About the content and the proposed model
This work is prepared with the purpose of helping to build effective communication skills in people, as a complement to the talk that takes place through a course or seminar.
effective-conversational-communication-a-model-to-developEach aspect is a subject in itself, and thick in the rest, so that it is not even thought to give enough with the exposed scope. The idea is that the interested party is motivated to individually expand a deeper knowledge and that this work serves as a basic orientation. Nothing more than that.
It contains both its own concepts -which I have been expressing for several years in various courses and talks- as well as substantive questions of Rafael Echeverría and Humberto Maturana's thinking on communication, and specific aspects of other authors.
So it is not just about my ideas, but also other people's ideas that I decided to “borrow” for the benefit of the reader since they enrich the conceptual approach and facilitate global understanding.
It is developed with the idea of having a general knowledge look at the main elements that one must know, understand, internally process and incorporate into the attitude, in order to self-train this skill that is crucial for good individual performance and teamwork.
Perhaps the thematic approach of the work as a whole is a mixture that for many could be even half curious, to say the least neutral.
In fact, it is because the emphasis on the definition of content was not on academic rigor - as is evident from the rest - but basically on providing a vision that is as nutritious as possible but thinking in terms of practical application; on the main edges that must be observed and reflected analytically, first, to enter with a broad look into this of conversational communication and then to obtain elements of personal management that allow improving or strengthening communicational effectiveness between one and the others.
Finally, the elements to form the communicational ability are differentiated in two central components; one is called basic knowledge for effective communication, and the other is elements to trigger a new conversational practice.
These components have been located through a basic model, which is exposed below, drawn in order to put a vision of the relational structure of the whole and to understand the logic of the proposed approach.
Why is conversational communication so important?
We will make a brief indication of its importance to establish, from the start, the conceptual position that we handle on the conversation and its effect on people (using some opinions of Rafael Echeverría)
“… Language is action, it has an undeniable transforming power, capable of generating new realities. This has been one of the main philosophical contributions of the second half of the 20th century ”
The way we talk with others and with ourselves, defines in a decisive way the way we are, the type of life we generate and our effectiveness at work. Every social relationship, with our family, with the couple, with colleagues and work team, is determined by the impact produced by the way we talk.
Learning to listen effectively is important not only to get a good grasp of what the speaker is saying, but also for what they would like to say but fail to express.
People resist realizing that many times others do not understand what they want and that they cannot explain many things because of the way they express themselves.
In communication, the way of judging, evaluating and interpreting what happens in the situation is key and a good part of our communication problems originate from weakness in our judgments, therefore we need to strengthen our capacity for observation. The ability to exchange judgments is vital to feedback and this is key to better do what we do and constantly improve.
Emotional aspect; the conversation has a strong impact on a group, the way of speaking defines the group's emotion and this, what it can achieve, its performance, so that
"the way of speaking impacts on emotion, and this, on performance"
i. The mental model of people in communication
It is necessary to provide a brief explanation of this, so that there is no empty space on this concept that is mentioned in various parts.
By mental model we understand the main ones, values, beliefs, paradigms and emotionality that each one carries as a product of their personal history and that determines the way of perceiving, interpreting and reacting to what happens to us.
The point is that in order to be effective in communication it is necessary to start making an effort to reflect on our mental model, not in strict psychological terms since we would surely lose ourselves in that complexity, but rather promptly tried to establish to what extent my mental model conditions the way I interpret what I hear.
In other words, how my personal beliefs and values are drawing what I am hearing and in the end they shape my way of perceiving and judging what I hear from the people who speak.
Also, in the same way, one should try to form an impression on the mental model of the person with whom he is speaking and how it can condition what he says, affect his listening capacity and what he is interpreting from the conversation or my words.
The matter sounds quite "dense" and not at all easy since, in good accounts, what is being suggested is looking at yourself from a certain distance and looking at others "scanning" your mental model. It is definitely not a simple thing.
But it is an aspect that cannot be overlooked as being complex, and it cannot be avoided to keep it actively in mind if one tries to make a consistent effort to develop effective communication.
We will try to land the above with the diagram below to achieve an approach that can help us develop a practical management view of this dimension of our own and others' mental model, without pretending that it is enough to adequately absorb this issue, which is an issue in itself..
ii. The language we use is an active action
Communication between human beings is a complex issue with multiple facets, a topic on which we can say that we are in the process of learning, as well as in various aspects that human relationships otherwise develop.
