DEEPLY UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE WHILE COMMUNICATING

 REACH A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING

 
Sometimes the most important and useful aspects of communication are hidden-not just from the listener, but also from the speaker. When you identify the elements driving the difficult person, you reach a deeper understanding of that person's needs and intent.

Identifying the intent is an important first step to understanding your difficult person. You can apply the blending strategy to the four intents to increase cooperation and decrease misunderstanding. For example:

 If you're dealing with someone whose top priority appears to be to get it done, your communications with him or her should be brief and to the point. If you're dealing with someone whose top priority appears to be to get it right, you should pay great attention to the details in your communications. If you're dealing with someone whose top priority appears to be to get along with you, use considerate communications to demonstrate your interest in him or her. If you're dealing with someone whose top priority appears to be to get appreciated, recognize his or her contributions with words of enthusiastic appreciation.

In other words, it's crucial to ask yourself which intent lies behind a person's behavior or communication. Here's a surprise: even if you're not totally sure what the key intent is, make the likely choice and act appropriately. Because these intents are within you, in most cases your intuition will be right and you'll get a good response and increase rapport. And if it is not, then simply try something different.

Another way to reach a deeper understanding of your problem person is to identify the criteria that are important to them. Criteria are the filters on our points of view-the standards by which we measure ideas and experiences to determine if they're good or bad. Criteria become especially important when differing ideas or points of view are being dis- cussed. Any time you identify criteria in a discussion, you generate more flexibility and cooperation.

Whenever a discussion starts to degenerate into conflict, try to ascertain the reasons why people are for or against something. Then look for an idea or solution to the problem that blends those criteria together. That's another way to turn conflict into cooperation.

"This ... is about ... the kind of understanding that will help you communicate effectively, pre- vent future conflict, and resolve current conflict before it gets out of hand the kind of under- standing that results when you ... closely exam- ine the difficult behavior until you can see the motive behind it."


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