COMMUNICATING WITH OTHERS -- WHAT'S YOUR STYLE?

PAUSE A MOMENT

COMMUNICATING -- CHANGING YOUR STYLE

Good morning and welcome once again to Pause a Moment. I'm Barrie Barkla. Tonight I'd like to spend my time with you sharing some ideas I have about how we communicate with each other. It seems that some people have a knack for getting through; while others fail miserably. Is the ability to communicate effectively a matter of talent, or chance, or is it a skill that can be learnt?

[We Don't Talk Any More – Cliff Richard]

One of the keys to success in anything is the level of your skills to deal creatively and effectively with others. Amongst the skills we all, including you, have is our ability to adapt our style of communicating with different and differing kinds of people in changing circumstances. We all do it, all the time. You don't interact with your boss the same way you play with a toddler child; you don't interact with your lover the same way you interact with a cop who's just pulled you over for a traffic infringement (at least, I hope you don't). 

We all have the ability; the skills and styles are learned. And anything that is learned can be unlearned and modified, if what we've learned is not serving us and we so chose to change. I know this from years of interacting with men and women who suffer brain damage, ranging from slight to deeply profound.

We all vary our personal styles according to the person we're with and the prevailing context, but very few of us do it knowingly, or deliberately. And those who don't do it knowingly invariably adopt a default style according to how THEY feel at the time, not in sympathy with how the OTHER person feels. It's no surprise to me that communication breaks down; rather it amazes me that communication happens at all! There is something miraculous about profound communication, but not impossible. Far from it. But you do have to get your head out of your own arse.

A first skill to improve the condition is to become an avid student of Possibility. I've talked about this before – many times, and maybe I will again, but not tonight. Let's move on.....

A second skill is your willingness and adroitness, on your own say-so, to take 100% responsibility for communicating clearly with others. That may seem odd, since we all think we communicate just fine; it's the others who misunderstand us – right? Of course right! Except it doesn't work, except sometimes, and that's not a good batting average.

Your average human being is a lousy communicator. That's a wild generalisation, of course, but assuming that we are good communicators isn't working, so maybe it might be a good idea to start from an assumption that we don't know what we're doing when it comes to getting an idea across to another, and see what discoveries we can make coming from that opposite assumption. Just for a few minutes. Are you willing? Good. “I'm not as good as I think I am”. Come with me.

Except under very rare, mostly accidental circumstances, human beings do not connect directly; they agree on a language and a few crude cyphers, and communicate in codes – the cultural and social languages of words, grammar, body, eyes, vocal intonation, posture.... It could be likened to attempting to discuss quantum physics using only pidgin English. And here's the joke – we don't even have the same code books – you woudn't believe how different they are! For example, you and I cannot agree on the experience of fear. We feel fear differently – very differently. We cannot possibly share the experience of fear. We can only talk about a feeling in abstract words about two quite different experiences that we both call “fear”. Where's the understanding? “He doesn't understand me!” people in relationship wail. Of course he doesn't – he's not you!

[Let's Call the Whole Thing Off – Jane Rutter]

So, if you really want me to understand you and really get where you're coming from, you have to be able to translate the substance, the context and the spirit of your communication into my languages. You've got some work to do. And don't fall into the common fallacy of completing your pitch and then just saying to me “Do you understand?” Of course, if I think I've understood you, I will nod and say “Yes”, but you have no idea of what it is I've actually understood. Later on, when I stuff up, you'll say to me “But you told me you understood!” and you will blame me, right? How often has that happened in your experience?

Putting the hoe now on the other foot -- if I want you to understand what I'm talking about right at this moment, and I do, I have to be a bit clever and skillful about it, and allow you to have your experience, an experience which is not the same as mine, but an experience that will be relevant and useful to you – hopefully. My ability to be able to tap into an emotional experience of mine and provoke the memory of a similar emotional experience with each and every one of you defines my effectivness as a communicator. But when it happens, especially on radio, it's mightily poweful, because you are having YOUR experiences, not mine. Such shifts can transform your life, and because they are YOURS, no-one can take them away from you. The Acts of the Apostles called it “speaking in tongues” – I call it “speaking in your language.”

