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Presenter: Eve Denison
Assumptions often interfere with communications.
Has my mind already been made about how this conversation is going to go.
Natural process -- preparation.
Can eliminate room for how the conversation could go which can limit ability to have an effective communication.
Wherever they come from, the are there and are impactful on our communication style and success/failures.
Emotions cause a different part of your brain to take control of conversations and interactions.
Text messaging and email: Context can get lost in translation.
TONE impacts how ideas and feelings are conveyed and can lead to mis-communication or unfortunate interpretations.
Personal triggers in your life can negatively impact interactions.
Pay attention to these and manage my triggers.
Set your own boundaries.
Everyone has a 'bad day' here and there.
Life is real so there is no avoiding it.
Check-in with yourself to ensure you are managing your health.
Blood-sugar sensitivity: the only problem could be that you're hungry.
Avoid introducing unintentional tention.
Who you are speaking with can impact your communications and relations with them.
Past interactions can drive future interactions in unfortunate ways.
Bad-energy projection is a thing -- going into a conversation with negative energy will be conveyed to other(s) and could turn the interaction negative.
Prepare to show-up into a space to promote interactions to go well.
It does NOT come naturally.
But we already know how to talk to each other right? Not the case when emotions are high or negativity is on the surface and part of the communication style.
Use emojis if/when possible, or terms like "/sacasm" to convey additional context in text or email.
Prepare the person you are speaking with when it comes to difficult conversations.
Understand there are differences in communication styles due to age, culture ... and just who both people are.
Remember we always alter our communication styles for all sort of situations: Family, friends, a waiter, etc.
Building your personal and professional network can help you learn how to have tougher conversations.
Power-dynamics in a hierarchical environment can be uncomfortable, so be ready for this.
Pause. Breath and make sure you are stepping away from the 'reactive' part of your mind and engage the logical, communication portion instead.
Pick friends that are healthy for you.
Is a response necessary right now? Is it an emergency? Try to reconvene at an appropriate time, to provide an opportunity to mentally prepare for the conversation.
Fear. Check-in with yourself and determine what is causing this fear and why. Listen to your body to take hints about how your are feeling and try to find ways to keep those feelings from taking over the interaction. Do not ignore it.
Is a short walk or maybe eating some food necessary to help manage the feelings.
It's o.k. to hope on a phone call to work around communications issues in email and/or text.
What if the interaction will be different than what my assumptions might describe?
Separate the negatively-personal article of a statement from the actual goal of the communication with is improvement.
Use 'and' instead of 'but'. Not realistic to remove the b-word and it can be a gift to avoid using it.
Use clarifying questions to better understand what someone else is trying to communicate.
It is fair to teach people around you by describing what conversation style works well for you.
Better to walk away when in stressful conversation. If not possible to walk away, sip water/each a snack, which tells your brain that you are in a safe place and will help to calm your nerves/emotions.
Integrate what the other person is saying into what you want to say. This will allow you the opportunity to think through and digest what they are saying, allow an opportunity for them to fill-in or verify/redirect, and provides you some time to formulate a positive, reasonable response.
When nervous, use terms like "that's a good question", "can I take a minute to think about that?".
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