Communication During Disagreements

           The assignment for this week was to think about a disagreement that has happened recently in my life and what tools I have used to resolve the conflict. The conflict that comes to mind is one with a colleague of mine at work. We are both passionate people, and sometimes we disagree about the direction that projects should go. We are also have very different personalities and ways of doing things; I am comfortable with spontaneity and see things from a global perspective where she is detail oriented and feels more comfortable with thinking everything through carefully.
           We recently put a few strategies in place that have helped our communication. We are doing an Action Log where anything that happens regarding our project is written down and shared so that no one is caught off guard. We are also meeting for a few minutes after other office meetings to touch base and catch up. These are good examples of the 3Rs in action (Laureate Education Inc., 2013). They show respect because they honor both of our processing styles, they are reciprocal because it gives us two places to have our voices heard, and they are responsive because it keeps us connected in a way that moves our work forward. She has expressed her appreciation to me for my efforts, and has explained that clear communication helps her feel less ambiguous.
          Today we had a moment when there was a conflict about a discussion that was happening. I took it as an opportunity to to use two additional nonviolent communication skills that I learned about this week-empathetic listening and honest expressing (Center for Nonviolent Communication, n.d.). When she made a comment that seemed aggressive to me, instead of filing it away and letting it fester, I calmly explained to her that I felt uncomfortable with her comment. I asked her to listen to me and I listened to her, and we worked through the issue. I think this is important because little miscommunications can build up over time and cause big problems later on. I loved the quote from The Third Side website (n.d.) from Lao-Tzu that says, "Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts." Being mindful of communications and working toward effective interactions daily is the most effective way to solve disagreements and keep the lines of communication open!  



Resources:

Center for Nonviolent Communication. (n.d.). Foundations of nvc. Retrieved (November     

           25, 2013) from http://www.cnvc.org/learn/nvc-foundations

 

Laureate Education Inc. (2013). What are the 3 R’s of skilled dialog? Retrieved    

           (November 25, 2013) from http://class.walden.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp

 

The Third Side. (n.d.) 3s skills. Retrieved (November 25, 2013) from

           http://www.thirdside.org

 

Communication Evaluations

This week, one of our assignments was to evaluate ourselves on how we listen, how verbally aggressive our communications are, and how comfortable we are communicating. I asked my husband and a colleague at work to evaluate me too...and this is what I found out. 

1. I appear to my colleague to be very confident in all of my communications, which really surprises me because he has heard me say many times that I have an idea but I am not able to articulate it well. He has also heard me express anxiety about a presentation that I was doing at a national meeting. I guess he was more focused on the outcomes (I eventually get my point across and I did really well on my presentation at the meeting) than he was on how I was feeling about it. The truth is that I communicate a lot (I am an extrovert) but I sometimes worry about what I have said.
2. I appear to my husband to be more concerned about speaking to large groups than I do small gatherings. This surprised me because I LOVE to train and present to groups, and large groups don't usually bother me at all (okay...with the exception of the presentation at the meeting). It's the small groups that bother me more, but not when it's small groups of friends and family, which is the context that he sees me in.
3. My husband, my colleague, and I all agree that I am people-oriented listener, and that doesn't surprise me at all. I care a lot about other people and how they are feeling, and I could totally relate to part about having difficulty with judgment because of being over trusting. All in all the three evaluations were pretty close.

The first insight I gained from this is that I like the kind of communicator that I turned out to be. If I heard someone describing me as "a people oriented listener, who is usually comfortable in her communications, and is respectful but firm when interacting with others" that would be okay with me!  The second insight is that I don't have an unrealistic idea of the type of communicator that I am, and it makes me glad to know that my efforts to be a good communicator are evident to others.

The one thing that I notice is that my communication begins to suffer when I let my emotions get too involved, and although I am pleased with the general outcome of these assessments, that is one area I'd really like to work on. In my personal work, I can use the information from the assessments to assure myself that I am on the right path to becoming a competent  communicator, while remembering to keep my emotions in check.

Communicating Differently with Different People

          I do communicate differently with different people in different situations. I use self-monitoring to determine how I should present myself (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012). The three strategies that I use to decide how to communicate, both verbally and non-verbally, are listening, watching, and asking questions. I then present myself in a way that helps me fit into the environment through self-presentation (O'Hair & Wiemann).
          Three specific environments where I do this are family, friends, and work. In my family environment we are typically more comfortable with each other in our communication styles. However, if someone brings a new person to family gatherings, I am on my best behavior until I know how comfortable they are with the loud, sarcastic, and sometimes colorful language that happens at family gatherings. With my friends, I am always myself, and openly express my true feelings, attitudes, and beliefs regardless of who is included in the social gathering. I do this because I expect that my friends have a clear understanding of who I am and what I am like, and they would not bring new people into the situation if they would be uncomfortable around me. I also feel that if they are going to be a friend, they need to get to know the real me! However, I do use my self-monitoring skills, and if I notice that someone is uncomfortable with my communications, I can reign myself in. At work I am constantly using my self-monitoring skills, because different situations allow for different types of self-presentation. When I am in a meeting with the colleagues in my office I am much more relaxed in my communications than I am in a room of state leaders, legislators, and stakeholders. In these situations I dress, speak, and act as formal as the most formal person in the room. When we have all gotten to know each other better, the communication often relaxes.
           I am concerned about acting appropriately in social situations, and I do have the ability to play a variety of roles depending on the setting. I think that using good listening and watching skills, and asking questions when needed, we show respect for the other people around us and communicate a desire to build positive relationships.

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. (2nd ed., pp. 

          55-56). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.   

Non-verbal Communication

Our assignment this week was to watch a television program with the sound turned down so that we could pay attention to the non-verbal communication to determine the relationship between the characters. Then, we needed to watch the show again with the sound turned up to see if we were right. The show that I watched is called 2 Broke Girls and I have never seen it before. The two main characters were a blond and a brunette. The blond did most of her communicating verbally, which I could not hear, and the brunette did a lot of non-verbal communication. It was clear that the characters knew each other well, and it seemed to me that the blond was more in charge. I based this on the fact that she approached a third character while the brunette stood back, she sat down first in an unfamiliar setting and then the brunette sat down, she zipped up the front of the brunette's uniform when her cleavage was clearly bothering an older character, and she appeared to be coordinating a meeting between two people while the brunette was playing around. When I watched the show with the volume up I realized that the brunette was actually the stronger of the two characters, and that her constant vocalizations and physical movements were effects to make her character seem more flighty. I realize that I made these assumptions based on the fact that those who are "in charge" in my world usually do more of the talking and coordinating of activities. If I had been watching a muted show that I was familiar with l I would have been more focused on the story because I would already know the relationship between the characters, and wouldn't had to rely on non-verbal communication to help me establish what was happening.