3 posts tagged “effective communication”
Today we are going to talk about Shalom Schwartz ‘s The Theory of Basic Human Values. Shalom Schwartz is a Social Psychologist and cross-cultural researcher in the fields of intergroup conflict and basic human values.
What the theory states is that there are 10 basic human values that are displayed in all societies and that these values interact with each other to form a circular structure based on the inherent conflict or compatibility of the underlying motivations that we discussed in our earlier post. The picture below illustrates the structure we are talking about…
The reason that they are circularly arranged is because the further away each value is placed from each other the more incongruent they are with each other and vice versa. The closer each value is to another on the continuum the more congruent they will be. So in looking at the chart let’s take the values of Stimulation and Security. These two values are in direct opposition of each other and as such, the actions and environments necessary to provided each will be in conflict with each other.
There are two parallel “dimensions” if you will of the Basic
Human Values structure that exist and run in conflict or incongruous with each
other.
1. The first is Openness to Change existing in conflict with Conservation. Self direction and Stimulation emphasize and feed upon independent actions, thoughts and feelings which present a readiness for new experience. Security and Conformity/Tradition rely upon order, self restraint and resistance to change.
2. The second is Self-enhancement existing in conflict with Self-transcendence. Achievement and Power represents strong self interests whereas Universalism and Benevolence represent interest in the welfare and interests of others.
So the sum up the above, as a value gets further away from another on the continuum they become more and more antagonistic and conflicting with each other. The closer they become the more congruent and complementary they become with each other. Along with this, depending on which quadrant they are in they can become either complementary or conflicting in one of 4 categories which are Openness to Change, Conservation, Self-Enhancement and Self-Transcendence.
What is great about this structure, which by the way is grounded in empirical evidence from 35,000 respondents in 67 nations, is the predictability of associations with specific traits, attitudes and behaviors. What happens is that any associations of one value are extremely similar to associations of the adjacent (right next to) values. Along with this, the further away from the value you get, the associations will change and decrease consistently and incrementally in direct proportion to the distance on the continuum. With regards to HOW and WHAT to talk about or communicate with someone, this offers powerful information… The million dollar question then becomes “how do you find this information out?” We will get to that shortly, but let’s first talk about how these values develop and grow…
There are 6 main stages or arenas where the values are instilled and develop and they are Cohorts, Education, Gender and Life Circumstance. Let’s go through each one briefly to examine them…
Cohorts –Here the term “cohort” refers to a particular generational group. Growing up during the depression, times of war, famine, national security threats, etc… will affect the development of values from generation to generation. As you can imagine, someone who was growing up during the depression is going to have different values regarding conservatism than someone growing up in the mid to late 90’s when the economy was exploding. Major historical events like this have a strong impact on values development.
Life Stage – This refers to the three stages of adulthood someone passes through as they mature:
1. In early adulthood, normally people are driving toward establishing themselves in one way shape or form in the verticals of career and family. Genetic and cultural pressure is constant and strong on people in this stage of their life to compete for mates and become settled…. This usually results in the pursuit of achievement and stimulation values rather than security, conformity and tradition values.
2. In middle adulthood people are invested in established family, career and social networks that they want to preserve and grow. Having begun to reach their peak in accomplishment most will begin to constrain risk-taking and other opportunities and begin to stop any real changes from happening.
3. In later adulthood opportunities to display achievement, power, stimulation and hedonism types of values decrease and as such the importance of security and tradition become more important.
Physical Ageing – Peoples strength, energy, cognitive speed, memory and senses decline as they age and mature. As a result security values generally become much more important as safe, predictable environments and circumstances are necessary for survival. Coping mechanisms and abilities are hindered in a way that dealing with stimulation and potential risk is just too dangerous. Hedonism values also begin to decline with age as the senses necessary to fully enjoy them are systematically decreasing and depreciating the experience. Also, someone’s ability to perform the tasks necessary to obtain achievement, social approval and power decrease with age as well resulting in a decrease in the accompanying values.
Education – Intellectual openness, strength, flexibility and perspective presumably increase with education and as such so will self-direction values due to increase competence. This openness also contributes to the engagement and therefore importance of stimulation activity. These types of experiences can cause people to challenge unquestioned and accepted norms, expectations and traditions which results in an undermining of conformity and tradition. The increase in competency and coping abilities also decreases the need for security values in more educated people.
Gender – There are a vast number of theories from the fields of psychoanalysis, evolutionary psychology and social psychology that explain typical gender roles and where they came from. We are not going to get into all of them here though. Let it be sufficient to say that women are generally much more related and more affiliated with other people whereas men are more individuated. Genetics, evolution and culture have all fostered an environment that promotes this.
Life Circumstance – The combination of all of the above contribute to the circumstances with which people are presented. These circumstances provide opportunities to pursue and/or express certain values and not others. Life can and does make the pursuit of certain values to certain people more OR less rewarding OR costly to them. The result is that people will typically adapt their values to their life circumstances, not the other way around… For example, a woman growing up in a patriarchal home and culture may be rewarded for Benevolence type values and reprimanded for Achievement type values.
Wow… This is powerful stuff… I think you can probably see the potential for not only predictability in a person’s action, but also how to use content and structural presentation when you are communicating with them.
Tomorrow we will talk about how to elicit someone’s values and how you can use them as an effective communication tool.
As always, to learn more about values and how they can help provide effective communication, please visit my site The Communication Expert.
The Communication Expert | David J.
Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
In an effort to communicate more effectively with my fellow bloggers I participated in a teleconference with this afternoon with a very successful blogging coach by the name of Michael Martine. Not that Michael discounts the SEO side of his blog, but a strong component of his traffic comes from what are knows as “referrals”, or bloggers finding him through other sites.
