Did You Hear What I Didn't Say?

I teach active, empathic listening to grad students.  Many of them are highly skilled, multi-talented computer scientists from universities around the globe.

Team member's stress

When we listen accurately, everyone benefits.  We can better understand

• our client's needs
• our supervisor's instructions
• our team member's stress.

Showing awareness of unspoken feelings can hasten connection and problem-solving in difficult situations.

Empathic listening might involve guessing at a person's underlying feelings and tentatively reflecting those feelings back.  Since our emotional vocabulary might be limited to Seseme Street feelings, I provide students with lists of emotions and ask them to identify the feelings they have had in the last day, week, or month.

After the students learn and roleplay responding with empathy, I  pull troubling statements out of a bag and go around the circle, asking each student to respond to a different statement.  These are all real statements that people have said to me.

1. Young adult:  “I hate it when my parents’ friends ask me what I’m going to do with my life.  I don’t know what I want to do yet and they really want me to know.”
2. Friend:  “I spilled coffee on my keyboard.  Fried everything."
3. Friend:  “My mom’s in the psycho ward.  She tried to overdose."
4. Friend:  "My husband's so depressed, he hung a noose from a rafter in the hall.  Every day when I come home, I climb up on a ladder and cut it down.  The next day, it's up again."

The exercise is hard, but particularly hard for some of my foreign students.  Maybe they can't imagine that there is an underlying, unspoken feeling, and probably, the exercise makes no sense to them.

After my last workshop.  I asked one of my students how he felt about the class.

"It was interesting," he said.

"If one of your friends back home told you about a personal problem, what's the first thing you would say?" I asked.

"I'd say, 'thank you,' to my friend."

"Thank you?"

"It's so unusual," he said, "for someone to tell me a problem that I'd say thank you to them - thank you for trusting me with the problem."

 Thank you, my student for giving me that information. It will help me teach this unit. 

Possible Answers
Seriously, there's no "right" answer.  Just try to imagine what the other person is going through and reflect it back.  Read their body language if you can.  This response is just a first step in a longer conversation.  Also, be mindful of really really bad stuff and let your response reflect that awareness.
1.  "That must be embarrassing for you - to not be able to give them an answer."
2.  "Oh crap!! That's awful.  You must feel so mad at yourself."
3.  "You must be so shocked and worried."
4.  "Maybe he's trying to tell you something."   -- no just kidding, that would be a terrible response -- How about, "You must be afraid to go home."  or  "It sounds like you are feeling completely helpless."

(I want to cry thinking of these examples.  Please, shoot me an empathic response.)

Did You Hear What I Said? Part Two

I once taught a workshop at a national research institute for fuel cell innovation. The health and safety inspectors had put the institute on notice for bad and dangerous communication. They had to work towards correcting the problem. The institute employed scientists from around the world.  I taught workshops on listening.  They explained the problem and invited me to the site.

My workshop was called: Chicken Soup for the Inner Ear: Effective Listening in a Diverse Community.

It appeared that due to language and cultural differences, safety rules were not being heard and understood. While everyone spoke English, there was a good chance that they were also translating in their heads and something might be lost in the translation.  There were also cultural differences. 

"Imagine an expert is explaining a safety procedure," I said, "and you are not 100% sure that you understand.  It would be a good idea to say, 

• Please explain that again or 
• What do you mean by . . .? or 
• Can I repeat back my understanding of this?"

One person said, "I could not do that. It is considered rude in my culture."

We did some roleplaying and discovered a workaround, so that politeness would not lead to them being BLOWN UP by volatile chemicals.

There were about 25 scientists and engineers in the workshop. I was wondering how well they listened to one another, so we did this exercise:

I asked them to explain their job to the person next to them. The next person would have to repeat back in their own words what the first person's job was.

As we began this exercise, it quickly became obvious that rather than hearing what the person was saying, the listener interpreted it or translated it and said it back  inaccurately.  As we did this, the class became more engaged and invested.  They gradually realized that if there were so many misunderstandings and misinterpretations in this simple exercise, things might be going very badly in more complicated, technical conversations.

