Rules For Conduct As Co-Leaders

Communication is everything. Whether in the bustling entrepreneurial business venture or in the hustling couple adventure of love, co-partners naturally develop and follow rules of conduct. Especially when times are tense, these rules help everyone to keep a calm head and everyone in the team canoe paddling sanely in the same direction. With rules, people know what to say and do when feeling bad. Without rules, canoeists might end up hitting one another over the head with paddles.

RULES FOR CONDUCT AS CO-LEADERS

Two brothers of a leading entrepreneurial company in the Dayton region co-created a set of rules for conduct that work for the betterment of all. These type of “lead your own life” rules for “conscious living” lead to effective and positive communication and produce the results of peaceful co-existence and mutual prosperity.

Rule #1: BEING ON TIME. Each of us is response-able for being on “our time”…to show up to paddle the canoe together at the appointed hour.

Rule #2: NO SLAMS OR PUT DOWNS. Each of us is response-able to eliminate negative verbal slams or non-verbal put-offs and put-downs when we feel frustrated by a lack of progress.

Rule #3: SKIP GIVING PAYBACKS. Each of us is response-able to forego “an eye for an eye” paybacks that cause melodrama and pain and blind everyone.

Rule #4: TO BE RESPECTFUL. Each of us is response-able to treat one another respectfully…in ways that we wish to be treated.

Rule #5: TO WALK IN DIGNITY. Each of us is response-able to carry the self in ways that promote kindness, caring and dignity for the difficulties of our mutual work, and the strains of working together as a team.

Rule #6: CHANGE WHAT ISN’T WORKING. Each of us is response-able to discontinue doing what divides us, causes unnecessary anger, and keeps us doing the “same old same old” that isn’t working.

Rule #7: PUT ENERGY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP. Each of us is response-able to put energy into studying effective communication approaches and skills that get the job done and make each partner feel valued and valuable.

OPEN COMMUNICATION CHANGES THE WAY YOU APPROACH LIFE

In the “Talk to Me” communication system, participants who use these new talk principles a few minutes every day report, “I’ve changed the way I approach life!” Pretty powerful commentary coming from leaders at work or home of remarkable character and caliber. The system strikes a chord with most, as my “live” keynotes and seminars prove.

TEAM CANOE

When you combine the respective strengths of the Empathizer-type communicator style AND the Instigator-type communicator style, you will paddle to new places in your “team canoe” that you could never dream of possible.

ABOUT DR. DENNIS O’GRADY

Dr. Dennis O’Grady is the developer of the “Talk to Me” communication system that adds energy, better mood, self-worth, effective communication and problem-solving rules to our valued business and family systems. His latest book on communication is called, “Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along with Anyone.” O’Grady is a keynote speaker, corporate and leadership communications consultant, and leads “seriously funny” training programs in positive and effective communication skills in the workplace.

What Makes A Person So Difficult To Get Along With?

What makes a difficult person so hard to talk to and get along with?

Is it something about you that makes the communication process so difficult, something you are doing too much of, or something you are doing too little of? Are you somehow not good enough, because the difficult person is constantly dissatisfied with you and harping on your supposed shortcomings? Seems we’ve all been blistered, hurt and burnt by a difficult person who wields a torch of anger to light up our life.

OPEN VS. CLOSED COMMUNICATION: I BLOW MY TOP … I KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT

Lashing out at others angrily or keeping your mouth shut (and thus turning your frustrations on yourself) aren’t what a positive mental attitude is all about. Positive energy is what a positive attitude is all about! At a recent Dayton Psychological Association meeting, one psychologist said: “I’ve heard it all about the positive attitude thing, but you can have a positive attitude and still sit on your laurels, and not get anything worthwhile done.” Well, that’s not true. You CAN like yourself and get things done when your attitude is open or closed … and your energy is flowing or blocked, independent of the attitude you keep. The choice is up to you, isn’t it?

NEW INSIGHTS COMMUNICATION POLL RESULTS

So I decided to ask our readers if difficult people are coming out of the woodwork, and what in particular do difficult people share in common? “What makes people so difficult to get along with at work or home?” was the question…and these are the results:

1. BAD ATTITUDE…….46.34%

2. NEVER WRONG…….17.07%

3. USES EXCUSES & SMOKESCREENS…..17.07%

4. DOESN’T LISTEN………14.63%

5. INCOMPETENT………2.44%

6. ACTS CHILDISH…….2.44%

In short, a bad attitude is protecting self-pride at the expense of the pleasures of communicating.