Until a while ago, language, as a means of conversational communication, was considered as something passive to transmit information, to communicate what is thought, what is felt, to describe situations and events, that is, an instrument of transmission of " data ”between people. That belief no longer serves to analyze the impact of language. And it does not work since it is an active action that has nothing of a passive act from the moment it is communicated and how it is communicated is an action capable of producing internal realities in people (joy, unhappiness, performance efficiency, commitment, decommissioning, etc.).
Taken to work, we can easily see that the proper functioning of a team depends on the quality of conversational communication, from the fact that the way conversations are held generates emotions and perceptions that can be motivational or demotivational, good work environment or conflict environment, of appreciation or devaluation of who speaks and who listens. In short, it determines more than we imagine the relationship in the team, whether it will be productive or problematic. And as we know, good individual and group work performance can hardly be achieved when relationships between people have more conflictive than productive elements.
However, even people do not assign due importance to conversational communication; The tendency is to assume that things should be understood well without worrying about how we should communicate with others to establish a good understanding of what we talk and what we hear.
iii. Reality in human interaction is not given
We expose a scheme developed for conversation, since it is a complex circle of interrelationships that is a topic in itself, but that we will only touch on the dimension of communication
iv. Conversational communication is listening and speaking
Conversational communication between people has two phases; listen and talk. It is generally thought that speaking is the most important thing in communication since it is seen as the active part, while listening as the passive part of communication is what is a misperception of the matter.
It is due to this perception that concern in the field of interpersonal communications is assigned almost exclusively when speaking, the importance focuses on how to speak well, what words to use, what tone of voice, what posture, etc. etc. so that what we speak has the desired impact on the other or others, so that it is well heard.
The interest in effective listening has recently been explored in exploring this topic that is substantive for conversational communication.
Even so, listening for the most part is not seen as a problematic issue to which an outstanding effort should be devoted, and it is not done because there is a general conviction in people that, speaking well what is said, this will be without problem well heard and interpreted of who is on the other side "passively" listening.
But it turns out that listening is always active and could never be a passive state of the person since when listening something is happening in the "listener" that is much more than passively receiving what the other says; the one who is listening is interpreting what the other says but not only that, but perceptions and emotions are occurring in him from what he is listening. And in this the range of possibilities is extensive; joy, annoyance, confusion, acceptance, rejection, etc. etc.
So the one who is listening is always interpreting from his personal emotional state what he is listening to, and there precisely appears the problem that occurs in the line of who speaks and who listens: it turns out that the meaning or how the listener interprets the words can be quite different from the meaning of what the speaker is saying.
If we accept that this happens to us, we can then say that there is a gap or distance between the meaning of who is trying to say who is speaking and the sense of who is listening to what they are saying, without being clear about why that distance occurs.
In essence, we can say that this happens because we are all different people, we perceive and interpret what happens to us from our previous experiences, from our own emotionality and mental model that each individual builds on his or her own personal history.
Through our recurring communication relationships, we can see that we lack sufficient listening-interpreting skills when we often face situations that we simply cannot understand.
When, for example, we do not know how to interpret a boss's observation, or if I am knowing how to “read” what my subordinates tell me.
At work it is fatal when managers and bosses do not have the ability to listen and are not even concerned about the matter because they are convinced that they are macanudo speakers, that everything they say is very clear and correct without stopping for a minute to think about how they have done. interpreted those who listen. In private life, the lack of good communication is one of the main causes of relationship breakdown, of divorces.
The famous business "guru" Peter Drucker in one of his books says: "Too many executives think they are wonderful with people because they speak well. They don't realize that being wonderful with people means listening well ”
Also Tom Peters, another famous specialist, affirms that the low performance of the management of many companies is due to the fact that the manager does not listen to his employees, his clients, or what is happening in the market. Peters recommends "obsess over listening."
The question is how do you know how to listen? Can you learn to listen? Of course you can learn, but understanding that it is a process that requires no less effort to incorporate in our way of being the habit of listening.
