Strategies for Communicating

This week, I learned about communication and how to do it effectively. I also learned about some inherent difficulties in communicating.

I learned about three steps to communicating with someone. First, we must encode our thoughts and feelings on whatever we are talking about. This means that we must take what is in our head and put it into words. Then we need to choose a medium. This could be social media, talking in person, or some other way. Then the person receiving the message must decode what we sent so that they understand our message. Sometimes, we decode incorrectly, and misunderstand someone who is talking to us. We decode messages by paying attention to three main things: words (14%), tone (35%), and nonverbal cues/body language (51%). Though the numbers vary slightly depending on the source that is looked at, it is obvious that we pay much more attention to tone and body language than we do just to the words that are spoken. This is why miscommunication is so easy on social media - it takes out over 80% of what we use to understand someone. I'm sure we've all experienced times when a person's tone doesn't match the words they are saying. When the message sent between words and tone are at odds, we will most often believe the message sent by the tone.

This week, I also learned about the 5 Secrets of Effective Communication, written by Dr. David Burns. Following these guidelines is unnatural and difficult, but once learned, communication is greatly improved. These guidelines are especially helpful in disagreements. The 1st step is called the disarming technique. Even if you disagree with the argument of the other person, in this step, you find a kernel of truth in what they are saying. You can say, "You are right when you say . . . ". The 2nd step is to show empathy. You relate to either the thoughts or the feelings that the other person is having. You could do this by saying, "I understand that you feel like . . . ". The 3rd step is to inquire. This is when you gently ask questions to better understand where the other person is coming from. "Am I understanding correctly that . . . ?". 4th, use "I feel" statements. I will explain this in the next paragraph. In this step, it's important to be assertive, which is not the same as being aggressive. A metaphor that I heard was that being aggressive is deciding to step on the other person's toes; being assertive is asking them not to step on your toes. David Burns calls the 5th step stroking, like when you are stroking a cat. This is when you show that you respect the other person. Ideally, find something positive to say about the other person. These 5 steps don't necessarily need to happen in this order, but they are all important.

When making "I feel" statements, you need to be conscious of your tone. The "I feel" statement for the steps above can be a simple "I feel this way because of this." When requesting something, there are a couple more steps. It can look like this: "When ______" (specific event), "I feel/felt _______" (emotion), "because ______" (thoughts). "I would like _______" (request). Here is an example: "When you don't take out the trash, I feel upset because it is your assigned chore and I feel like I have to do your chores as well as mine. I would like you to try to remember more often to take out the trash on Tuesdays before the garbage truck comes. Perhaps setting an alarm on your phone would help remind you." This brings me to something important about being defensive.

In an argument, it is really hard to use the 5 steps above, and when we are requesting, we might not do it in the most kind way, because we are defensive and/or angry. When someone accuses us of something, we tend to get defensive and turn it back on them. This gets us nowhere but hurt. A defense in an argument and an attack look and sound very similar. To have an effective argument/discussion, we need to drop our defenses to diffuse the situation. This is very difficult to do. Step 1 in the secrets of effective communication helps with this. Once we are able to see some truth in where the other person is coming from, we can drop our defenses. It is called the disarming technique for a reason. It disarms our defenses, and I think it helps the other person step back, realize they are being heard, and become less defensive themselves.

I really loved learning about these things this week, and I wish you luck in trying these strategies.