3 posts tagged “speaking”
Our minds, among other things, have an unparalleled filing system... We are
able to take massive amounts of information and store it away for a rainy day.
The mechanism that our mind uses primarily to do so is language. Language is an
amazing thing... With language we are able to take something completely
abstract, such as a picture or a view or a sensation and re-represent this
inside of someone else's mind. On top of all of that, we do it with amazing
efficiency... We are able to take something as abstract and dynamic as a sunset
and re-present this to someone else simply by saying "sunrise"... How
cool is that?
Now, for all of the incredible benefits of this, it still has it's short comings. The almost frightening reality of the matter is that whenever we hear the word "sunrise", inside of every one of use is a completely unique concept of what a sunrise means. For one person it may be a peachy orange glow cresting over the top of a treeless mountain capped with snow. For another it may simply be the light hearted feeling of anticipation that they felt while watching a sunrise with a fated lover... More often than not, it is sufficient to use the term "sunrise" during your communication. It is only when it's accurate representation is necessary to convey a message that we may run into problems.
The term "sunrise" is an illustration of our second categories of deletions and is called a Nominalization. When a process becomes Nominalize it is basically turned into a noun, or a thing. In other words, you are taking an action or a process and turning it into a "thing". Some examples of Nominalizations are relationship, love and emotion along with the term sunrise. The classic test in neuro-semantics is to ask yourself the question of whether or not it (your process term) can be put in a wheelbarrow. If it can, then chances are that it is simply a noun and as a result if considerably more concrete in it's own representation. If it cannot, then you likely have a Nominalization.
Nominalizations notoriously leave out a ton of information when they are use in communication and as a result can cause havoc. Let's reference an example... A familiar Nominalization that causes a ton of problems is "relationship". Couples and spouses alike are in a "relationship". Both participants realize this, but major issues can and usually do come into play when individual definitions of a "relationship" clash or miss each other all together. For person A being in a relationship might mean that they will simply no longer sleep with someone else. For person B it may mean that they will give up their entire life to make the other person happy. I think you can see where we might run into issues in the future… Unless the specific underlying beliefs and expectations about what “relationship” means to each person, they are headed for disaster…
To learn more about Nominalizations and other components of communication, please visit my website.
“I never worry about action, but only about inaction”
Winston Churchill
What did Winston mean exactly? Did he mean defending your self, or making money, or developing relationships maybe? When you hear the word action, what comes to your mind first? It may be any number of things and in staying true to human form it most likely is…
To reference yesterdays VLOG, during communication people will generally meet (just barely) their own threshold of acceptability for Paul Grice’s 4 Maxims. As you will remember, there is the Maxim of Quality, Quantity, Manner and Relation. In staying true to the least energy principle, in communication they will relay just enough information to satisfy these… The communication problems can arise when their subconscious threshold for meeting these 4 Maxims differs from the recipient’s threshold.
Although Winston’s quote is extremely moving… Its functionality may be suspect in every day language. This is due to the blatant usage of Unspecified Verbs. These are process words that are missing a complete description. In other words they are verbs that are, to a greater or lesser degree, unspecified. They may also omit the actual verb, or the object of the verb, or both.
Examples of unspecified verbs are running, touching, hurting, moving and communicating. These verbs can mean any one of a number of different things depending on the situation and what the communicator has in mind. Allow me to illustrate:
Imagine you’re at work and your boss calls you into their office… Word came down from corporate and they want your division to pick up sales and your boss wants you to take care of this… In the meeting the boss’s communication is to “work harder so that your division can make corporate happy…” In an effort to get out of your boss’s office as quickly as possible you agree to “work harder” and shuffle along.
Well three weeks go by and your called to the principles… or I mean boss’s office again to discuss you progress. Upon presenting your numbers you are quickly chided as you haven’t done even half of what you were “supposed to do”. You walk out of the office bewildered and unsure of what to do next…
If you haven’t picked it up yet, the outrageously unspecified verb is “work” in the authorities communication. The verb work is amazingly broad and can mean anything form organizing to time management to specific activity and so on. As a result, you did indeed “work” harder. You stayed later and focused more… What they boss was thinking was that he wanted you to organize some teams so that you could delegate work to them. This may be a bit extreme, but understanding that there is a spectrum from completely unspecified to completely specified will show you that anything can be miscommunicated if we don’t pay attention.
To learn more, please visit my website…
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.