To learn to listen, we must start by accepting that it is an issue on which we have strong weaknesses from our history (beliefs and inherited values plus our experiences) and according to this, we will have to question some beliefs that we carry, so that learning implies relearn in the sense of modifying certain attitudes and behaviors.
v. It is important to know how to differentiate listening and hearing
For a proper understanding of the subject it is necessary to start by specifying what we mean by hearing and listening. In rigorous conceptual terms, we can say that hearing is the biological capacity that humans and other living species have to capture sounds. When a sound is played we go from hearing to listening. So to listen is to hear more the interpretation that we give to the sound that we would be hearing, and in the context of our theme, the sound becomes the words that they tell us.
We can consider the previous definition to be correct, but for purposes of individual application in what is attitude, we have chosen to give a practical handling approach to the action of hearing and listening, and although it may not be totally acceptable from a strict conceptual view of the matter.
Our practical approach says the following: It turns out that we mostly practice hearing what we are being told and to a much lesser extent listening to what we are trying to convey.
We will briefly see the interpretation that we assign to the difference between hearing and listening:
Listening implies an attitude of trying to analyze from the perspective of who speaks the message that we receive and in this way try to understand what is being said to us. For the same reason we can analyze in a more objective way what we want to transmit to ourselves.
While hearing means capturing the message but keeping our perspective or position strong so that we mentally "renounce" the part of reflecting or analyzing what the other tries to transmit to us.
When we are in the "listening" attitude, we are actually more focused on what we are going to respond to and less on the validity or degree of reasonableness of what is being transmitted to us verbally
When it comes to a social conversation about something of no importance, obviously the attitude of more listening and less listening does not have a relevant effect for either party.
But in the workplace, it turns out that when we are in the "listening" attitude, many times the tendency is for quick responses to emerge with strong defensive doses, partly to demonstrate that we know the matter well or better than our interlocutor, or to exhibit our opinion, or why we are concerned with the image we are displaying, instead of calmly reasoning about what he says without thinking about “winning for winning” or making verbal demonstrations.
Therefore, the difference is that when I "hear" I am understanding the words but basically from my perspective of focus, for the same reason I easily fall into the temptation to "eject" quick responses trying to defend my position, whereas when I "listen", I am trying to put myself in the perspective of the other so that first I analyze and “chew” what they tell me and then I express my opinion.
It is clear that this is an essential issue to be effective in the conversational communications that we maintain day by day at work and of course in our family and social relationships.
saw. What is involved in learning
We talk about individual and group learning and we say that learning is crucial to develop effective communication, which leads us to briefly indicate that we understand this to have a clear and shared concept.
When we talk about learning, we are not referring to what it is to learn. And learning, said in synthetic terms, comprises three basic conditions:
- it is about behavioral change,
- it is an enduring change,
- and the change is through the acquisition of knowledge, practices and experiences.
From this it is clear that learning is not seen from a perspective of just reading, memorizing and learning literally countless theoretical knowledge and technical issues.
If that effort does not translate into a behavioral change, in our attitudes and behaviors but not for moments but in an enduring way, then the knowledge, practices and experiences only accumulate in our mental "hard disk". The essential thing then of learning is to internalize and prosecute attitudes and behaviors that effectively support and ensure the achievement of what we intend to achieve with the learning effort we are making, both personally and in the workplace.
Learning should help us to advance in our behavior, to be more productive, bearing in mind that this advance should not only be perceived by us but also by the people around us, since what we do is with people and people and ourselves as such, we evaluate the rest and we are evaluated according to the image and opinion that we form from the behaviors that we observe in others and the behaviors that we display. In sum; Being open to active learning in the sense of capturing what is learned in productive behaviors and behaviors is a necessary competence for effective communication and listening.
E learning then we see it as any relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of acquiring knowledge, developing practices and the experience we are having and accumulating.
From the workplace angle when we are a member of an organization, learning as a process is related to organizational culture, leadership styles, work practices, decision making, and can be fostered by an organizational environment that promotes individual learning. and collective, or obstructed when it is the other way around.
Now, learning can be seen through two intertwined dimensions: acquiring knowledge and acquiring skill.
- Knowledge is knowing why (Know – why) is the conceptual part of learning, knowing why something works or happens.
- Ability is knowing how (know-how) is the application part: having the ability to use knowing why to make something happen or work.
Both dimensions, knowing why and knowing how, are important and complementary for learning effectiveness.
Just as an example, let's look at a hypothetical situation of two carpenters: the first one has a great knowledge of furniture design - knowing why - but has never managed to acquire the ability to build a piece of furniture - knowing how - while the second carpenter has enormous woodworking skills - knowing how - but he has not managed to acquire the knowledge about what makes the structure of the furniture stand firm and consistent, knowing why, that is why the furniture does not fit well.
