Dysfunctional communication in your team can take many forms:
- Trench warfare
- Silence
- Withdrawal
- Intrigue
- Complaints
- Demotivation
- Terminations
- …
With all these forms, nothing new comes out of the communication: no new ideas, no new solutions, no greater understanding and trust, no positive change. Instead, this type of communication eats up time and energy and destabilizes your team.
Managers can and should now intervene in situations of dysfunctional communication. This is often done by issuing instructions for personnel changes. This does not result in a lasting change in communication patterns.
Instead, we propose an examination of the basics of good communication.
Our training concept
Dialogue or “The Art of Thinking Together” – this is the title of a fantastic work by William Isaacs about successful, strong, intensive, creative communication. And it is also the title of our training course on communication.
Isaacs distinguishes between different qualities of communication. In particular, he differentiates between the degree of reflection and the degree of holistic view:
- The “shared monologue” (holistic view, little reflection)
- The “controlled discussion” (focus on individual aspects, little reflection)
- The “reflective dialog” (focus on individual aspects, lots of reflection)
- The “creative dialog” (holistic view, lots of reflection)
In practice, all of these types of communication have their place depending on the situation. Better communication comes about when you learn to confidently choose how you want to communicate, your type of communication fits the situation and you master the “higher” forms of communication.
Isaacs and we invite you to learn better communication in four aspects:
- Aspect 1: Listening together
- Aspect 2: Valuing perspectives
- Aspect 3: Stopping together
- Aspect 4: Speaking out courageously
Exercises in our training show you the individual and group dynamic processes that can lead to dysfunctional communication and provide you with concrete tools to change your processes and thus enable good communication.
Below we provide a brief insight into concepts and exercises from this communication training.
Practices for “Listen better”
In order to learn to listen even better, we carry out exercises with you on the following practices, for example:
- Be aware of your own thoughts and feelings: be aware of how much of your perception actually comes from outside, from others, and how much and what of your perception results from your own imprinting, from your memories.
Isaacs beautifully describes how we listen with a “web of memories and imprints”. Find “blind spots” in your listening! Physical or emotional reactions within you are a very reliable indicator of such a network, of “blind spots”. - Return to the facts: As soon as you observe a filter, a “net” or “blind spots”, or a jumping to step 2, 3 or 4 in the ladder of reasoning, consciously go back to the facts. Identify evaluations and judgments within yourself as such, mentally “step aside” and stick to the facts. You will find that you will then often need clarification. You will have to ask questions to complete the facts.
- Listen without resistance: Try to identify inner, emotional or rational resistance while listening, let it remain within you and consciously try to let go. Step aside mentally and emotionally once again. Make space for other feelings, thoughts and values.
- Recognize the “ladder of inference”: The ladder of inference (according to Chris Argyris) summarizes the aforementioned points and is a tool that helps us to understand where and how we “distort” perception in communication.
When listening, our brain goes through the following steps:- Step 1: Perceive (What do I hear? Do I observe the other person and myself? Do I feel in the other person and in myself?)
- Step 2: Explain (Why is the other person saying what I have perceived? How do I explain the message? The wish?)
- Step 3: Evaluate (How does what I hear match my values? To my needs and feelings? What is good? What is bad?)
- Step 4: React (How do my thoughts, feelings, body and I react? How do I act?)
- When we observe ourselves, we realize that our perception often “stumbles” along these steps in a dysfunctional way:
- Our thoughts often circle so intensely that we already fail at step 1. We hear “with an axe to grind”, we perceive things in a filtered way.
- Or we have ready-made explanations: “Now he’s coming up with this again … he just wants this and that”.
- Or we immediately jump to an evaluation … with the first three words we think … “that’s crap, my values are different”.
- Or our brain shifts steps 1 to 3 into the subconscious and we react immediately (step 4), often by “fight, flight or freeze”.
- In our training, we carry out exercises to make us aware of the ladder of inference and to break through dysfunctionalities.
- Become calm: This practice complements the above points. Become calm within yourself, allow space, take a step back. This is the basis for not immediately breaking through the ladder of conclusions, not immediately explaining and evaluating.
We invite you to try out and apply these practices again and again in training and then in daily life. We invite you to find an individual way to become still, to make space for others, for new perspectives, different explanations and values.
Practices for “Valuing perspectives”
The “Appreciating perspectives” aspect is about discovering and allowing wealth from different perspectives. The following practices are helpful:
- The center of the wheel: Emotionally charged conversations are often highly dynamic. Allow this dynamic and imagine that you are in the center of a wheel, in the hub, and observe the high dynamic from there. The hub is still, the wheel is turning. Look at the spokes (perspectives) of the wheel. Find an anchor (image, feeling, sentence) for yourself to get back to the hub in stressful communication situations. If you sit on the outer edge of the spinning wheel, you will only get dizzy.
