5 Steps To Reduce Frustration In Work Conversations
How about having zero conflicts and communicate what bothers us in a compassionate way?
I had once a manager and every conversation together seemed very hard to me.
It was like coming from different plants and every single simple topic to align was taking effort, energy, and time instead of taking one minute like in interactions with other persons.
I thought for a long time he had something against me.
But it was not like this.
I did not know how to have a conversation with him.
After a lot of trainings, learning about the neuroscience behind communication and how each person wants to meet their psychological needs. I finally can say I can have a good relationship with any person.
It takes more energy yes with persons who do not share the same values as me for example, but I am able now to communicate with anyone.
This is why I created a short five-step guide for you to use as well in your work conversations, workshops that you facilitate, or coaching sessions.
How is your brain working?
You create your own reality, your own mental representation of the outside world. You do this based on your experiences, values, emotions, and state of mind. This means the same event happening for two persons can have different reactions and behaviors for both of them or even for the same person in different moments. We are all unique and create our unique reality. You can discover the reality that the person you interact with is creating for themselves by asking open questions and being curious about their perspective.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. This is why the “search inside yourself” in the below guide will help you find that space in between.
If the answer to the question “Am I safe now?” is “No”, then you are not feeling safe in that environment. You will not express your opinion or feelings and most probably your capacity to solve problems and be creative will decrease a lot. Your brain wants to be safe before anything else. So is the brain of the person you have a conversation with.
What are the 5 steps to reduce frustration in work conversations?
1. Check your state of mind
Search inside yourself:
✔️ Stop - instead of saying something that you might regret later
✔️ Breath - deep breath to re-empower the prefrontal cortex
✔️ Notice your feeling, label the emotion
✔️ Reflect on the best response
✔️ Respond with conscious choice, being aware of the consequences of your response
2. Check the state of mind of the person you have a conversation with
✔️ Is your conversation partner stressed / tired/anxious?
✔️ Does it make sense to start/continue a conversation now?
✔️ Which kind of stress reaction has your conversation partner?
3. What is their reality?
Seek, and be curious by asking open questions to find out the conversation partner's what is their perspective on that topic.
4. Interact in a constructive way
Choose well which words you use and what you communicate.
How could you show appreciation for the other person?
5. Refect and learn
✔️ Take time to listen to your body, feelings and thoughts
✔️ Take time to breathe (4 inhale, 6 exhale helps a lot)
✔️ What works well, what can you learn from your conversation experiences?
Visual to download - created for you!
I have created for you a PDF to download with these steps in case you want to have it by hand and also share it with your colleagues/friends.
Bottom lines:
We are all unique and create our unique reality. You can discover the reality that the person you interact with is creating for themselves by asking open questions and being curious about their perspective.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
How do you want to have your work conversations? Would not be nice to have zero conflicts and be able to express what compassionately bothers us?
This is a lot to consider between a comment and my answer. I don´t go through the protocol but can tick off a few steps with my mindset:
* Curiosity trumps jumping to conclusions.
* Slower trumps fast reaction.
* Trust my gut. Getting better at paying attention to my intuition.
I can definitely improve my conversations.
It is helpful to see the process steps written down in such a structured way. Thanks!