SHARMAS COMMUNICATION SKILLS-Overcoming Roadblocks

Overcoming Roadblocks

1. Listening

Since people have two ears and only one mouth, listening might be the most important
communication skill. Unfortunately few people are good listeners. Listening is more
than merely hearing with our ears. Listening is a combination of what another person
says and involvement with the other person who is talking.
Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves
mutual understanding, overcoming communication roadblocks. There are five levels
of active listening:

Basic Acknowledgments: Basic acknowledgements include verbal, visual - nonverbal
signs and vocal sounds that let the speaker know how the audience is listening
with interest and respect, such as: head-nodding, leaning forward or backward, making
eye contacts, “uh-huh”, “oh really”, “no-kidding”, ‘tell me more”, “I hear you”, “so..”, “I
see”, “yes”.

Questions: The idea of asking questions may seem contradictory to the idea of listening.
But an active listener is asking questions in order to show the speaker his/ her
interest (a) in what is being said (b) in knowing more to gain a better understanding of
the speaker’s point of view. Open-ended questions are preferable to close-ended
questions, because they are providing opportunities for the speaker to open up, to
explore his/ her thoughts and feelings. It is also important to ask one question at a
time.

Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing focuses on the speaker’s content, and summarizing
what was said in order to clarify and confirm correct understanding. The steps of the
paraphrasing process are:
(a) Let the speaker finish what he/she wanted to say.
(b) Restate with your own words what you think the speaker has said
(c) If the speaker confirms your understanding continue the conversation
(d) If the speaker indicates you misunderstood ask the speaker to repeat. “I do not
understand. Could you say it again?”

Mirroring feelings
Mirroring involves reflecting back to the speaker the emotions s/he is communicating.
Do not miss the emotional dimension of a conversation, by focusing exclusively on the
content. Encourage the speaker to disclose feelings – may be joy, sorrow, frustration,
anger or grief. The reflection of feelings will help the speaker understand his/ her own
emotions and move toward a solution of the problem. In order to understand and mirror
feelings:
(a) Observe the feeling words the speaker uses.
(b) The speaker may not use feeling words at all because suppression of feelings
is so widespread in our culture. Then, focus on the content and ask yourself: If I
were having that experience, if I were saying and doing those things what would
I be feeling?
(c) Observe the body language, facial expressions, the tone of the voice, gestures
and posture.

Reflecting meanings
Once a person knows how to reflect feeling and content separately it is relatively easy
to put the two together into a reflection of meaning. It would be useful to use the formula:
“You feel (insert the feeling word) because (insert the event or other content
associated with the feeling)”

• Summative Reflections
A summative reflection is a brief restatement of the main themes and feelings the
speaker expressed over a longer period of discussions.
A good summarization may help the speaker have a greater coherence, a better
understanding of the situation and draw conclusions.

SHARMAS COMMUNICATION SKILLS-Reactions that block communication

Reactions that block communication

Often receivers have ways of responding that are considered by researchers as high–
risk responses that are likely to block communication, increase the emotional distance
between people and decrease the other person’s problem-solving efficiency.

These responses have been divided into three major categories:

• Criticizing
Many people feel that they ought to be critical or the other person will never improve.
They feel that it is their responsibility to make a negative evaluation of the other person’s
actions or attitudes.

• Name Calling
Labelling, putting down the other person, prevents people from getting to really know
the other

• Diagnosing
One person informs the other that he is being defensive, or he is acting out of guilt or
fear or some other unconscious motives. “I can read you like a book…..”
Communication is blocked.

Sending Solutions

• Ordering
An order is a solution sent coercively and backed by force. People become defensive
and resentful. Ordering might eventually lead to sabotage. Orders imply that the other’s
judgment is unsound and thus tend to undermine self-esteem.

• Threatening
A threat is a solution sent with an emphasis on punishment that will be forthcoming if
the solution is not implemented. Threats produce the same kind of negative feelings to
the results produced by orders ‘You will do it or else...”

• Moralizing
Many people like to back their solutions with the force of moral or theological authority.
“It’s the right thing to do” “You ought to tell him you are sorry” Moralizing fosters anxiety,
arouses resentment and blocks honest self-expression.

• Advising
The advice-giving trap is a constant temptation when someone talks to you about her
problems. What’s wrong with the advice? Often it is seen by the other as a basic insult
to his/ her intelligence. It implies a lack of confidence in the capacity of the other person
to cope with her problems. And the advisor seldom understands the full implications of
the problem. The advisor may be unaware of the complexities, feelings, and many
other factors that lie hidden beneath the surface.

Avoiding the other’s concerns

• Diverting
One of the most frequent ways of switching a conversation from the other person’s
concern to one’s own topic is called “diverting”.
Diverting appears when people lack the awareness and skills to listen effectively. At
other times diversion appears when people are uncomfortable with the emotions
stimulated by the conversation.

• Logical argument
When persons are under stress or when there is conflict between people, providing
logical solutions can be frustrating. Logic focuses on facts and typically avoids feelings.
However, feelings may be the main issues. Using logic, even if really needed, may be
a high-risk response-blocking communication.