The company is still standing.  The only thing that has exploded so far is the myths they carried of being good communicators.

Did You Hear What I Said?  Part 1

Do You Have Too Much "Attitude"? What's That?

Has anyone ever said this to you:  You need to fix your attitude.

Your high school principal?
Your parents?
Your parole officer?

You look at them through slitted eyes, lips curled into a snarl, and think, "If you weren't so disagreeable, I wouldn't have any attitude."

Or maybe you wonder, "What does that mean?  What attitude?"

They would like to tell you what they mean, but there is no way they can explain it clearly with you looking at them the way an electric knife looks at a Thanksgiving turkey.

They wish they could tell you how to change your attitude, but whatever they say next is pointless when no ear catches the meaning.

Because when they say "you've got an attitude problem," they want you to realize that when you enter a room, your anger sneaks in ahead of you.  They think that your life would be better if your humility, your curiosity, or your open heart preceded you.  

You think that your attitude has everything to do with the room you've entered and the people who are there.  You think that they are judging you and trying to control you.

In addition, you have every reason to be angry.  You have been birthed into this world, merely a thinking monkey in clothes, bouncing around until you die.

But the attitude that precedes you into the room, your totally justifiable attitude that led someone to say you have it, is not going to get you what you need, unless you need enemies.

What they want to tell you is this:  Something is preceding you into the room and while people want to help you, that thing is driving them away.  It is yours.  You can take a look at it and think about it. You can ask the other person to name a specific behaviour that led to the attitude comment.  Indeed, you might not have attitude.  The other person might be the malefactor.  They might be projecting their own bad attitude onto you.  I don't know.

But if you are seeing a lot of anger and negativity around you, maybe you brought some of it with you.

*************

Sadly, the people suffering from bad attitude often believe it is everyone else's fault.  The hardest thing to do is see our own contribution to our unhappiness - but when we are able to see it, we can change our lives.

Click here for a few examples of specific bad attitude behaviours.

What Do I Say Next? A Love Story for Shy People

This blog was inspired by my student, Mehdi, who wanted to know what to do about silences.

Location:  a meetup or party

Time:  midnight

"Let's have a conversation," he said.

"About what?" she said.

"About you.  About me."

Silence

"In a conversation, I talk, then you talk," he said.

"OK," she said.

Silence

"Is talking hard?" he said, trying hard to get it started.

"I never know what to say," she said.

"You have nice eyes," he said.

Silence

"Let's keep trying," he said.

Silence

"Is it too noisy here?" he said.

"Kinda," she said.

"Do you want to go for a walk?"

"Where?"

"Nearby, maybe a coffee shop or a bar.  Maybe along the waterfront."

"Is it safe?" she said.  "It's late."

"I have a 3rd degree black belt," he said.

Silence

"That's your cue," he said.

"Cue for what?"

"To continue the conversation."

"What's a 3rd degree black belt?" she said.

"Excellent!" he said.  "It's what I tell women when they are afraid to go for a walk."

Silence

"It's when I pull my belt tight, to the third hole."

"You're funny," she said.

"Have you ever been in danger?" he said.

"I'm always in danger," she said,

"I don't know what to say next," he said.  "I'm thinking one of these things:

a) You should protect yourself.  You should carry pepper spray and a whistle.

b) Considering the way you dress, I'm not surprised.

c) We all are.  These are dangerous times.

d) That's why I learned karate - to protect myself.

e) It's OK.  I'm here.

f) It must affect your life to feel that way.  You must feel anxious about trying new things or meeting new people."

"That last one is good," she said.  "You're right.  That's how I feel."

Silence

"Let's go for that walk," she said.

"Really?" he said.

"We can hold hands," she said.

What Does Face-to-Face Mean?

It used to be that a face-to-face meeting meant that I could, potentially, touch your nose with my tongue.

You would "face" me and I would "face" you.  We would both be in the same place at the same time.  

Face to face means something else now, the same way "knowing someone" can mean many things.  

I can "know" someone I've never met face to face, perhaps even know that person better than people I've met face to face.

I was messaging with my internet friend, thenewgreen, aka Steven, and had this exchange:

Me:  I'm in Vancouver and might meet forwardslash.  Do you know forwardslash? 

