Post - Lesson Collective

By Robert Bolton

As an educator, manager and leader, I learned early on that one of the most important skills needed to be successful in these roles was the ability to deal with people. Through mentorship, self-study, and my own successes and failures, I continue to learn and develop those skills. It will always be a never-ending pursuit for me. This book and others have been influential in my development.

A few of my favorite excerpts…

The law of change says, “Things do not stay the same. If they don’t get better, they get worse.” If relationships do not get stronger; they will get weaker; if they do not become closer, they will become more distant; if they do not become more productive, they will become less productive.

The good listener communicates attentiveness through the relaxed alertness of his body during the conversation. What is sought is a balance between the relaxedness that communicates “I feel at home with you and accept you” and the alertness or productive tension that demonstrates “I sense the importance of what you are telling me and am very intent on understanding you.” The blending of both of these body messages creates an effective listening presence.

…to stay out of the other’s way so the listener can discover how the speaker views his situation. Unfortunately, the average “listener” interrupts and diverts the speaker by asking many questions or making many statements. Researchers tell us that it is not at all uncommon for “listeners” to lead and direct a conversation through the frequent use of questions. It is also common for the “listener” to talk so much that he monopolizes the conversation!

Door openers typically have four elements: 1) A description of the other person’s body language—“Your face is beaming today…You look like you are not feeling up to par.” 2) An invitation to talk or to continue talking—“Care to talk about it?...Please go on…I’m interested in what you are saying.” 3) Silence—giving the other person time to decide whether to talk and/or what he wants to say. 4) Attending—eye contact and a posture of involvement.

Minimal encourages are brief indicators to other persons that you are with them. The word minimal refers to the amount the listener says, which is very little, and to the amount of direction given to the conversation.

During the pauses in an interaction, a good listener does the following: Attends to the other. His body posture demonstrates that his really there for the other person. Observes the other. He sees that the speaker’s eyes, facial expressions, posture, and gestures are all communicating. When you are not distracted by the other’s words, you may “hear” his body language more clearly. Thinks about what the other is communicating. He ponders what the other has said. He wonders what the speaker is feeling. He considers a variety of responses he might make. Then he selects the one that he thinks will be most facilitative.

Listening is a combination of hearing what another person says and involvement with the person who is talking. Its importance can be gauged by the fact that we spend more time listening than anything else we do in our waking hours and because our ability to listen directly influences our friendships, our family relationships, and our effectiveness at work.

In a reflective response, the listener restates the feeling and/or content of what the speaker has communicated and does so in a way that demonstrates understanding and acceptance.

First, a good paraphrase is concise…Secondly, an effective paraphrase reflects only the essentials of the speaker’s message…Another characteristic of a paraphrase is that it focuses on the content of the speaker’s message. It deals with the facts or ideas rather than the emotions the sender is expressing…Finally, an effective paraphrase is stated in the listener’s own words.

If a speaker is talking about a problem, the reflection of feelings helps her understand her own emotions and thereby move toward a solution of the problem.

As they try to reflect feelings, most participants in our courses want to know how they can become more aware of the speaker’s feelings. We teach them to concentrate on four things: 1) Focus on the feeling words. 2) Note the general content of the message. 3) Observe the body language. 4) Ask yourself, “If I were having that experience, what would I be feeling?”

One of the basic theories underlying reflective listening is that when the other person has a problem, he is usually the best person to solve that problem. The primary purpose of active listening is to facilitate his solution of his own problem.

Ultimately, I cannot be responsible for another person. I can only participate in his life, no matter what that participation may come to mean to him. But, in the end, he discovers his own meanings, his own resources, his own nature, his own being.

As George Bernard Shaw says, the true joy of life is “being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one;…the being of a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod or ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Intimacy has been defined as “the ability to express my deepest aspirations, hopes, fears, anxieties, and guilts to another significant person repeatedly.”

The three-part assertion message meets the above criteria. It begins with a description of the offending behavior and includes a description of the consequences on your life and how you feel about those consequences…”When you [state the behavior nonjudgmentally], I feel [disclose your feelings] because [clarify the effect on your life].”

…limit yourself to behavioral descriptions. Do not draw inferences about the other person’s motives, attitudes, character, and so on. When people try to describe another’s behavior they frequently state what they think the other intended rather than describe what he actually did.

Assertion theory tells us that an individual’s feelings are part of his personal space. We have no right to try to control someone else’s feelings (since that is meddling in their space), but we can try to alter behaviors that intrude on our space.

Asserting for behavior change when one really wants reassurance of being loved and respected is always fruitless. Displaced assertions keep a relationship in such frequent disharmony and offer such little possibility for improvement that the whole relationship often goes sour. These pseudo assertions that do not deal with real issues rarely if ever help and often hinder a friendship, marriage, or work relationship.

Persistence is one of the keys to effective assertion. One of the main reasons why people do not get their needs met when they assert is because they give up after the first defensive response of the other person. Typically it takes three to ten repetitions of the assertion message (interspersed by silence for the other’s solution or defense and the asserter’s reflective listening responses) to change the other’s behavior.

If someone actually wanted you in their life…they would make a continuous effort by showing it.

Keep people in your life that truly love you, motivate you, encourage you, inspire you, enhance you and make you happy.

You don’t need anyone in your life who doesn’t want to be there.

Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, make a different choice.

When you can tell the story and it doesn’t bring up any pain, you know it is healed.—Lyanla Vanzant

7 Rules of Life

1. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

2. What others think of you is none of your business.

3. Time heals almost everything, give it time.

4. Don’t compare your life to others and don’t judge them. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

5. Stop thinking too much, it’s alright not to know the answers. They will come to you when you least expect it.

6. No one is in charge of your happiness, except you.