This is an excerpt from an article on How Subliminal Advertising Works.  One paragraph states:

The more stressed-out we are by the financial crisis and other problems, the more we unconsciously adhere to familiar, comforting rituals.

Think how this affects your communications behavior.  When you begin experiencing friction with a colleague or a partner, and the friction continues.  You become irritated and frustrated, and the other person probably does too.  it is then that you revert to your communications behavior that you are familiar with.

If your reaction is to withdraw and mentally retreat, that is what you will instinctively do.  If you, without thinking, become defensive and loud, you will do that.  This is surely to intensify the frustration and possibly propel it into chaotic conflict.

It isn’t what you said, it’s what they think they heard

NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference, San Antonio, TX

Winning the respect of chief pilots, directors of maintenance and others in your organization is crucial to your success, and possibly the success of your flight department – but your expertise only gets you so far! Using your personal power and influence, along with adapting your behavior patterns, can make you the “go to” person in your department. This session will cover techniques to recognize and anticipate communication patterns from others; you will practice persuading and negotiating with a structured checklist. You will develop skills to stop defensive attitudes and words, and heighten your awareness of signals that others send you. This session will enhance and develop your natural and learned skills.

How Leaders Inspire, Influence & Achieve Results

It’s a fact of organizational life: to lead well you must communicate well, especially in the fast-paced results-oriented atmosphere of business aviation where time can be of the essence. Identifying your triggers and patterns, and objectively diagnosing your behaviors to resolve issues faster and serve your passengers in the smoothest way, both confirm your value to the organization. This course teaches communication styles to improve all business interactions and ways to build more efficient teams, make better decisions and ensure buy-in from all parties.

Contact NBAA for registration.

I am an adjunct faculty member for Mountain State University in their School of Leadership and Professional Development Program. One of the books we use is Peter M Senge’s “The FIfth Discipline”

In a discussion, different views are presented and defended …. In dialogue, different views are presented as ameans toward discovering a new view.  In a discussion, decisions are made.  In a dialogue, complex issues are explored.  When a team must reach agreement and decisions must be taken, some discussion is needed.

In class, one of the students mentioned that when problems arise in his department, the shot-gun approach is to have a quick discussion focusing on the outcome, the end result.

When this happens with my clients, more often than not, the root cause is not even mentioned.  We are on a hamster wheel, running and running and getting nowhere.  We go for the ‘quick fix’ and are content using band-aids for long-term solutions.

Coming to a quick solution can cause friction among team members.

Those people that need to think problems, and solutions, through get irritated when they are not able to process information in the manner they feel most comfortable with.

People on the other end will make quick decisions, preferring to hear only the highpoints and not too much of the minutia.  They will make their quick decisions based on the most important facts.  They become frustrated when others don’t make the same snap decisions.

It is these times that friction can escalate into conflict.   Once conflict rears its ugly head, it becomes a more serious situation.

It isn’t what you said, it’s what they think they heard.

When we disagree with someone, our initial instinct is to push, push harder, push louder, push push PUSH!!!!  The more resistance we encounter, the more we push, the more we stand firm, the more we believe our viewpoint is the right viewpoint and should be the only viewpoint.

I found this on Innovation Rainmakers

Using reverse psychology on contrary people generates the required response by using their natural tendency to resist.  Also, utilize contrary people to find flaws in a project idea to get a list of problems to solve.

How very true!  If we would switch our thinking and present an idea 180 degrees from what we were saying, from what we believe, the other person may spout out what we have been telling them.

We can get so wrapped up in the adrenaline rush in debating or arguing that we don’t realize what we are saying … we simply know that we disagree with the other person and will state the opposite.  Especially if you are a Type A person, or one that needs to be in control of situations.

So how do you handle the people that enjoy arguing or simply taking the opposite position?  First of all, take a few deep breaths.  That will get oxygen to your brain, allow the heated emotions to dissipate and give you a few moments to actually hear and process what they said.

I challenge you to then ask yourself two questions:  Is this topic worth a heated debate and possibly saying something you may regret?  And what questions can you ask them to justify their position and slow down their thought processes?

It isn’t what you said, it’s what they think they heard.

Write the word communicate

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Did you solve it?  If not, let me show you:

_c_o_m_m_u_n_i_c_a_t_e_

How’d you do?  Remember,

It’s not what I said, it’s what you think you heard

Print the word communicate

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Yes, in the spaces provided above, please print the word communicate.

This is not a trick, you need no special glasses, pen or magnifying glass.

I’ll give you a moment ….. in fact, I’ll give you 24 hours to mull it over.

Before I go, though, I will give you a hint

It’s not what I said, it’s what you think you heard

Is this a surprise to anyone that has worked in an office environment?

New Scientist magazine set out to see if the laws of the jungle can be applied to the office. After interviewing behavioral researchers and biologists, it concluded that “the office and the jungle are surprisingly similar,” because “both are ruled by stringent hierarchies, they are grounded in the need for co-operation and complicated by the drive to compete.” Thankfully, they avoided using the term “monkey business.”

It’s not what they said, it’s what you think you heard

I saw this on the TNT television series “Raising the Bar” — it’s an interesting statement:

When a witness tells the jury that he’s absolutely sure, then the jurors often conclude that he’s absolutely right.  Certainty only proves certainty, not accuracy.

Their certainty only proves they are sure of what they remember, not necessarily what accurately happened.

Do you blindly accept someone’s certainty to the accuracy of the situation? Do you think through their logic?  Do you rephrase and paraphrase to insure your own clarity? Asking questions in a non-defensive way can shed light on someone’s thinking process.

What do you accept as correct, just because someone expresses it with confidence and an air of authority?

Mutual bad behaviors .. what else?

I was watching a recent episode of “Raising the Bar” .. this one was called “O! Say Can You Pee” about the behavior US Code states that one should stand with the hand over their heart when the US National Anthem is being played.

The judge was trying some out-of-the-box thinking to ease the court’s load.  What was the alternative?  An apology from the defense side to the prosecution side, and from the prosecution side to the defense side.

When someone wrongs us, or threatens us — even a perceived threat — we react.  In our reactions, we don’t think through our words, actions or behaviors.  Nor do we think through the consequences of these actions.  This is where we get ourselves into trouble.  Our emotional brain takes over and throws us into a ‘fight or flight’ situation.  When our middle brain, our emotional brain, perceives a threat, it reacts.  Pure and simple.

When you are unconscious of your motives, you react.

When you are conscious of your emotions, you respond.

By the way, by apologizing to each other, and adding their reasoning – making their thinking visible – they saw the world from the other person’s side and had a newfound appreciation for war, drinking, the United States Amendments and the National Anthem.