[Words – Robin Gibb (A) – 3:27]

You'll get a lot further socially and career-wise if you get that effective observation and communication depends a lot on your ability to engage with others on their terms, rather than yours. Constantly gauge and calibrate the people around you. Recognise specific patterns each has for perceiving the world, examine under what circumstances you employ those same patterns and begin to notice if others have similar patterns. 

Through this approach you can develop a whole set of distinctions about people that can empower you in knowing how to understand and communicate effectively with each one of them.

For example, some people sort primarily by Feelings and others sort by Logical Thoughts. Only a truly club-footed salesman would you try to persuade a "feelings" person with logic and reason, or vice versa. A Volvo salesman sells you on family, safety, logic and reason; he won't get you all teary-eyed about the smell of embossed leather upholstery, or impressing the neighbours. Mercedes Benz, however, are all about status. Sure, they are beautifully built, but primarily, driving a Merc is something to aspire to, and once you have one, you're in The Club.

Some people make decisions based only on specific facts and figures. First they have to know if the parts will work– they’ll think about the broader picture later. Others are convinced first by an overall concept or idea. They react to global chunks. They want to see the big picture first. If they like it, then they’ll think about the details.

Some people are turned on by Beginnings. They’re most excited when they get a new idea off the ground, and then they soon tend to lose interest in it and go on to something else. Others are fixated on Completion. Anything they do they have to see all the way to the end, whether it’s reading a book or doing a task at work.

People sort by what's important to them. For example, I'm fundamentally  programmed by Curiosity and Caring to explore the mysteries of  Freedom and Universality. It has been that way since I was in the cradle. No matter how tightly Dad wrapped my up, I always found a way to wriggle out: it drove him wild. If you want to get my attention, flash a new idea or an opportunity to explore synergism, or deliverance from restriction at me, and I'll be all over it like a rash, then I'll spread whatever goodies I find to anyone who'll listen. I'm like the drunken stranger in the bar who has tales to tell of his travels all the way through to closing time. 

Some people sort by Food. That’s right, by food. Almost anything they do, or consider doing, is evaluated in terms of food. Ask them how to get someplace, and they’ll say, “Go down the road until you get to the Chinese takeaway, turn left, and then continue down until you get to McDonald’s and swing right, and then left again at Colonel Fried Duck until you get down to that chocolate-brown building.” If you ask about a movie they went to, they immediately begin telling you about how bad the candy bar was. Ask about a wedding, and they’ll tell you about the cake and the catering.

A person who sorts primarily by People will talk mostly about the people at the wedding or the characters in the film. A person who sorts primarily by Activities will talk about what actually happened at the wedding, or the storyline of the film, and so on.

[Reverie – John Williams]

In our quest for balance and consistency, we all follow one strategy or another for using particular patterns/styles, or what Dr. Deepak Chopra calls "Metaprograms". For some circumstances we may lean slightly more to one side than another. For others we may swing wildly from one strategy to another. I occasionally do that deliberately when I want to unbalance somebody – to dislodge them from a place where they're stuck. But there’s nothing carved in stone about any of those metaprogrammes. Just as you can make the decision to put yourself in an empowering state, you can also choose to adopt styles that help rather than hinder you. The more strategies you have in your armoury, the more flexible you will be in catching unexpected drifts in an interaction.

What any current background operating program (metaprogramme) you're on does is tell your brain what's important to you, what to disregard, what to discard as irrelevant, and what to delete from your attention altogether. So if you’re in a Moving Toward mode, for example, you’re automatically deleting the things you’re moving away from. If you’re moving Away, then you’re mindlessly deleting the things that you could be moving toward. To change your habit programs, all you have to do is become aware of the things you normally delete, and begin to focus your attention on them. That will get the ball rolling for you.

Don’t make the mistake of confusing your Self with your behaviors. You are you (and until the day you die you will always need to do more exploratory work there). You are you, and your behaviours are what you do, to see what they feel like and how they turn out. How many times have you thought, when confronted by somebody who's upset by something you've done, “Yes, but you don't know me. If you really knew who I am, you wouldn't be upset.” Don't make the same mistake of confusing any other person with his or her behaviours. You say, “I know Joe. He does this, this, and this.” Well, you don’t know Joe. You know him only through your interpretation of his behaviors. But your interpretations are based on your code book, not his; and he isn’t his behaviors any more than you are yours.

