving on in the subject, I found reducing the motive of our actions to the simpler notions of needs very interesting. I went through my memory for some instances and my interaction with people, but I realized that I never think and approach them with bearing needs in mind. But I can fit in the theory that people take their actions based on their needs with my experiences pretty well, it makes sense.

Another thing this week which got me interested was the difference between judgement and personal opinions. I realized that there's a big difference between saying "You are not a trustworthy person" and "I don't trust you". Next time I am making statements I will watch my words and think about what I really mean twice.

Finally I will keep in mind that not only we have needs but other people have them too, so we should pay attention to this and don't think about me terms when we have something to do with others and evaluate the situation two ways.

Overall it was a very interesting lecture. Calling it 'eye-opening' wouldn't be exaggeration I guess. I'll try to apply these valuable information in every convenient moment of my life.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to share your comments and thoughts below.
Hazar