- Center yourself: This is about strengthening stability and power in the hub. We use the powerful effects that the body and subconscious have on each other. Some of these exercises come from aikido or somatic coaching. Try the following with a partner, for example:
- Stand opposite each other and at first one tries to push the other aside.
- Then try the same thing, but work against it with force.
- Finally, stand, close your eyes, find a calm breathing and find the feeling of a center, a source of energy within you. Let yourself be pushed, don’t work against it with force, just stay in the center.
- Discuss your observations.
- Listen as if you were talking: This and the next practice is about changing your perspective even in conscious listening. Imagine that you think and feel like the other person. Think: “What I hear and perceive is also in me”. Regardless of whether this is the case or not. What arises? What ideas and thoughts arise in you? Do I have dominant views within me that cloud my perception?
- Listen as if everything is strange: Conversely, even if you resonate with what you hear and perceive, imagine that everything is different, strange. What then arises? What ideas, thoughts and new perspectives will come to you? What other views, perhaps from third parties, come into view?
- In groups – support other points of view: Allow different views in groups, encourage debate, even in situations with strong feelings (anger, fear). Unspoken issues will always come to the surface and “sabotage” you later. Have courage!
- In groups: Learn to endure tension: Stay centered. Tension arises in a fast-moving wheel, a highly dynamic form of communication. Learn to endure them. Observe yourself: do you tend to “fight, flight or freeze”?
We practise these practices with you and invite you to try them out again and again in your daily life. Observe how you can center yourself better and better and perceive more and new perspectives from the hub.
Practices for “Stopping together”
The previous practices were about listening and appreciation. We perceive intensively, interrupt dysfunctional processes around the ladder of reasoning and see and respect different perspectives. But is there a “beyond”? In order to understand deeper issues, patterns and connections, we need to practice “stopping” in dialog.
Helpful practices for this:
- Suspends assumed certainty: Reflect individually or in a group: What are you (are you) certain about? Why are you (are you) so ‘damn’ sure? What is the benefit of this? What would happen if you let go? What could happen? What are your fears?
- Look for questions, not solutions: Think: Which questions are still important? The difficult, deep, complex questions are particularly interesting. Take time to “dig for questions” without answering them straight away.
- Examines the “in-between”: Identifies the issues on which the group communicates in a polarized way. What are the extremes? What is ‘in between’? Perhaps you will find perspectives, options, solutions that are fundamentally new, better, good. And not just a compromise.
- Allow thought experiments: A practice that helps in situations in which you already have an “image” of the role of a conversation partner. Consciously imagine this conversation partner in an opposite role. For example, imagine the ‘eternal naysayer’ as a ‘constructive helper’ and enter the conversation with this mindset.
- Externalize the thinking: If, for example, you have a conflict issue between A and B in a group, don’t let A and B deal with it, but find two other volunteers C and D who are not so emotionally or substantively involved. C and D are briefed by A and B respectively and then act out the dialog between A and B. At the end, C and D are first asked how they feel. Then A and B are allowed to express their thoughts. Laughter and smiles are allowed for everyone except C and D.
- Supplementary questions: Ask yourselves in the group – what have you overlooked? And: How does the problem work?
We practise these practices with you in training and invite you to apply these practices in your daily life. Find your individual way to stop, go deeper, ask more questions and get out of your safe places. “Play” with the practices individually and in the group.
Practices for “Speaking out courageously”
After all, after all the previous steps, dialog is also about expressing yourself, confidently finding your own position and communicating it. During the training, we invite you to reflect on the following questions and topics:
- Ask yourself: “What is your music – and who should play it?”: What are your themes? Your self? Your messages? Your music? Do you “only” want to repeat the thoughts and perspectives of others or find your own “thing”? And do you want to play your music or have it played?
- Overcome self-censorship: Playing your own music is sometimes scary. Observe yourself: where do you censor yourself? Why? Try playing new music, opening new doors, sending new messages. You will realize: It’s not to your detriment.
- Speak from your center: You will find the courage to play your music within yourself. The somatic exercises described above under “Centering” help you to find courage – and to play music well.
- Jump into the void: Do you feel empty inside during conversations? Don’t know how to react? No idea? No answer? Allow pauses, center yourself and allow yourself to improvise. Reflect what you feel, let your thoughts and questions flow from a strong centering.
- Let music emerge in the team: Exercise for a group – allow one second of silence after each speech. Feel what emerges from the speech. What music is played together in the team.
We accompany you in the training to find your music and your “I”, to overcome self-censorship and to make music as a team!
And now?
We are happy to support you with an initial discussion about your communication, by adapting the training to your needs and, of course, in the preparation, implementation and follow-up of the training.