TOWARDS DEFINING A BAD ATTITUDE

What makes up a bad attitude? In my way of thinking, a bad attitude is characterized by talking negatively to self and others…by never being in the wrong…by using excuses and smokescreens to avoid changing…by the habitual ways you bring a relationship to its knees with negatalking.

WHY DOES A CRUMMY ATTITUDE MAKE A CRAPPY COMMUNICATOR?

A person with a bad attitude isn’t aware that his/her bad attitude is the stink in the room that makes everyone’s nose regret being good at smelling. Some key symptoms of a bad attitude:

  • Self-worth is low
  • Nothing good is ever going to come of anything new
  • People are just out for themselves and don’t really care for others
  • Communication is fuzzy, indirect, blaming, scheming, distorted, not really honest or open
  • Inflexible and rigid in thinking
  • Problems aren’t solved and change isn’t embraced freely
  • Pleasure and enjoying life are suspect since hard work is Heavenly
  • Power plays and passive-aggressive paybacks are common to force one’s agenda on another person against his or her will
  • Compulsively doing things as they’ve always been done, even when relationships are destroyed in the process
  • A superiority-inferiority complex
  • Doesn’t listen with two ears
  • Dehumanizing a talk partner, debunking the spirit
  • Playing the elaborate smoke-and-mirrors mind (blame) games

THERE’S NO EXPIRATION DATE ON VICTIM TALK

There’s no expiration date on victim talk or victim thinking. Sadly, a person with a bad attitude creates many of the very losses he or she so sorrowfully suffers, and then complains about “IT HAPPENS” to get your sympathy.

WHY NO ONE HAS EVER DIED OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

The negative attitude: “I’m always right because you’re the mistake who’s always in the wrong!” crucifies good (effective, productive, change-producing) talk. As it should be, the choice of your attitude is up to you. You will hear that positive attitude is related to better health, success at work, relationship survival. Many relationships have died as a result of a negative attitude…many unnecessary funerals and losses have been attended. Life is a two-sided coin; difficult and delicious.

LIFE IS DIFFICULT

I often remark on the opening line from M. Scott Peck’s book “The Road Less Traveled.” He said stunningly to open this best seller, simply: “Life is difficult.” Dr. Peck also was very open about how he wrestled with depression, and his self-esteem thrown to the mat in spite of his culture-changing books.

MAY YOUR SORROWS BE SMALL

When you refuse to change instead preferring to be difficult, you put positive people in a box. Every box is belittling to your soul…it seeks to make you “less than” you naturally are. And you are more than your gender, age, communicator type. But perhaps the really “poor people” in our world are those among us (including you and me) who suffer from a poverty-stricken attitude. Safer perhaps; but unnecessarily sorrow-filled.

ABOUT DR. DENNIS O’GRADY

Dr. Dennis O’Grady stands for open and honest communication, growing and changing against the odds, learning something new every day, getting better at what you’re passionate about, making your life focus on giving instead of getting more for doing and being less. Dennis stands for being yourself in a world that seems to be doing everything in its power to turn you into a cardboard cut out. He is the author of “Talk to Me: Communication Moves To Get Along With Anyone” and is a conference keynote speaker on effective communication, dealing with depression and change management. Since you and your spirit can’t be contained or pigeonholed, give life everything you’ve got…use all your talents without embarrassment or shame…treat people decently…move through the world with your head up…get the important things done first…let your soul be larger than the universe.

PREVIOUS RESULTS OF NEW INSIGHTS COMMUNICATION POLLS

Other New Insights Communication polls:  Personality Clashes or Communication Crashes? …  “What’s The Toughest Emotion You Wrestle With?” … “Are You An Optimistic Driver On The Two-Way Communication Highway?” … “The Elephant Stampede” … “What Makes A Good Leader Great?” … “Does Your Attitude Work To Make You A Better Leader?” … “What’s Up With Your Confidence Level?” … “When You Argue, Are You Always Right?” … “Are You Shy or Stuck Up?”… “How Do You Handle Anger?”…“Are Men or Women Better Communicators?” “How Easily Are You Frustrated?”

I’m Just Done Trying To Communicate With You

As a relationship psychologist and personal communications expert, I’d like you to know that bad communication is the final straw that breaks the back of any relationship, large or small. In fact, the plaintive cry of anyone who’s chronically lonely/misunderstood usually goes like this: “I’m just done trying so hard to get along with someone who won’t get along with me.” Then the relationship ends, and everyone acts shocked.

TOO MUCH DAMAGE DONE: I’M THE VICTIM HERE…THAT’S NOT FAIR

When you are talked over, talked down to, forced to explain yourself, ridiculed with guilt trips and riddled with shame games, your gas tank will be drained and your communicator car will stall or slide out of control, sending you over a cliff. There comes a point in which too much damage has been done to a relationship through poor or no new communication. At that point, the relationship cannot heal. Sadly, without the nurturing of communicating change, relationships (like children) fail to thrive and then disintegrate.