Steven:  Do I know him? Of course I do.  He is formally on board team-Hubski!  You should absolutely meet up with him.  He is a very nice guy and his wife is really great too.

Me:  I mean "know" him in a face-to-face way?

Steven:  I've never met him face to face, but I talk with him every Monday night on our team calls via G+ chat, so it's kind of face to face.

If I was a brain in a jar, would it matter?

Would you know?  

Can You Stop Telling Me What to Do?

Today my student asked

"What should I do when a well-meaning friend starts lecturing me about how to fix my life?"

In a previous blog, I wrote about how to stop yourself from giving advice when you really really want to.  But people, including me, are so full of their own advice that we end up barraging people who DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.
Even when someone like my student seems to be asking for advice, I'm not sure they are interested in my answer.

But, since you asked, I will answer anyway.

1. Interrupt the advising person as soon as you can and say:  "Just a minute.  Wait!  Before you continue, I have to tell you this:  I like you.  You care about me and you're a good person.  But at the moment, I'm not ready to hear your kind and well-meaning advice."
2. Memorize the above statement if necessary.  You can also print the words out and carry them in your pocket.  When the offending person starts to give you unwanted advice, pull out the paper.
3. Of course, someone who is on an advice-giving bingewill not believe that their advice is not wanted.  So you will have to try again.  This time, begin with their name:  "Mom [or whoever], just a minute.  Before you continue, I have to tell you this:  You know, I love you.  I can see that you're worried about me.  But at the moment, I'm not ready to hear your kind and well-meaning advice."
4. If another communication is necessary, this time, stand up (if you are not already standing), look the person in the eye, and say:  "At the moment, I'm not ready to hear your advice.  But if you like, you can ask me about this topic next (week, month, year).  OK?"

Of course, if the person is supporting you financially, you should add: 

"If your financial support is contingent on me listening to your advice, please let me know." 

(Also, find out if financial support is contingent on you following their advice.)

If the person is your boss, supervisor, advisor, mentor, or spouse, it would be very wise to get over yourself and show them you have heard and understood their message.  You do that by saying,

• "I see.  I hear that you would like me to ...is that it?"
• "Do I understand you correctly?"
• "That's a good point.  Let me think about it."  or
• "That's a good point.  Do you want to hear what I think?"

If possible, schedule a conversation in which ideas can be taken seriously and shared.

Roger that?

Did You Hear What I Said?

I heard something and it was probably what you said, but I can't guarantee it was what you meant.  When you spoke to me just now, your words passed through my filter of personal associations, feelings, and experiences.   Not only do we all see things that other people don't see, but we also "hear" things that other people don't say.

In my first marital breakup, this conversation occurred:

Me:  "You said you'd take care of me."
Him:  "I thought you meant sexually."

If I'm speaking English as a second language, then your words also pass through the filters of understandable and expected phonemes and morphemes.  North Americans might be familiar with the expression "bus loop."  This is the area where a bus turns around, but is often an area where buses converge from different parts of the city.  A friend of mine, Gijs from Leiden, Holland, was in Vancouver visiting friends.  I was in North Burnaby and he was down near Kitsilano.  His English was quite good.  When he phoned, I told him to get on any bus and ask how to get to the Kootenay Loop.  I would meet him there.  I told him that all the bus drivers would know how he could transfer to the Kootenay Loop.

Yes fine, he said.  No problem.  I said Kootenay Loop, but that wasn't what he heard.  When he got on a bus, he asked to be taken to the Kookety Koo.  When the bus driver looked confused, he tried Koodely Doo, and Kootchety Koo, growing increasingly embarrassed and frustrated.  Luckily, he found a bus driver who figured out what he was saying.


In this wonderful poem, Troy Jollimore shines a little light on the fuzzy interface between perception and experience:

Lake Scugog

1.

Where what I see comes to rest,

at the edge of the lake,

against what I think I see

and, up on the bank, who I am

maintains an uneasy truce

with who I fear I am,

while in the cabin's shade the gap between

the words I said

and those I remember saying

is just wide enough to contain

the remains that remain

of what I assumed I knew.

