How to Overcome the #1 Barrier to Good Communications!

How do you handle these situations?

• Someone disagrees with you
• Someone challenges your opinion
• Someone offers resistance to your ideas
• Someone gives you negative feedback
• Someone tells you that you are wrong

Based on my experience, I have found that the most damaging barrier in these situations (and in communications generally) is defensiveness.

Personal defensiveness occurs when you feel emotionally threatened by what the other person has said to you. As a result, you may suffer some ego damage and feel that your self-esteem is threatened.

In this state of mind, it is easy for you to react in a defensive manner. Defensive behavior has these characteristics:

1. It boomerangs – it gets you the opposite of what you want
2. It is exaggerated – behavior often becomes extreme
3. It is repeated – once in a defensive cycle it is difficult to get out
4. It is aimed at feelings – no matter how we cut it, our feelings have been hurt!

Two typical defensive responses are FIGHT OR FLIGHT.

When feeling defensive in a fight response you may verbally attack back, you may belittle someone, you may make snide remarks, or you may become sarcastic!

When feeling defensive in a flight response you may suddenly become quiet, you may ignore someone, you may become uncommunicative, you may act apathetic toward someone, or you just may sulk!

These behaviors are the barriers to good communication. They do not build rapport, trust, or receptivity with the other person.

Ways To Overcome Defensiveness

The general strategy is to practice mental rehearsal and physical rehearsal.

The next time you are going into a potentially difficult meeting or personal discussion with someone, mentally rehearse the most difficult statements that they could make to you. Then mentally rehearse professional reactions (as described below) to each statement.

You could take this one step further, by physically practicing. Have someone be the communicator who is saying difficult things to you and you physically respond in a professional manner. I see this technique often used in corporate "market reviews", where a department head has to give a report on the results of his or her operation for a recent period of time. This is accompanied by some very direct questions by senior leaders. These questions could easily get a manager defensive, so the manager will practice non-defensive responses with his or her staff.

In psychology, this is called "systematic desensitization". You desensitize yourself to real situations by practicing them first.

What are some professional, non-defensive reactions to difficult statements?

1. Attending behaviors – when faced with a difficult statement, establish good eye contact with the other person and use soft, easy head nods to show that you are listening to them.
   
2. Clarifying statements – Clarify what they said to you to be sure that you understand their point of view. Begin with words like, "Sounds like you feel...", "seems that you think that...", or "it appears that you are concerned about..."
   
3. Rapport Questions – These are non-threatening questions that help you to get some genuine information from the other person. Examples are "how" and "what" questions.
   
4. Tentative Language – This is where you state your point of view without becoming overbearing or dogmatic. Examples are "My thinking is...", "My thoughts on this issue are...", "I believe that...", and "Based on my experience, I have found that..."
   

A big time hint!!! Avoid using the word "but" or any sophisticated version of "but" when establishing your different point of view – examples of sophisticated versions of "but" are "however", "though", and "on the other hand".

The idea here is that the word "but" discounts and contradicts the other person. Even if you say "I can appreciate that, but..." it doesn’t help. The other person tends to hear the "but" and feels discounted and contradicted.

Return to Newsletter Archives

Return to Frank's home page