Obviously neither carpenter is effective if he works alone, from which it is concluded that true learning requires the acquisition of both; knowing - why and knowing -
how are merged as two conditions for the quality of what is done.
The most effective learning, especially for adults, results from a continuous cycle of experience in the same workplace and happens roughly like this:
- We have concrete experiences in the workplace
- We meditate on those experiences, trying to understand what happened and why
- We form generalized concepts based on those experiences
- Then we repeat the cycle, similar to the turns of a wheel
So we have the wheel of learning from experiences:
So during half a cycle while we are checking our concepts and observing what happens in a concrete experience, we learn the know-how. In the other part of the cycle, while we are meditating on our observations and forming concepts, we learn knowing - why.
vii. Synthesis of instrumental guidelines for conversational communication
Listening behaviors
- Stop talking and stop talking
- Pay attention to the content and form of what is spoken
- Identify the emotions that accompany the message
- It is not enough to listen, it is necessary to demonstrate that you listen
Empathetic work skills:
• Understand others: perceive the feelings and perspectives of others, take an active interest in their concerns, know how to listen, be sensitive to the points of view of others
• Service orientation: anticipating, recognizing and satisfying the client's needs, having the capacity to interpret what the client wants well is essential to develop a product that meets their needs
• Help others to develop: perceive the development needs of others and foster their capacity, in this it is vital to be able to offer constructive criticism and identify the points that the other must improve
• Respect diversity: of people of different origins, beliefs and values and get along with everyone, understand different points of view and be sensitive to differences, not accept prejudice and intolerance
• Ability to interpret the reality of the medium: knowing how to read adequately the existing power relations, the networks of influence, knowing how to accurately interpret the reality of the organization and the external environment.
"The 10 Commandments of effective communication"
- Think with your head before speaking with your mouth
- Specify the goals you want to achieve and the best strategy to achieve it
- Adapt what you want to say to the recipient and the situation
- Select the time, place and the appropriate and appropriate way for the message
- How you say something is as important as what is said
- Show the other that you have an interest in what you say
- Avoid expressions that may hinder reasoning and generate defensive positions
- Get some feedback from the receiver, to make sure that the message has been well understood
- Maintain an "active listening" attitude, focus on what is said, try to identify the emotional state of the other or others
- Be flexible, adapt your expression and attitude to the situation that is generated in the dialogue
The "Capital Sin" of communication: It is to assume that what has been heard is what has been said
i. Legitimizing the other: essential attitude for effective listening
The development of listening skills implies having a fundamental attitude of one towards others and it is respect and openness towards the other: "acceptance of the other as a legitimate other" is an essential condition for conversational communication to flow.
If we do not accept the other as a legitimate other, listening and communication itself will be problematic since every time we reject a subordinate, a client, a partner, etc. we are strongly hampering our ability to listen effectively. When we do not accept it as a legitimate other, what we are actually doing is acting that we are listening to what it says when we are truly listening to ourselves.
And here we come to a crucial point in the perspective of learning to listen: what can lead us to accept or not the legitimacy of the other and ultimately to feel or not respect what he says when we listen to him? It is understood that we are not talking about a total and absolute rejection, but about a certain lack of acceptance that can be given to a different degree.
The answer is not complicated and we all know it, although many are not willing to recognize it as such: when we feel superior to the other, when we think that it is not at our level, so what we can say is “anything” or nothing interesting for one that is worth the effort to listen, when we feel better or different at a "more advanced" level on the basis of religion, sex, race or educational degree, when our values make us discriminate against the other because of their social level, their form of speaking, their way of dressing, their behavior in general, when our mental models are rigid, inflexible, and have us full of a series of prejudices against customs or ways of being that we do not share, when we consider that we are possessors of the absolute truth or at least most of it.Accepting the legitimacy of the other is not, then, an attitude that one can freely accommodate according to the situation, but rather a behavioral response directly related to the mental model that one carries. There are more flexible and open mental models to relearn and modify certain attitudes and there are other rigid ones that simply have too much “cemented” the validity of how they are with others. For these it is much more difficult to maintain an effective listening.For these it is much more difficult to maintain an effective listening.For these it is much more difficult to maintain an effective listening.