2.

Out in the canoe, the person I thought you were

gingerly trades spots

with the person you are

and what I believe I believe

sits uncomfortably next to

what I believe.

When I promised I will always give you

what I want you to want,

you heard, or desired to hear,

something else.  As, over and in the lake,

the cormorant and its image

traced paths through the sky

                                  
             The New Yorker, July 27, 2009

Do You See Things that Other People Don't See?

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."
       - Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

In a recent email, John A. Kennedy told me that his wife and daughter took part in a University of Haifa study on mother-daughter relationships.  As part of the study, John's wife and daughter answered a written questionnaire.  The questionnaire ended with some routine sanity-screening questions.  These included, "Do you see things that other people don't see?"

My answer is "absolutely."  We all experience the universe differently.  We consciously and unconsciously select what we take in.  What we perceive is affected by our gender, culture, age, health, social status and other factors.  Once we "see" something, we then interpret it.  Our interpretations also depend on personal, subjective factors including our assumptions and expectations.  Then, we remember our interpretation, forgetting the original stimulus - forgetting what we actually saw.  In a courtroom, the human witness is the least reliable.  Lawyers and judges prefer video and DNA evidence.


Fifty percent of people did not see the gorilla in the famous invisible gorilla experiment.

I tend to see typos that other people don't see.  I have my students read their work aloud and they still see what they think they wrote, not what is on the page.  They love Paris in the the springtime.

John wrote, "I appreciate the researchers' intentions, but it would be a crying shame if we only saw what everyone else saw."

Do you see things that other people don't see?

What's the Best Thing to Say to a Troubled Person?

Statement:  "Every time I drive along that highway, I think about turning sharply and going over the edge."

Response:  "Don't do that.  Your insurance will go up if you total your car."

Statement:  "My mom overdosed last night.  She's in the psych ward now."

Response:  " "Your mom is in the psycho ward?  Yup, sounds about right."

Statement:  "My husband is so depressed, he cut a hole in the ceiling so that he could hang a rope from the joist.  Every day, when I come home from work, I climb up on a chair and cut the rope down."

Response:  "Sounds like he's bi-polar. Hey, have you heard this one?  How many manic-depressives does it take to change a light bulb?  Two. One to get the ladder -- and one to get the rope."

Have you ever heard a troubling statement from someone?  You might immediately give the person advice.  You might say something encouraging like, "Don't worry.  You'll be fine.  Everything will work out."  Maybe your first response is, "I'm sorry to hear that."  Maybe you make an offhand comment or inappropriate joke like the ones above.  These responses are not helpful.  These responses might leave the troubled person  feeling rejected, judged, barraged, isolated, and angry.  The troubled person shuts down and does not want to share any further.

So what can you say when you care about a person and want to help?

Hear what the other person is feeling and reflect it back.  This is just the first step but it is the most important.  You want the other person to know that you hear and are trying to understand.  You are not going to barrage them with your interpretations and advice.  You are not going to tell them your feelings, at least not yet.  "I'm sorry to hear that" is about your feelings and focuses on you, not the other person.  "You'll be fine" tells the other person that you do not want to deal with their problem.  "Everything will work out" is a brush-off.

Use one of these sentence starters:

• I guess you're feeling . . .  Is that it?
• You seem . . . 
• It sounds like . . . Is that it?
• I guess you wish . . . Is that it?
• You sound upset (angry, frustrated).  What's up?
• You seem worried that ... is going to happen.  Is that it?

Tentatively suggest a feeling.  If you want to expand your vocabulary of emotions, here is the NVC list of feelings.

If you really, really want to give advice so that the other person will actually hear you, say

1.  So you’re saying . . . [paraphrase their thoughts and feelings about the problem]
2.  What have you tried so far?
3.  How did that work?
4.  What else have you considered? 

Chances are the troubled person has thought more about his or her problem than you have.  With these questions, you will get a chance to understand the problem more deeply and see what real or imagined barriers keep the person stuck in their problem.  Finally, you can say:

Do you want to know what I think? or
Do you want to know what I did when that happened to me?

