Workplace Communication: Why do you speak with good intentions, but others don't appreciate it?
Why our words hurt people
When it comes to violent communication, we always think of words like: Stupid, idiot, you're useless because it hurts so much we always avoid it. But even so, communication has not become simpler for us. We are always annoyed that communicating with others does not always achieve results, but instead makes each other disappointed, angry, and even cracks in the relationship?
That's because we didn't realize that we used hidden "violence" in our communication, hurt people unknowingly, and caused resistance in others.
Workplace Communication: Why do you speak with good intentions, but others don't appreciate it?
The book "Nonviolent Communication" talks about the hidden "violent" elements in people's language: ridicule, preaching, labelling, accusation and even gratitude, the author tells about the harm of these hidden violent language to people, and solves why we say this The confusion that more communication is still ineffective has resulted in a conversation mode of non-violent communication, which allows us to maintain good communication in a state of mutual understanding and respect, and establish a harmonious relationship with others and ourselves.
The author of this book, Dr. Marshall Luxemburg, is the founder of international non-violent communication, the world's first non-violent communication expert, and studied under Carl Rogers, a master of humanistic psychology. Today we learn to detect hidden violent language and how to communicate non-violently with the world's first non-violent communication expert.
First: Speak directly of needs rather than criticism
In our life, we often encounter such scenes. The wife criticizes the husband who returns late for being selfish and does not care about home. The parents yell at the children watching TV, and they only care about playing and not doing homework. The result of criticism will not only not solve the problem, but will make the situation worse. The husband and wife will break up unhappily, angry and violent, the parent-child relationship will be tense, and the child will not like to study even more. How to apply the principle of non-violent communication to criticism, let others Like your criticism?
Criticism often implies expectations, and criticism of others is actually an indirect expression of our unmet needs. The wife wants her husband to come home early, she longs for the company of her husband, and the parents hope that the child will finish the homework early and not stay up late, and the child's health is what they care about.
It's just that we are used to substituting criticism for needs, and others often respond to criticism or counterattack. How to solve this problem? It's actually quite simple: speak up about your specific needs. Let's try to use need instead of criticism. How should a wife express her dissatisfaction with her husband who returns late?
Workplace Communication: Why do you speak with good intentions, but others don't appreciate it?
Wife sees her husband coming home late and can say something like this: Honey, you haven't been home for dinner five days this week (be specific) I feel lonely (express my feelings directly) because I want to For your company (state your needs), can you accompany me for dinner 1-2 days a week? (specific requirements), how? If you were the late husband, did you feel a little moved to make some changes?
Blindly criticizing and accusing, it is difficult for others to know what our real needs are. Replacing criticism with needs, stating the needs directly, the more specific the requirements, the better the other party will know what to do.
Second: Listening is more important than comforting
We also often have hidden little "violence" in listening.
When others tell us that we failed in the exam, we often say that it's okay, that if we don't pass the exam this time, we'll work hard next time, or that this little setback is nothing. , walked away silently, we were still very wronged, but it was obviously to comfort others, but others did not appreciate it.
For the other party, our comfort is just closing his outlet for expressing his emotions. All he wants is to speak out and fully express his pain. .
When the other person has fully expressed their emotions, what we need to do is to understand the feelings of others and the need to give them attention and positive feedback. We can say this, I know you are very sad (experience other people's feelings), because you have been preparing for the test all summer vacation, you value this test (understanding the other person's needs), it doesn't matter there is another chance, we will try harder. In this way, even if you cannot offer constructive advice to the other party, because of your listening, the other party can feel your understanding and acceptance, and his emotions have been relieved. This is the most important thing.
Workplace Communication: Why do you speak with good intentions, but others don't appreciate it?
When we listen to each other, don't rush to comfort, just listen with all your heart and stand quietly and wait for him to finish his words.
Three: Four Steps to Communication, Make Your Anger Have Value
When people are angry, their actions are often extreme, such as beating and scolding, throwing things, and even making irreparable mistakes such as accidentally hurting others. , but just like criticism, anger is also because our inner desires are not satisfied, so we cannot blindly suppress anger. We can use the principle of non-violent communication to express anger reasonably and make our anger valuable.
The principle of nonviolent communication expresses anger in four steps:
First, stop and do nothing but exhale. We avoid taking action to accuse or punish the other person, and take the time to feel how we feel. If you still can't hold back your emotions, try to move away from the situation that makes you angry, such as going to another room.
Second, we think about what thoughts make us angry, feel what our needs are not being met, and finally express our feelings and unmet needs.
Let's take an example to understand the four-step communication method of expressing anger.
Workplace Communication: Why do you speak with good intentions, but others don't appreciate it?
A very important project of the company failed because of the mistakes of the subordinate, you are very angry, you even have the idea of firing him, but you know that firing him is not a good way.
What you have to do is calm down first, take a deep breath, feel your anger and pain, what are you thinking that makes you so angry? You find that you value this list very much. If the list can go down, your team's sales performance will triple, and the team's year-end bonus will triple.
You gradually understand that the failure of the project and your anger are not due to the mistakes of your employees, but that your needs for sales performance have not been met. When you express your needs, you'd better listen to what the "mistake" employee has to say. Once we listen to them carefully and express our understanding, after being listened and understood, they will generally begin to pay attention to our feelings and needs, and he will also understand that the sales performance you are looking at is to seek more benefits for team employees , then he will be more attentive to his work in the future.
Anger is not the purpose, making anger more valuable and solving problems is the purpose.