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Seven Destructive Habits that Kill Solid Communication
Threatening
When we threaten someone, we become a source of fear and control. That doesn’t exactly lend itself to great communication.
Instead of threatening, open up about why your request is important. This shows you trust and respect someone enough to tell them why something matters.
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Key Ideas
Pointless Criticism
In the context of poor communication, criticizing is when you knock someone down for the wrong reasons: to hurt someone, to vent your frustrations or to boost your ego.
It’s easy enough for someone to get defensive when they’re given constructive criticism. But when your criticism comes from a destructive place, it’s a communication killer.
Blaming
When you blame someone, you take any responsibility off of yourself and put it on them.
It’s understandable that you want to express your dissatisfaction with something. But sometimes you need to express it in order to find a solution, not to point singers.
Ineffective Complaining
Complaining is exhausting because it puts pressure on the other person.
Complaining often results in the other person feeling as if they should somehow “fix” the problem or else just get away from the complaining.
Why People Complain
- Venting: Complaining to release strong emotions
- The Active Effective Complaint: The complainer makes a specific complaint addressed at the person responsible, in order to improve the situation
- The Ineffective Complaint: Complaining in order to feel some sense of control over something which the complainer cannot control
Nagging
It is persistently bothering someone to do something you want them to do.
By definition, it’s a communication breakdown and very unproductive.
Breaking the pattern of nagging
Learn to compromise and empathize:
- Focus on encouragement, not judgment
- Focus on the effort instead of the outcome
- Express your feelings rather than criticize
Threatening
When we threaten someone, we become a source of fear and control. That doesn’t exactly lend itself to great communication.
Instead of threatening, open up about why your request is important. This shows you trust and respect someone enough to tell them why something matters.
Punishing
It’s about controlling someone’s behavior through negative reinforcement.
It it often used in relation to discipline. But punishment comes from a place of control and retaliation, while discipline comes from a place of trust, consistency, and improvement.
Bribing
It’s focused on control. Often used in relation to rewards. But with a reward, you’re communicating a desirable behavior is. With bribery, you really don’t care if your message gets through, you just want to control and stop a behavior in an artificial way.
Instead of bribery, negotiating a compromise is better for communication.
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Criticizing or Listening
Do you tend to hear your partner out when she’s sharing his or her perspective or do you jump in quickly to point out the problems with their views?
Try listening and giving your par...
Blaming vs. Supporting
When things go wrong for your partner—on the job, with friends, or personally—do you tend to identify the faults in them that may have led to their difficulties or do you offer support and a willing ear?
Tearing down your partner when the world is doing a good job of this already does no good for your relationship.
Complaining or Encouraging
If your partner is taking on a new challenge or trying to solve a problem or fix something that’s broken, do you complain about their success and pace or do you offer encouragement and act as a cheerleader?
Improve your partner’s chance of success by giving them space and positive encouragement. You should view yourselves as a team, not as rivals.
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First off, you can't get angry too because then there are two angry people.
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Active listening
Active listening has three components:
Paraphrase: Repeat what they have said in your own words. "If I understand correctly... "
Inquire: "You mentioned you found our proposed price unacceptable. Help me understand how you came to this conclusion?"
Acknowledge: "It sounds as if you're quite disappointed with..."
Active listening should be maintained throughout the conversation.
Communication is more than just words
It also includes body language:
- 55 percent of what you convey comes from your body language.
- 38 percent comes from your tone of voice.
- Only 7 percent is from the words you choose.
You don't want to argue over the phone or email as they are stripped of facial expressions and gestures and unwittingly simulating a blank emotional radar.
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“Micro quotas”
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Behavior chains
Creating new habits that stick is easier if we make use of our current routines, instead of trying to fight them.
Use "if-then planning": choose a regular part of your schedule and then build another “link in the chain” by adding a new habit. For example: "If it is lunch time, then I will only eat meat and vegetables.”
Simplify decision-making
Making repeated choices depletes our mental energy, even if these choices are mundane and pleasant.
If you want to maintain long term discipline, aim for fewer decisions during the day: identify the aspects of your life that you consider mundane and then ‘routinize’ those aspects as much as possible.
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