Have you ever said something you immediately regret? Do you find it’s not often what you said, or that you didn’t want to say it, it was just the way it came out?
When our children were young we had boarders live with us, one boarder in particular use to work night shifts and spent the morning sleeping in. Unfortunately for her, we had children, they were young, and young children don’t know how to sleep in. To make matters worse, her bedroom was adjacent to the lounge…not the best set up.
As parents, we were really self-conscious of this. We would get up with the kids and keep them as hushed as possible for as long as possible, eventually just giving up. This would include constant reminders to the kids, ‘hey guys quiet down…please…’ Which is the parental equivalent of bucketing water out of the Titanic.
On one occasion, I decided that as a parent I should be able to simply put my foot down, so I looked at the children and exasperated I told them to ‘shut up’. Immediate regret. I mean, it worked…but later that day when I asked one of our children to help me tidy up, he looked at me with defiance in his eyes, convinced he also should be able to put his foot down, and told he me to… ‘shut up’. Needless to say the moment provided some personal learning opportunities…and some parental discipline.
I often think of communication like a network of roads. When you're in a city you know getting from A to B is not so much about whether you can get there, but how many different ways you can get there. When speed of the essence I'm that guy who will use as many different backstreets and alleyways as possible to get there as quickly as possible. The same is true with communication, whether you’re making a point, correcting behaviour, delivering a presentation, or just explaining an idea, the outcome might be clear but there are lots of ways of getting there.
Unfortunately, some people are more committed to maintaining their style of communication than they are to being effective in their communication. I have often heard people say, they have to listen to me, I can say it how I want, or it’s simply too slow to explain it all. But if the lazy approach of doing the same thing every time isn’t working in the long term, perhaps we could try taking a different approach?
To continue the story, yes my children listened to me, they were quiet, until the same thing happened next week. So, instead of yelling at kids to shut up, I got down on one knee, gathered them in a family huddle and explained to them, “Hey guys, in this family we love others, and one way we can do that is by being quiet so that other people can sleep in after they’ve worked a late night. Do we think we can keep the noise down?”.
Now, admittedly, it took me a whole 20 seconds to communicate, but I found that the more I said it, the less I had to say it. My children were learning not just what to do, but they were learning the motivating factor behind wanting to do it at the same time. They were learning the value behind being quiet. Now we weren't just going down Shut-up Street, we were going past value lane.
It's important to note that when we communicate we do more than just express and receive messages. I can tell my kids to 'shut up' time and time again, but with nothing more, the chances are they'll continue to be loud and I'll be frustrated time and time again. Unless I start to explain to them when they need to be quiet and why they'll always rely on my reminder, and I'll continue to feel like they aren't listening. The truth is, they are listening, the problem is I'm expecting them to hear something I'm not communicating. I'm expecting them to hear our values behind when it's time to be quiet.
I like this quote, “There are only two ways to influence human behaviour: you can manipulate it, or you can inspire it” (Start With Why, Simon Sinek). In essence, you can take people down Shut Up Street and demand behaviour change. But you'll have to do it every time, and you'll be feel like you're not being listened to. Or, you can take people down Value Lane, it won't be immediate, but eventually you'll see the change you're hoping for without having to communicate it in the first place.
In an effort to be heard, in a world that's always yelling, simply joining the cacophony only produces temporary results. To be really heard, you have to communicate more than simple messages, you have to be aware of the values you're communicating as well.
We need to become more creative in the way we communicate, and the roads we take. But as we all know, at the end of the day there is still always the possibility that there's a gap between what you thought you had communicated and how someone responds. I call that the Expectation Gap, and my next thought will dive into how to respond to that a little more.