This is the tenth and final in this short series of Blogs on how to live a life worth living and be happy.
In previous Blogs I’ve suggested that happiness comes when we meet personal expectations, when we have purpose and passion and live a life worth living. Stuff happens and sometimes we don't meet these expectations. This can be caused by internal or external factors that impact upon our emotions. The Happiness Spectrum is a way to illustrate the changing nature of happiness, we can to a degree manage this process of change in a positive way.
The previous Blogs have suggested some ways to help manage this process of change, to help quantify expectations through setting objectives and making them realistic. When we do something and it works we feel good. I’ve also suggested that strength based values are essential as we relate to other people. Personally my relationship with our environment is also essential to my happiness, I suspect it is also the case for others.
I’ve also suggested that most people gain a lot of happiness when they share values, expectations, objectives with others. When we have shared understanding, work together on a project or campaign or share experiences, when we collaborate with others. In this final Blog I’ll talk about the 3 C’s
It’s not that you can’t achieve your expectations on your own, but we are social animals and organise ourselves in groups – family, tribe, project team, country, club, committee, party, class etc.
We connect in many ways to become part of these groups, so that we can collaborate to meet shared expectations, but how good are we at communicating with each other?
In many work settings I’ve had to review CV’s and often there’s a phrase 'I’m a good communicator'. Sometimes meaning ‘I’m a good talker’, or ‘a good presenter’. Communication is a 2-way process. Collaborative communication requires active listening. Active listening is about taking responsibility to understand the content and feeling of what is being said by others. Active listening is also about enabling the conversation in ways that allow the other person to fully develop and express their content and feelings. It’s a skill that some interviewers have and requires you to listen for at least 50% of the time, minimising what you say about yourself or your feelings.
There are 4 components to active listening:
· Attending
· Reflecting back content
· Summarising
· Reflecting back emotions
When you are attending your full attention is focused on the other person speaking, both what they are saying and feeling. Listening often goes like this:
I’ve often heard conversations where the listening person focuses on the ‘thinking of a response’ stage, what they are going to say, usually about themselves or what they have done, failing to listen to the other person and failing to help build their content. It can sound like verbal table tennis:
Ping “I did this”
Pong “I did that”
Ping “I went here”
Pong “I went there”. Parallel monologues. When you’re thinking of a response make sure it’s about what the other person is saying and try not to talk about yourself.
Non-verbal communication is also an important aspect of attending both in understanding content and emotions, but also in achieving rapport. 7% weight is carried by the actual words spoken, 38% is represented by the tone of speech and an amazing 55% of communication is represented by non-verbal body language!
Reflecting back content tests understanding and demonstrates listening. Don’t parrot the talker but question in a way that builds the conversation whilst checking it. Don’t do it too much otherwise you can have great clarity but little content.
Summarising is helpful in clarifying what has been covered. If it’s a conversation about a collaboration is also helpful in assessing progress, to refocus on the purpose of the collaboration if necessary (we’re very good at digressing), it also helps minimise misunderstandings.
Receiving feelings as well as words is part of active listening. It’s important therefore to reflect back emotions. Emotions are always present when people get together. If you are collaborating on something it’s important to understand how the other person is feeling. If they have strong emotions about something, then it’s important to validate these emotions, even if you do not agree with them. Equally it’s important to gauge if there is a gap between their words and their emotions. Do you share the same values and passions or is it empty rhetoric? Important if you are working together on something. This is sometimes called the Arc of Distortion.
A good communicator is an active listener, someone who is able to encourage, to facilitate a conversation that builds the content from the other person that develops a shared understanding of that content but also of their values and emotions. It’s someone who can limit the time they speak about themselves. (It’s not all about me.) It can be amazing how little you know about even the best of friends. Try some of the active listening skills above on a friend and see what you can find out - in the nicest and happiest of ways of course. Try it.
A life worth living usually involves collaborating with others. Doing stuff with others. Successful collaboration, with shared purpose and passion can be some of the happiest of times.
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