If I am being honest, I was hoping for the proverbial silver bullet from him. A better way to automate my communications… quicker ways to persuade via my posts… An easier way to be more effective with my blogs…
In a bitter sweet realization, my hopes of the quick paths were not met… Let’s talk about the bitter pill first. Now don’t get me wrong, I learned some amazing stuff… Michael was generous with the information he communicated. It was formatted in a simple fashion, linear, easy to understand and comprehensive. The total sum of his teleconference though was completely void of the words “automatic” or “easy”. Without going into specifics (you’ll have to pay for it if you want to pick his brain), his blogging communication success has come from hard work, personal attention and giving value to his subscribers.
The reality of the matter is that there are a number of short cuts you can take… You may even get some traffic spikes and some subscribers from using them. That being said, the only true way to build a long list of subscribers is through the combination of working smart AND hard. Subscribers are people and need to be treated like, well… people. They aren’t numbers and viewing them as such will all but guarantee your blog some lonely night ahead. But, if your plan is based on the notions of how best to help each person and add value, then you are indeed on the right track.
Regarding the sweet side of the equation… EFFECTIVE BLOGGING IS HARD WORK! As much as the lazy little boy in me just wants to show up at my computer and log into my thousands of adoring fans, I am so blessed that it isn’t that easy. You know what they say; if it were easy everyone would be doing it. Well, although pretty much everyone is blogging (or at least leaving drive by comments) not everybody is successful at it. The challenge and the work is what have left those who want success a great venue in which to achieve it.
Building a strong and loyal subscriber list is hard work… It takes effort, communication skills, commitment, intelligence and strategy… all wrapped up in a nice thick blanket of compassion, and true hard earned value. This is evident in Michael’s work and his results speak for themselves.
I left the call convicted of three things in particular:
1. If you can’t add value… true value, you won’t have long term success.
2. If you don’t add the personal component, sincerely… you won’t have long term success.
3. Working smart, giving more than you expect in return and placing the needs of your subscribers first will earn you their loyalty.
For more quality information than you can get your arms around, feel free to check Michael’s site out to learn more. See you in the blogosphere…
Distortions showing up in our communication come in several different forms and can absolutely plaque our ability to effectively communicate. Once such distortion that rears it’s ugly head often enough is in falsely attributed cause and effect statements. The false attribution is based on erroneously formulated beliefs at the subconscious level and as such often go unchecked. Effective communication skills are necessary in order to neutralize the damaging effects these may have. Allow me to give you a quick example to illustrate my point:
Let's say that your at the office when all of a sudden your boss comes running in screaming that the project deadline has been moved up! You need to run over to this meeting right away in order to rearrange the schedules and make sure that you're going to meet the new deadline. Without a second to lose, you run from your office to the conference room and make sure that everything is okay. Unfortunately, you didn't have a second to stop and call your wife to let her know that you would be home late for dinner. When the meeting finished, rather than calling her you rushed to your car and drove home as quickly as you could. All the while hoping to salvage any semblance of a family meal. As soon as you come to the door you're greeted with a really unhappy wife… When you ask her what's wrong, she replies with "you came home late because you don't love me". This my friends is a falsely attributed cause and effect statement. In your wife's mind at least at this moment she believes that your tardiness is due to the fact that you don't love her. Now we both know that this is incorrect (well at least I think it’s incorrect :-). Before we go further, let's talk about the psychology of this.
Every day we go through life making
a massive amount of decisions especially while communicating with others. Whether big or small it doesn't really
matter, any decision can and generally will cause what's known as cognitive
dissonance. Exploring in depth the
actual definition and causes of cognitive dissonance is fodder for another
article. For our purposes here, all you
need is a surface understanding.
Cognitive dissonance is basically when an individual holds two opposing
beliefs and has what can be an extremely uncomfortable feeling inside.
This can be a major factor in anything from depression to anxiety to overall ineffectiveness during a daily routine. As a result of the anxiety and the discomfort that cognitive dissonance creates, people can become highly motivated to settle on a decision. Often times decisions are made with having incomplete or in certain circumstances almost no information. The outcome of such an instance can be one of two things. First they may simply use information from both their declarative and procedural memory to make a semi-informed decision. Second, they may actually make things up (subconsciously) in order to validate a decision. (Really!) Both processes can cause people to develop these falsely attributed cause and effect beliefs and statements.
In now knowing this, what do you do? Your wife has just told you that you're being late is because you don't love her. Of course there are many times when these cause and effect beliefs are very real and accurate. The reality of the matter is though that you were pressured by your boss and really had no other choice. In fact, you're putting up with the crap you get from your boss BECAUSE you love your wife. Unfortunately, simply telling her this would add best be a futile effort to pacify her fears and anxiety. So how do you handle this effectively?
Most important is that she most likely doesn’t know why she actually feels this way and as a result the “cause” is awarded to your tardiness. Feelings like this are usually based on past experiences such as watching a cheating father come home late time and again… or stories from a friend who’s perpetually late husband wound up leaving her. So what do you do? How can she communicate more effectively? How can you help her to communicate more effectively?
Running into a scenario where someone poses you with what is clearly an incorrect cause and effect statement can be frustrating. As such, handling this appropriately can take quite a bit of effort and tact. There are indeed ways that you can go about neutralizing these statements without ruffling someone else's feathers.
It is also very important to be aware of these types of statements in your own communication. Cause-and-effect statements many times can be metaphorical, but depending on the recipient of your communication they may very well be construed as literal. Choosing your words carefully is important.
How do you handle these types of statements? How can you work with your own thought process to be certain that you're not communicating ineffectively? We talk about this and a whole host of other communication techniques in my series "The Evolved Communicator", please visit my site to learn more.