WHAT MAKES FOR CRAPPY COMMUNICATION AND RELATIONSHIP CRASHES?

Here are 23 tidy ways to push a loving co-communicator off a cliff, and then feel like the “I’m the victim here…and that’s SO not fair:”

1. TWISTED MEMORY. Crappy communicators use selective memory and “remember” conversations inaccurately to purposely play to their prejudiced narrow viewpoint.

2. “I’M NOT SAYING YOU HAVE TO HONOR AND OBEY ME.” Crappy communicators coercively convince you that you artificially owe them respect and compliance as a way to honor their one-up role of mother or father, boss, husband or wife, extended family member, etc., — no matter what their behavior is like.

3. OBEY OR PAY. Crappy communicators make life Hell for anyone who doesn’t go along with their wishes to get along with them.

4. “IT’S YOUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.” Crappy communicators are controlling personality types, and they fail to see that they invent relationship failures one after another.

5. BASHING. Crappy communicators use reverse psychology to bash and guilt bomb you non-stop about your unique strengths and key talents.

6. “YOU MUST ACCEPT ME AS I AM.” Crappy communicators make threats of rejection and emotional abandonment, such as: “You’ve got to take it or leave me because I’m just being genuine and objective with you!”

7. “YOU HURT ME!” Crappy communicators will sink so low as to cry alligator tears (when nothing else is working) to get their way and force you to go along at the expense of you and the relationship.

8. A CONTROL FREAK. Crappy communicators “push their point of view” by omitting or distorting key facts from the storyline that would make you and others see the truth of the whole picture.

9. “WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO CHANGE?” Crappy communicators pretend to change when the chips are down, but these “nice changes” are blips on the screen that disappear in no time at all.

10. “YOU’RE NOT BEING ANY HELP.” Crappy communicators will slap you in the face with how unhelpful you’re being after you’ve given them the time and energy of your life.

11. THREE-WAY POWER PLAYS. Crappy communicators will gossip about you to your kids, friends, church family, siblings, etc. They’ll preach the party line and use social pressure to bend you to their will.

12. FIX A DISCONNECT. Crappy communicators will push you over a cliff, then shout down at you: “Why don’t you want to be close?” “Why aren’t you trying harder to talk to me?”

13. LOOKING GOOD. Crappy communicators must “look good in the eyes of others” and will purposely spin stories and use white lies of omission in order to do so.

14. “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LET IT GO?” Crappy communicators cause the problem, then blame your reaction to the problem as the problem, and then tell you it’s all up to you to fix everything. Zap!

15. “BUT WHY DIDN’T YOU…?” Crappy communicators are Kings of the Guilt Trips and say, “Why don’t you want to talk about it?” “Why won’t you work on it?” “Why don’t you want to be part of the family?” “Why don’t you want to be close tonight with me?” “Why are you blaming me for something I told you I didn’t do?” “Why don’t you stop obsessing and get over it?” “Why are you acting so distant and non-communicative?” Duh!

16. “I DIDN’T MEAN TO.” When cornered, crappy communicators will admit to making an unintended teeny-tiny mistake that you shouldn’t be mad about. Did you just blow in from “Stupidtown?”

17. “I’M SORRY.” Crappy communicators erase treating you badly by apologizing but not changing their egregious words of poison.

18. “DON’T TALK BACK TO ME.” Crappy communicators will accuse you of being disrespectful when you speak back to lies with truth.

19. THE OUTSIDER SYNDROME. Crappy communicators make you feel like you don’t belong, you’re not good enough, invisible, not worthy, lucky to be tolerated, no one else would want you, you’re not special but shameful and flawed. Always implied is that YOU aren’t not doing a good enough job of getting along with them.

20. “ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS FIGHT.” Crappy communicators say they don’t want to fight with you but always do. When you take the gloves off and punch back, the bully hollers and yelps that you’re not playing fair by the rules.

21. STRATEGIC MELTDOWNS. Crappy communicators have psychodramatic emotional “meltdowns” to force you to back off from confronting them further about their mistakes, fears or shortcomings.

22. “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT.” Crappy communicators will act upset when you hit them on the nose with the truth.

23. NARCISSISM. Crappy communicators must do anything to be the center of attention, including disrupting a perfectly good relationship.

YOU DON’T KNOW HER OR HIM VERY WELL

Disruptive communicators divisively dig a great big divide of miscommunication between people who do want to get along as independent beings. Thus, negative communicators have a knack of turning people against one another with a sly, “You don’t know him or her like I do.” The result is the lack of enjoying life, love and the pursuit of happiness….