Therefore, from the start it is necessary to give a deep personal self-look in this attitudinal sense towards others, in order to observe - in a very sincere and realistic way since self-deception lacks meaning - what aspects of my mental model can I enter to question and change or adjust to learn to listen.
It is not a matter of “rebirth” since it is not possible, at least not until now, but to identify the type of limitations present in our mental model (which are expressed via attitude and conduct) that could affect listening capacity and can improve.
It is important to keep in mind that we have a powerful stimulus to develop effective communication: the current world of work clearly demands and is increasingly valuing the soft skills of people, including over the "hard" or technical, where communication skills are key.
On the other hand, the influence of the environment, specifically the social culture that has been brewing for years, helps to promote respect for differences between people since society is less and less rigid in moral values (abortion, divorce, illegitimate children, homosexuality, etc.).
In sum; Developing effective listening skills requires respecting and legitimizing the other as another and not as one wants to be.
ii. The emotional state of oneself and others in the conversation
We must look at what emotional state we are at the moment of the conversation and observe the emotional state of the other.
If I happen to be in a bad mood, I will surely not be in a position to adequately hold certain types of conversations, much less to have a good listening capacity for the other. Also if I am depressed or stressed by something, my conversational ability will undoubtedly be affected.
The same with regard to my interlocutor, his emotional state at the moment of the conversation to an important extent will determine not only his form of expression but he will also be more open or more closed to say what he really wants to communicate.
It is a fact that our emotional state can expand or reduce our ability to express what we really want to communicate in a conversation.
So if we intend to listen effectively we must get used to observing our own emotional state and then or at the same time the emotional state with whom we talk.
But the matter does not end there; the development of the conversation itself is constantly generating changes of emotional states in one and the participants. Depending on the type of conversation, different emotional states are generated and you have to be aware of what is happening.
A way of realizing the emotional state of others is reflected through the way they are talking (calm, anxious, aggressive, happy, etc.) and also by observing body movements and postures.
Linked to the internal emotions that flow in people, there is the self-esteem component in the sense that it plays a minor role in the way we interpret what we hear: it makes quite a different impact to say "dumb" to someone who does not feel at all less at the level of intelligent to say the same to someone who actually has insecurities regarding their intelligence.
An important part of our emotional sensitivity filters on how we interpret what we hear are based on how we see ourselves in various ways; intellectual, professional, as a couple, attitude in social group (fun, without grace, etc.) physically, etc. and depending on how we interpret what we hear, we react in a certain direction or in a certain way.
So it is an aspect that effectively comes to condition interpersonal communication and listening skills to a lesser extent.
iii. Trust between the parties
The trust between the participants in a conversation undoubtedly has a preponderant effect on how what is said is heard and interpreted and, consequently, how what is said is reacted to.
Trust refers to the characteristics of people in matters such as professional capacity, honesty, sincerity, punctuality, compliance, transparency, general criteria, conflict management, reaction capacity, and other aspects that ultimately link the degree of credibility regarding therefore what is said to the ability to listen.
When there is no trust between people (relative or absolute) the words are not credible. If one does not have confidence in the other or the other does not have confidence in one, the credibility of what we hear and what we say is strongly affected.
The words are easily distorted in any direction and the conversation ends up being a walk without much sense.
Now trust is something that is built or destroyed through attitudes and behaviors that generate perceptions in both directions that are accumulating and possessing images about the person, which usually tends to "label" consciously or unconsciously in our minds.; responsible, unfulfilled, conflicting, bad professional, good expert, honest, etc.
In this the problem is that when we incorporate a "label" of another in our mind it costs a lot to "remove" or modify it. It actually becomes a problem for effective communication and listening when it comes to people with whom we interact at work or are part of our close family or social life.
At work, etiquette can energize or obstruct the boss-subordinate communication relationship in both directions; if the boss has the “label” of a fair, correct, hard-working person, etc. There will be effective group communication, if on the contrary it has the label of dictatorial, unfair, etc. very hardly can there be good communication.
iv. Enemies of listening: pride, self-centeredness
We see pride in the sense of people who have a high self-concept and consider themselves to be possessors of the truth in all or almost everything so that they hear very little, live giving clear judgments and of course think that they have nothing to learn since they know everything.
It is a somewhat extreme description, but the point is that this type of posture is a much more recurring manifestation than one imagines, which has been boosted for more than a decade fueled by the current trend that individual performance has It has to be very competitive, an issue that people translate into a high security attitude in what one says and knows.
