How often do we ask this question, when we open our mouth to say something? What is our intention? Most of the time, we just start talking.
We’ve all heard the conventional wisdom that when two people are conversing, each is often mentally crafting what they are going to say next, instead of listening to what is being said by the other. That is certainly true in my case, unless I consciously decide before the conversation begins to pay more attention, not only to what I’m hearing, but also to my motivation for speaking in the first place.
Why is this so hard to do? I think one reason is that if we don’t get a chance to say what we want to, we forget what we were going to say. Another reason is that we have an innate need to express our ideas and feelings. We have to get our “insides out”, else they stay trapped, fermenting into emotional vinegar. We’ve all had the experience of an unsatisfying interaction with someone, wishing we had said something but didn’t either get the chance, or held back. Later, we are talking with a family member or a friend, describing the frustrating experience to them. We put them in the role of the previous discussion partner, and now we can get it out. They act as a surrogate of the party with whom we wished we had expressed ourselves.
That feels somewhat satisfying to us, but of course it can be toxic to the friend or relative who had to sit and listen to us. Recent research has shown that if we take in negative emotion from others in conversation, and it exceeds our individual tolerance level for receiving that destructive emotion, it can actually be harmful to our physical health.
When I was a consultant, it was much easier to keep a governor on my mouth. My job was to listen, to understand, to translate what I was hearing into identifiable causes of organizational problems, and to identify possible solutions. I was a listening machine. I took a lot of notes. I reflected back to the speaker what I heard. Only when I felt I understood the issues and had a good idea of what to offer would I then speak. The client was ready to listen to me because they had fully expressed themselves.
It’s harder to keep this attitude when my role is different. As a fellow Tribe member at WD-40 Company, I have the responsibility of being an internal advisor, so my consultant mentality is largely intact. But I also have accountability for contributing to results, unlike a consultant. That causes me to behave in a fashion that is more like negotiation, exchanging ideas and support with my colleagues, in order to accomplish goals. This is the common challenge we all face as team mates within an organization. We are constantly debating, negotiating, influencing each other towards accomplishing what we each individually must do, and what we must do together.
If we didn’t have ideas, opinions and motivations, this wouldn’t happen. But anyone with a commitment to perform and a sense of individual responsibility will have a strong will and emotional investment in the outcome of a conversation with their colleagues. We want to be heard. We want to be understood. We want others to agree with us. We want a chance to show what we know. We want our thoughts and expressions to be respected. We want.
This self-centered mindset, although usually well-intentioned, causes us to quit listening and to focus on “getting our point across”, which means talking long, fast and emphatically so that the other person “gets it”. Even if they nod their head or say they agree, it is often simply submission in the moment. Anyone who has lost the battle of air time in a conversation recognizes the feeling of losing the battle—but resolving to later win the war. The opposition continues, in indirect ways, and by engaging others separately to agree with our position.
Easy to see in others, not so easy to recognize in ourselves. I was talking with a colleague in my consulting business years ago, about this very topic. She had the habit of appearing to preach to others, sometimes when they had just said exactly what she was now saying in her authoritative way. Sometimes she would speak with no clear end point in her discourse, as if thinking through the issue out loud. It gave her the appearance of being a dominant know-it-all who took on more authority than she was given or earned. Reba was very intelligent, hard-working and of high moral standards. She just had a blind spot in this area.
One day, in an opportune moment of spontaneous coaching, I said to Reba, “Before you begin to speak, ask yourself, ‘Why am I talking?’ This will help you decide whether or not to actually speak, depending upon your role and the purpose of the conversation. After you ask that question, the next thing that comes out of your mouth will always be more productive, more useful to everyone involved.”
The answer to this question can be varied, if honestly answered. We might want to have the pleasure of displaying our knowledge. We might want to assert our authority and feel in control. We might need to truly think out loud. And we might want to help solve the problem, contribute to the ideas, etc. If the reason is self-serving, and it serves the other person as well, that’s not a problem. The difficulty comes when speaking is for our benefit and nobody else.
We all want to be heard. We will even demand to be heard. The irony is that once we do demand an audience, we have just ensured everyone mentally exits the auditorium.