SHARMAS COMMUNICATION SKILLS,

Communication Roadblocks - Receiver’s Behavior

• Hearing through own filters
i) People have many filters that distort what they hear.
ii) People have attention filters that keep them from being overwhelmed by the
increasing amount of sounds and information.
iii) People have emotional filters that block or distort their understanding.
iv) People have their expectations of others that distort their behavior

• Receivers are easily distracted
Many receivers are easily distracted and slip off dreaming while the sender is talking.
One of the reasons for poor listening is that people can think much faster than they can
talk. While people listen, they have a lot of spare time for thinking. The average rate for
speech is 125-150 words per minute. This rate is slow for the ear and the brain, which
can process about four times more and faster.

SHARMAS COMMUNICATION SKILLS-Roadblocks to Communication-Sender’s Behavior

Roadblocks to Communication-Sender’s Behavior

• Different meanings of the words

Often people are not able to choose the right word to say precisely what they mean.
The same word may have different meanings to different people

• Hiding Thoughts and Feelings

Just as military code messages for national security purposes, people may choose to
code their messages for personal security purposes; Or because they have been
trained from early childhood to express themselves indirectly on many topics and
feelings.

One of the basic reasons for miscommunication is that decoding is always guesswork.
One can easily observe a person’s behavior, hear words and see actions, but:
One can only imagine what the words and actions mean.

A person’s thoughts and feelings (emotions) are often concealed very carefully and
are not directly observable as behaviors are.

· The Sender may be blind to other’s emotions or blinded by them

Emotions help shape values. They are a fundamental part of one’s motivation and
help to determine one’s direction and purpose in life. Emotions provide one with needed
clues to solve problems.
It is important not be blind and to be able to recognize one’s feelings, to be aware of
one’s rich inner world of emotions. This skill may overcome many communication
failures.

SHARMAS COMMUNICATION SKILLS-Gender differences

Roadblocks to Communication-Gender differences

Allan and Barbara Pease describe, in their book “Why men don’t listen and women
can’t read maps”, in a very funny way a very serious fact: the differences between men
and women in the way they communicate. They demonstrate that the differences were
forged by the functions men and women had for ages in their effort to survive: men
were hunters, focused on their task; women were raising children focused on building
and keeping relationships. As a result of these different functions their minds also
specialized along those lines and researches demonstrate:

Men’s minds have less speaking centers than women’s
Mothers, daughters and sisters will often speak on behalf of the men from their family:
Try to ask a small five year old boy “How are you” and his mother or sister will immediately
answer on his behalf “Very well, thank you!”

A man speaks an average of 2000 to 4000 words/day, a third of the quantity spoken
by a woman. This difference becomes visible at the end of the day, when man and
woman eat together at home. He finished his words reserve; she still has a lot more.
Listen to them, does it sound familiar?

Men interrupt each other when speaking only as a sign of rivalry or
aggressiveness. “Do not interrupt me” shout men to women, all over the world in all
the languages.

Men’s statements always include solutions to the problems they are speaking about
so they feel they have to speak without being interrupted. For a woman this is strange,
because her main intention when speaking is to build relationships and less to solve
problems.

SHARMAS COMMUNICATION SKILLS,

Roadblocks to Communication- Stereotypes and Prejudices

Stereotyping is a natural function of the human mind, aimed to simplify the complex
reality and make our body and mind develop automatic responses to similar stimuli.
Stereo means “set image”. When applied to people, stereotyping refers to forming an
instant or fixed picture of a group of people, usually based on limited or incomplete
information. Stereotypes frequently result from or lead to prejudices, negative opinions
about others. Stereotypes and prejudices are sources of communication failures, and
more than that, of bad actions and ugly emotions.

Prejudices based on oversimplification of people into narrow, negative stereotypes can have tragic
consequences such as discrimination and violence.

Often, people are stereotyped around characteristics of:

- Age: all teenagers love rock and roll and do not respect elders
- Sex: men want just one thing from a woman
- Race: all Chinese people look alike
- Religion: all those belonging to Islam are terrorists
- Vocation: all lawyers are greedy
- Nationality: all Somalians are poverty-stricken
- Places: all people living in a certain city are lazy
- Things: all Swiss watches are perfect

Stereotypes have four main characteristics:
- They are simpler than the reality
- They are acquired from “cultural mediators” rather than own experience
- They are erroneous by their very nature
- They are resistant to change when absorbed in childhood, stubbornly colouring
our perceptions and behavior.

SHARMAS COMMUNICATION SKILLS,

Roadblocks to Communication-The Ways Minds Work

• Perceptions of the reality

Perceptions are the way we interpret and understand reality. Perceptions form one’s
reality through the following steps:

People collect information, But:
- They collect only a small amount – they cannot register all the data that their
senses can bring them
- They collect selectively – they see what they want to see, they look for data to
support their initial assumptions and neglect or donot notice contradictory
evidence
- They collect in a certain order
People arrange the information into categories, but:
Categorizing is dangerous, for with categories go a certain set of assumptions or
predictions: “Brown-skinned men are violent” “Old people are less ready to change”.
These are the stereotypes.
People form our reality, but:
Each of them may have their own reality, very different perceptions and very different
realities. These differences often cause misunderstandings and conflicts.