It is about demonstrating that you know how to speak more than you hear and also preferably armed with affirmations and less with reflective opinions, since these could perhaps be interpreted as personal “insecurity”.
The consequence of this attitude towards listening in communication is clear; their capacity becomes reduced or minimal since, consciously or unconsciously, the person closes himself to really listen to what the other says because they “know and understand it” beforehand, practicing a certain prudential wait in the conversation to say what they want to say without even trying to understand the other's perspective.
In the boss-subordinate relationship the situation is quite recurrent that that part of the base that everything he says is very clear and correct without stopping for a minute to think about how those who have listened have interpreted. This is what I call the boss's superb talking, which is a very widespread practice, becoming a habit that is incorporated into the way of being of a high number of people at the command level.
In relation to egocentrism, in psychology, egocentrism is the characteristic that defines a person who believes that his own opinions and interests are more important than those of others.
It is a psychological barrier that prevents the person from behaving while taking others into account and its most typical conversational manifestation is the constant “yoismo” that not only does not allow the other to speak but ends up being even tedious and clearly anti-empathically communicationally.
For this reason, their ability to listen and to develop effective communication is very limited or practically nil.
In short, these personal characteristics of conversational pride and self-centeredness (about which it does not delve further since it is an issue in itself and also broad and complex) are manifestations that must be eradicated, as they clearly prevent the development of communication skills and effective listening.
What is recommended?… Enhancing conversational humility for effective listening is obviously a necessary condition, and should be evident from the moment you ask yourself something simple; Can I understand the other's perspective by talking more or listening more?… the answer is obvious, at least it seems so; if I stop talking and listen to myself I can hear what they tell me.
Only that trying to communicate in a more humble way when speaking is not getting to do it in the prevailing work culture, since it is an attitude that is not very in agreement with the personal security behavior that must be displayed as an image towards others to that they see you as "competitive".
In short, for effective listening it is vital to make a personal learning effort aimed at minimizing arrogant attitudes regarding what one knows and says to know and, in counterbalance to that, strengthening conversational behaviors that reflect expressive humility that motivate the other to say what who wants to communicate without being overwhelmed by his interlocutor. It is a personal process that takes time.
v. Handling affirmations and opinions in conversation
The way in which one says what one undoubtedly says is a relevant element for communication effectiveness and in this the verbal handling of what is an affirmation and what is an opinion plays a relevant role, due to the effect it has on the another and in the environment that is generated.
The statements may be true or false, but it is a communication of something that supposedly there is indisputable or hardly questionable proof or evidence or something that is verifiable and / or that we would be willing to give the supporting evidence or source objective of what we are saying.
While opinions represent their own judgment that is issued about something and as such are discrepant.
Regardless of the arguments that can be used to support the opinion expressed, in essence it is about communicating something in a way that is clearly from your own perspective.
The affirmation has the defect that it does not leave space for reflection but rather opens up a space for conversational confrontation and can hit in a different way the emotionality of the people who participate in the dialogue, while the opinion that manifests itself as discrepable allows fluidity of dialogue and it does not collide with the emotionality of the other or others.
As is evident, a communication can be much more productive and effective if the conversational platform that is carried out contains more opinions than affirmations.
saw. The exchange of judgments and feedback
We can start from this by saying that the way the members of an organization exchange judgments is a decisive factor for good communication and, as we know, good communication is key to the quality of individual and group performance.
For the quality of the group and organizational performance, the feedback plays a first order role, understanding by feedback all the responses and exchange of opinions of others to an initial communication of one, capable of being used productively by oneself and by all.
In the communicational relationship of the team, the exchange of judgments is the essential means for feedback to occur. It is through the exchange of opinions that the basis is obtained to analyze how what is being done is being done, what is being done wrong, what needs to be improved, what is being done well, therefore, maintain and promote, how to handle particular difficult situations, observe how the competition is doing to eventually obtain learning, maintain effective follow-up, monitoring and evaluation of operation, etc. etc.
From the effect perspective, it is clear that feedback is essential for individual and collective learning from the successes and mistakes and it is on this learning that it is possible to improve what is done and how it is done, to develop added value (technology, innovation, work system), growth (sales, products), in the end to be more competitive, which is the aspiration of every organization in today's world.
From what has been said so far, it is clear that feedback is a matter that goes hand in hand with the exchange of judgments or opinions.