There's a chance they might say "yes."  They now feel understood and have agreed to listen to your ideas.

Listening is difficult.  It takes practice.
What troubling statements have you heard?  How did you answer?
Do you hate when people give you unasked-for advice or tell you to relax?

Why Is Public Speaking So Difficult?

"Every time someone speaks, it's bravery."

I was half-listening to the radio the other day when those words caught my ear. Since I teach public speaking, I decided to put that concept before my class.  If it's bravery to speak, I asked them, what is at stake?  What do we stand to lose by speaking up?

     "You might look stupid," someone replied.
     "What do you stand to lose by looking stupid?" I asked.

Their answers included your reputation, respect, friends, and more.  Speaking up is dangerous.  Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl who spoke up for the right of girls to be educated, was shot on October 9, shot for having a voice.

"What do you stand to lose by not speaking up?"  I asked the class.  Their answers included time and money.

There is much to lose by not speaking up.  In September, many people became sick with E. coli infections from beef originating at XL Foods, an Alberta meat processing plant.  Many workers did not speak up due to fear of reprisals.  They were laid off anyway.  And their silence made others sick.  Their silence might have killed someone.

The tainted beef story involves too much silence - even the Canadian Food Inspection Agency did not speak up for two weeks after discovering a problem with the beef.

Does our culture encourage silence?

We each need to examine our fear of speaking on a case-by-case basis.  Are we willing to speak up when we see a dangerous workplace, incompetent workers, or bad management decisions?  Are there ways of speaking up that stress mutual goals and reduce personal risk?  Are you afraid to speak up?

"Even if they come to kill me, I will tell them what they are trying to do is wrong, that education is our basic right."   -- Malala Yousufzai

Did You Just Tell me to Relax??

Last night, in a social situation, there was a minor difference of opinion.  The very tense woman who disagreed with me told me to relax.  Like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, I held her with my eyes and said "Don't ... ever ... tell me to relax."

Nothing makes me more tense than people telling me to relax.  What do those words really mean?

All communication is a projection of some kind.  When I communicate with you, I am projecting my identity through my thoughts, ideas, and feelings.  Even a statement that seems factual, like "The Romneys have five sons," is also a projection of my attention to the 2012 US election.

However, the worst projections are made when people project their own tension and impatience on others by telling them to "relax" or "be patient."  This is irritating for several reasons:

1. The speaker has become tense and thinks her tension will go away if she issues the relax instruction to everyone else.
2. As soon as the speaker gives that perhaps tenderly meant instruction, she is making a judgement, thus acting superior by implying that the speaker herself is relaxed and patient.
3. These statements draw attention away from the instigating incident and make it about the other person's supposed tension or impatience, thus creating new conflict.

I could go on... but the next time someone tells me to relax, I'll try and smile.  Then I'll scribble down the website to this blog and entreat them to read it.

How Can I Live with My Partner's Flaws?

My friend N. was complaining to me about her husband.  She said, "When I met him, I knew he was 80% of what I was looking for, but sometimes the missing 20% is really hard to live without."  I shared that idea with a number of female friends.
Yesterday, one of them wrote me saying "Sometimes the missing 20% feels like 50%."

Is this a girl way of thinking?

I asked my husband, "What do men do when they don't get what they want in a relationship?  Do they quantify it?  Do they whine to their men friends, drink beer, have affairs, work more?"

"They start conversations," he said, stifling a giggle.  Then added that he wouldn't do that, but imagines there are men who do.

Whether it's 20%, 50% or whatever percent, the thing that is missing (thoughtfulness, conversation, attention, affection, shared values, shared activities, sex, fun, humour, health, creativity, whatever it is) is something we want.  Male, female, gay, straight, we all may experience some dissatisfaction with our current deeply loved, desperately needed, and most significant romantic partner.

The process is then 1) realizing that the person you chose doesn't have it in them to give, is unwilling to give it, or doesn't even understand that there is an "it"; 2) accepting that, yes, we knew going in; and 3) figuring out a way to give it to ourselves, live without it, or find it elsewhere.

And, yes, if possible, start a conversation.  You never know.