An interesting episode triggered some thoughts: many times, the stories we tell ourselves, about a person, or about whole set of circumstances, prevent us from behaving in ways that are practical and useful.
I was faced with a statement, a few days ago: “There are people that just tend to be conflictual. It is their personality”.
Let’s say that I am the one leading a team (or an organization) and I am dealing with the conflictual person.
I state that this person is conflictual by default.
How is this statement useful to me and to my work? How is it going to help me help him/her become less conflictual?
It does not help.
It is true that our education, experience, family, growth, maturity, are circumstances that do influence our tendency to be more or less conflictual.
Here, though, I am considering whether the statement helps us and others.
Truth be told, when we tell ourselves this story about a person, we are dangerously aiming to become totally powerless and helpless, as to how to improve anything.
We self-justify our lack of any ability to help things improve, making ourselves only the more unable to improve anything at all.
So, our relationship with the conflictual person will likely deteriorate and we will likely increase his/her tendency to be conflictual, as the very result of our judgment which will influence most of our interactions with him/her.
We will blame him/her in ways that do not open any window of opportunity for any improvement.
So … if we want to act effectively what do we do?
We listen.
We become curious, extremely curious as to what the person thinks, and feels.
We become very interested in understanding the ideas of this person.
Beware that I am saying that we do listen, which is different than we act as if we were … curious, interested etc. … very different.
We eventually will understand.
A practical exercise consists of listening, perfectly silent, to the person, even if he/she gets emotional and angry; when he/she finishes we can ask: “Tell me more, I would like to make sure that I am understanding … “.
This way dialogue starts.
When the person starts feeling heard, listened to, and most importantly understood, then he will become less conflictual.
At some point he will start listening to us and others. And this will happen sooner than you might expect.
In a few words: don’t live in a ”I blame you because of the way you are“ mindset, which makes you helpless and hopeless: this is giving up.
Instead act with awareness that much of the possibilities rest in your style and actions.
What do you say?
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