But exchanging judgments is not an easy matter; Especially when it comes to critical judgments.
The way of exchanging critical judgments between the members of a team is somewhat delicate due to the effect it has on the performance of people in the organization:
It influences the emotionality of the group and their willingness to work o It influences the quality of interpersonal relationships o It influences the trust between team members o It influences the level of mental openness to learning
Exchanging critical judgments is not a simple matter. We generally resist criticism. The first reaction is usually defensive, we do not like to feel questioned, we cannot avoid feeling upset and even offended.
Consciously or unconsciously we try not to feel guilty about something.
We look for ways to explain and justify what we have not done well, regardless of whether we are clear about our error or “blunder”, we develop multiple mechanisms to avoid criticism, to avoid what corresponds to us, we use all kinds of arguments to escape the Criticism regardless of whether or not the reasons that we use make logical sense or that have a real basis. It is part of our inherited culture, of our way of being.
The "thick" problem occurs when defensive attitudes are shared by all team members; each one points his finger outward and reacts defensively when someone points his finger at him…
In that situation, nobody ends up taking care of anything…
With this attitude, not only is the individual learning of team members negatively affected, but the possibility of learning of the organization as a whole is limited, limiting its capacity for reaction, growth improvement, among other negative effects.
And it is a serious obstacle if we consider that the main source for continuous improvement as an organization arises precisely from the interest of taking charge of what does not work, of the insufficiencies that performance shows.
Consequently, if the possibilities of exchanging critical judgments are limited, the ability to learn to improve, to be more competitive, to strengthen the effectiveness of organizational functioning is also limited.
Definitely; a team that does not know how to exchange critical judgments about its performance, will hardly be able to learn from its mistakes and insufficiencies, therefore it will be limited to overcome them, maintaining a functioning that will not be able to advance to the desired extent, nor in efficiency and competitiveness. So it is essential to develop the ability to make and receive critical judgments.
vii. Guidelines for making and receiving critical judgments
How to make critical judgments
- Prepare the environment and your own emotionality: evaluate if the place and moment in which we are going to hold that conversation is the best for both of you. It is necessary to make sure that we are relaxed and with adequate emotionality, since it is a delicate task that can affect the sensitivity of the other.Generate an appropriate context for what will come: explain the purpose of the conversation (for example, improve the work, evaluate results, improve relationships between the team, etc.) highlighting the shared vision, concerns and commitment that both have in this regard. Definitely; express that it is a matter that both will take charge.Generate trust: observing that the judgments to be shared, until then have been private, and expressing them should be understood as a manifestation of trust.Do not label or personalize: do not use references of type "you are" if they are negative questions, since this causes immediate defensive mechanisms, which will lead to resistance and "mental closures" of the other. Do not generalize or exaggerate: exaggeration and generalization of type "as always", "in everything", "I am constantly insisting", limits the ability to listen to the other and activates their defensive mechanisms. Do not forget that it is easier to deliver a critical judgment than to listen to it, although not always Do not impute intentions or motives: every time we impute certain intentions or motives to the other for what they have done or how they have done it, we run a high risk of making mistakes. Since we enter to interpret his actions from our observation and not from his observation.It is better to let the other person talk about their intentions or motives, if they want to, or to consult them. Refer to the other's behavior and with sound judgments: make sure that our judgments are founded before generating the conversation about their actions and / or behavior about the which one we want to talk about. It is very important to base our judgments and refer to specific actions, always being careful not to extrapolate them directly to your person. Talking about how those actions "affect" me or "in my opinion" are not convenient, indicating why: Instead of hold the other responsible for the consequences that their actions have on me, say; "When you do such a thing, it happens to me that…" with what we share in taking charge of the matter. Do not invoke the name of others: Speak only for yourself.Do not seek to lean on others who are not in the conversation and against whom our interlocutor cannot counter - argue. If your judgment is properly founded, it is enough that you state your reason. Since the defensive mechanisms of the other will appear more easily if you feel that there is a concerted action with a third party or by several in criticizing your actions or behavior. The worst thing is to feel "attacked" by the group Inquire and listen to the point of view of the other: Throughout the process of delivering judgments, it is necessary to investigate the point of view of the other and verify if there are some factors that we do not know that could alter our judgment. It should not be ruled out that the actions that we are imputing to the other are not as we have interpreted them or, if they are, they contain some antecedents that we do not know,which can change our approach and, therefore, our judgment in this regard. Individual slogan: Be suspicious, always question the soundness of our observations, therefore always be open to knowing aspects that were not part of our interpretation of the situation Agree on specific changes in the Behavior of the other, since the purpose of the feedback is not to vent, but to change behaviors: it is important that the meeting ends with clear commitments on actions that will be taken to dilute critical judgments and / or address the problem. They can be corrective or learning actions. In the first, the other agrees to do what he did not do or stop doing what he did. In the latter,the commitment is oriented to generate the capacity for missing action or to develop measures to adequately address the problem or lack
