Northern Colorado Coaches Alliance meeting 25 April 2007

38 people total

Mandy Kotzman: What You Say Next Can Change Your Life

Background of the book

• Mother: counselor, psychologist, teacher in child development
  • Training was lacking in how to relate to each other: self-esteem, self-assertion, listening skills
  • Wrote a book, pretty popular, Penguin left open the invitation to revise and update it
• Mandy picked it up after her life coach training, was interested in adding content on self-awareness, self-knowledge, conflict management
• The two ended up collaborating on an update, but during that time they didn't have any argument about the content
• Along with the book is a training manual, for people who want to train around this, published by Australian Council for Educational Research, Mandy is working on an update to that.

What you say next can change your life

• Almost obvious, but we operate on auto-pilot: we don't usually think before responding
• So this is about bringing to conscious awareness what we are about to say
• Why do we say the things we say? Marshall Rosenberg: Everything we do, moment by moment, is an attempt to meet some need we have (security, autonomy, etc.)
• There are a number of things which are fundamental needs for all humans
• Maslow's hierarchy is a statement of how basic needs must be met before the higher level needs can be addressed
• Max Neef, Chilean economist, came up with list of basic needs including physical, safety, love, empathy, creativity, rest/play, community, autonomy, meaning.  When an economy is doing well, these needs are being met for the citizens.
• If you dig deeply enough, can you identify any of these things as the root of the things you say?
• If you do a good job of identifying your fundamental needs and values, it's much easier to figure out what you want to say.
• The most personal conversations are what we say to ourselves, they're what generates our self-image.
• We're not born with a self-image, it's something that's created from how we relate to people during our lives, how we compare ourselves to others.
• It can be changed.
• The "dynamic trio": Thoughts, Feelings, Actions.
• Each of the three interact with, and impact, the other two.  These can often go in either an upward spiral or a downward spiral.
• If you wish to change the direction, you have a choice to change any one of the three dimensions, and build from there.
• There are many current examples of the power of intention, of changing direction based on your own thoughts.
• Modern research shows that the brain doesn't really distinguish between reality, and a really powerful self-created image.

Communication

• Communication has two main purposes: to convey information, and to affect the relationship (sustain, change, build, etc.)
• Two roles: sender and receiver
• The way we listen itself sends messages
• Verbal responses and non-verbal responses.
• We're very sensitive when the verbal disagrees with the non-verbal, and tend to give preference to the non-verbal.
• Mandy had us go through an exercise which helped to determine our own personal response preference.  This is a scheme created by Karl Rogers.  80% of responses fall in these categories: judgmental, interpretive, supportive, probing, empathic.
• Rogers says that if you use a certain style 40% of the time or more, people will stereotype you as having that style ALL the time.
• All of these styles have their place at certain points in conversation

Judgmental

• Purpose is to make a judgment about the situation
• To put things right
• To tell the other person what to do
• Moves the conversation from the first speaker to the second speaker
• Puts you above the speaker
• Tend to create space between people

Interpretive

• Purpose is to explain the cause of something
• Puts the listener above the speaker
• Can give advice but rarely leads to change

Supportive

• Intent is to reassure the speaker
• To lessen the blow, ease the pain
• May help the speaker to feel understood, or perhaps to feel that you don't "get it"
• Can suppress feelings
• Can give speaker false feeling of security

Probing

• Seeking to gain more information, to tell the speaker what it's OK to talk about
• Gives more information to the responder, might lead to clarification, but tends to move the topic away from where it started
• Can block conversation from speaker's point of view

Empathic

• Intent is to check to see if you really understood what the person was saying, what's going on for them
• To stay close to what the speaker wants to say
• Needs to really come from the heart, can feel manipulative
• Causes speaker to explore more deeply
• Tends to communicate respect, caring
• Can help people find out more about themselves

Empathic, reflective listening

• Mandy had us do an exercise in small groups
• Observations by various participants:
  • It can be hard to focus specifically on being empathic
  • The responder can change styles amazingly quickly
  • I really tend toward a probing style, and now recognize how that can take things off track
  • It was surprising how hard it is to come up with an empathic answer
  • Is it possible to convey two of these styles simultaneously?
• It's very important to be monitoring the responses you get, to ensure that you and they are staying reasonably connected - your communications can easily be misinterpreted in intent.
• An alternative to these 5 responses is to share YOUR internal reaction to what you're hearing
• Marshall Rosenberg has an approach called "sincere gratitude", which describes what you see (without assigning a value to it) and your response to it (how you feel, what difference it has made).
• When you get disconnected, it helps to be willing to say "I don't understand" or "I don't know", which invites re-connection.

Managing conflict

• Conflict stems from differences
• It's not really a negative, it can be very creative
• Invariably there are also a lot of feelings tied up in it, not just an intellectual disagreement
• Possible resolutions: avoidance/denial, giving in, dominating, compromise, and work toward win-win
• Win-win solution:
  • Involves collaboration between the two individuals
  • First use the empathic response to connect to the other's feelings, acknowledge, accept (but not necessarily agree)
  • Figure out what you really need, what really matters, below the positions you've taken

Click here for a copy of Mandy's handout

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