If you’re someone who tends to move away from everything, maybe that’s your pattern of behaviour. If you don’t like it, you can change. In fact, there’s no excuse for you not to change. You have the power now. The only question is whether you have enough logical or emotional impeti to motivate yourself to use more of what you now know.

Changing your style does not mean changing who you are, only how you express what you've decided to be in the present circumstances. If you're one of those people who feel threatened by a change of style, maybe you are one of those unfortunates who are all style and of no substance; you've decided a particular style is what you are. I leave that to you  to sort out for yourself.

There are two ways to change your operating habits. One is by Significant Emotional Events – “SEEs.” If you saw your parents constantly moving away from things and not being able to achieve their full potential as a result, it might influence the way you move when you grow up. You may copy their style because you see some other benefit from it; or you may resist the way they did it and decide “I'm never going to do it their way.” Then a sudden relationship crisis shakes you to your core (SEE), and suddenly you're all at sea with no liferaft. 

 

If you only sorted by Necessity and missed out on some great job opportunity (SEE) because the company was looking to someone with a dynamic sense of Possibility, you might be shocked into changing your approach. In my teens and early twenties I used to be a bit flexible about time, until I lost a very good job because I was late (SEE). I've been very time conscious ever since, and I always turn up early for appointments and commitments. If you, once upon a time, tended to move Toward everything and got taken in by a flashy-looking investment scam and did your dough (SEE), it would probably affect the way you look at the next proposal that comes your way. Maybe without realising it, as I did in the case of Time, you've changed a system of habits without quite realising it.

[Come Fly With Me – 101 Strings]

The other way you can change is by consciously deciding to do so. Most of us never give a single thought to our style -- which metaprograms we use. The first step toward change is to sharpen our awareness of what we're doing on automatic pilot. The next step toward change is recognizing the need and the timeliness for it, disengaging the autopilot and learning to fly our life manually once more, at least for a while. A heightened awareness of exactly what we are currently doing provides the opportunity for new choices and thus for change. Changes will feel odd, maybe scary, and maybe even "wrong"; that's a good sign. Evolution is all about letting go of things and ideas that are no longer of sufficient value.

Let’s say you realize that you have a strong tendency to Move Away from things you decide are “bad” for you. How do you feel about it? Sure, there are things you want to, and should, move away from. If you put your hand on a hot iron, you would want to move it away as soon as you could. But aren’t there also things you really want to move toward? Isn’t a part of managing anything -- from a cake stall to your life – making a conscious effort to move toward something desired? Don’t most great leaders and great successes move toward things rather than away? Don't they urge others to do the same? 

So you might want to begin to stretch a little. You can start thinking about things that appeal to you. Let them attract and excite you and actively move toward them.

 

You could also think of metaprograms on a wider level. Do organisations, companies, states and nations have metaprograms? Well, they have cultures and behaviors, don’t they? So they have metaprograms, too. Their collective behavior, many times, forms a pattern, based upon metaprograms of their leaders. Every one of the organisations I'm part of has metaprogrammes that are identifiable to anyone who knows what they're looking at. 

 

Australia for the most part has a culture that seems to move Toward. Our national frame of reference seems to be external, rather than internal – ie. We often seem to be looking over our shoulders to compare ourselves with what everyone else is doing, bending over backwards to please, and asking celebrity visitors if they like us. Here's a question for you - Does a country like China or Thailand have an internal or external frame of reference? From my experience, they are largely Internal = they do things their way, and you either fit in or bugger off. Maybe your experience is different?

An understaning and awareness of metaprograms can be useful on two levels. The first is as a tool to calibrate and guide our communication with others. Just as a person’s physiology will tell you countless stories about her, her metaprogrammes will speak eloquently about what motivates her, what gets her back up, and what frightens her off. It will also reveal a lot about how duality becomes duplicitousness, and suggest strategies for coping or dealing with it.

The second use for knowing your, and someone else's style is as a tool for personal change. Remember, you are not your behaviors. If you tend to run any kind of pattern that works against you, all you have to do is change it.

[I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan – Stacey Kent]