How to receive critical judgments
- Prepare the body and emotionality: When we detect that they want to give us critical judgments, it is necessary to prepare the body and emotionality. On a body level, it is convenient to be relaxed. At the emotional level, it is important to be open to listening, without tensions from other situations unrelated to the matter at hand. If emotionally we are not in good condition, it is better to ask the interlocutor to meet on another occasion to listen to their judgments. Do not lose sight that these are judgments and not affirmations: They are the opinions that another has and not the absolute truth, but neither falsehood. It must be recognized that the judgments are discrepable and that we do not necessarily have to agree with them. But also recognize that they result from my behavior, so perhaps they will help me improve my effectiveness,to correct my actions, errors. Evaluate the validity of the judgment: Sometimes we receive critical judgments to which we do not have to assign absolute validity. There will always be people who disagree with my behavior and it is impossible to leave them all satisfied. But it is extremely important to listen to know what you think, why you think, and perhaps demonstrate that these judgments are ill-founded, or that they do not correspond to the facts. Be willing to listen: Receiving judgments is a listening action and this does not only refer at the initial opening but throughout the conversation. Critical judgments have the power to shut down our listening skills and activate our defensive mechanisms. We have to always be vigilant so that this does not happen. If for some reason we are not prepared to listen,it is better to request to postpone the conversation.
Good education will always be welcome. Inquire, find out: If the judgments you give us are not clear or evident, it is good to inquire and perhaps we will discover antecedents that we did not know or would not consider in the same way. Delivering a critical judgment can always be a learning opportunity, and it is convenient to obtain the best background on it in order to take advantage of it properly. Verify what we hear: it is an effective listening tool, it is called “checking listening”. It consists of offering the interlocutor our interpretation of what she is saying. It is not about repeating his words, but saying in our own words what we consider the other is saying to us. With this we can “tune in” to what we are trying to transmit and what we are understanding.It is a verification "rephrase": when we believe we have understood the other, let us repeat what we have heard.
This will allow us to verify if we have understood what the other wanted to say. To legitimize the other's point of view: This is a decisive tool for obtaining feedback. To make it work, first of all we must avoid attributing intentions or motives to the interlocutor. In order not to run the risk of framing what the other says in the observer that we are and not in the observer that he or she is. To avoid this, we must ask ourselves about the concerns or motivations that lead him to say what he tells us. If your concerns / motivations are not clear to us, we should ask you directly. To legitimize the other, it is important to distinguish two different phenomena: "understanding" from "sharing. The legitimation of the other seeks to understand why he says what he says or does what he does.But this does not mean having to share what you are saying or the actions you are taking. Accepting valid points of view: Expressing our points of agreement to the other is very important. Question that is not always easy. This shows that we are listening, that the differences are not irreconcilable and that, in some things, we agree. Furthermore, if the interlocutor does not listen to our receptivity in what he tells us, it is possible that his own defense mechanisms are activated, which compromises the feedback process. Taking time to respond: It is important to distrust our ability to control our defensive mechanisms. Even when we think we have them under control.On many occasions it is better not to respond immediately to the critical judgments that are given to us and to give ourselves time to reflect calmly on them. By giving us time, it is possible that we observe things that at the time we had not detected. That we discover consequences of our actions or behaviors greater than those indicated by our interlocutor. Thank: It is convenient and important to end the conversation by thanking the other for the effort they have taken to share their critical judgments with me and give me the opportunity to meet them and eventually dissolve or try correct them together. It should be kept in mind that he could have remained silent and not given me the possibility that this opens up for me, both as a person and for the team as a whole.The delivery of critical judgments is an action that must be evaluated so that it can be repeated in the future, so that it is incorporated as part of the work system. It allows feedback, learning, growth both individually and as a team.