EMOTIONAL BLACKMAILERS AND RELATIONSHIP BLACKBALLERS

…All because we are afraid to tell the naked truth to emotional blackmailers and relationship blackballers who are crappy communicators who feed you a manure sandwich to chomp on.

ABOUT DR. DENNIS O’GRADY

Dr. Dennis O’Grady became so “fed up” with blaming and finger-pointing in family and couple relationship communication patterns, that he just had to do something constructive about it before he went nuts. So, O’Grady invented a new communication system that anyone (including children and teens) can use to talk positively in ways that promote a positive attitude, a buoyant mood, high energy, emotional closeness, co-independence, happiness, contentment and peace of mind. Now it’s up to you if you want some of these good tidings. Get what you’ve always wanted by learning the “Talk to Me” communication system instead of feeling like you’re “spinning your tires” and feeling “fed up.”

Get Your Happy Back

FLAP YOUR LIPS?

Has your happiness taken a hike? Do relationship resentments create a great divide between you and your talk partner? The emotional rule: As your frustration goes up, your happiness goes down like a lead Zeppelin crashing to the ground. When you feel pushed away or rejected in a relationship, you will feel mad. When you feel angry, you won’t feel happy. So what can you do about it?

TALKED OVER LEADS TO TICKED OFF

When you are talked over and not listened to, you will feel ticked off. And when you are too hard on yourself about any of the above, you will naturally feel depressed. It’s pretty hard to feel happy when your partner is stomping on your foot and saying: “I’m SO sorry…NOT.” When the same frustrating things keep happening over and over and over again, you might get hooked into putting your positive energy into a black hole.

PUT A NAIL UNDER YOUR TIRE TO CREATE A FLAT MOOD

To get your happy back…you’ve got to assertively confront anyone who is pushing you over the cliff of the talk canyon by “talking over” you. That is the same as having a nail or screw stuck in your tire, which creates a flat mood. Other ways poor communicators chase people off who want to love them:

1. Make life as hard as possible. Turn even the easiest task into a labor of frustration, and you’ll have people on their knees eating out of your hand begging you to quit.

2. Be a crappy communicator. Blame other people for what you’re going to continue to do, even if it doesn’t work, because no one can tell you what to do.

3. Don’t feel good enough in your own skin. Pretend to be consumed about what other people think and say, instead of feeling good about how you treat others who butter your bread.

4. Be a relationship hiccup. Don’t truly invest your time and energy into inventing a caring relationship that is genuine and emotionally rewarding…just say you are.

5. Flap your lips. Make others around you lack confidence by hypnotizing them to forget the fact that they are a privilege to be with, work alongside and know.

6. Be a control freak. Try to control everyone and everything under the sun as if you’re the One.

7. Drone on and on and on that “IT won’t work because…!” I hope you feel safe and protected surrounding yourself with “the wall of a pessimist.” Whoops…you won’t enjoy the good side of life, either.

8. Deploy passive-aggressive paybacks. When people don’t do what you say they should, drop guilt bombs on the rebels, to teach everyone the lesson that you rule all.

9. Sing a victim song. When you don’t get your way…cry and wail until sane people bail.

10. Live by the unholy rule, “What’s the problem with your idea is….!” Just hammer people with the negative idea that what they want won’t work out.

11. Keep people guessing. Make people wonder and guess when you will show up and whether or not you will keep your word this time out.

12. Drive people away by driving them nuts or up a wall. Drive people away by “talking over them” and then cry alligator tears when everyone who’s anyone takes their leave from you.

13. Fake it until you don’t make it. Be a pretender, seller of a story line and perception maker instead of people appreciator.

14. Be a people possessor. Think of people as play things and just toys. That ought to make loving people feel ashamed and no good so they will saddle right up to you.

15. Push people over a cliff, then mourn the loss pathetically. Perhaps you have better things to do with your life than push…push…PUSH people over the ledge and pretend they jumped.

Making yourself unhappy is most easily accomplished by squelching your true self when you are “talked over.”

GET YOUR HAPPY BACK

Get your happy back. Get “all gone” when people play with your happiness by talking over you to shut you up.

ABOUT YOUR COMMUNICATOR TYPE AND DR. DENNIS O’GRADY

Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a clinical psychologist, keynote speaker and originator of the “Talk to Me” communication system which is guaranteed “to get your happy back” when you care to use it to move on down the communication highway. When you drive your communicator car, you will be driving either a blue Empathizer car or a burnt orange Instigator car. Have you received your free communicator report? Although the rules of the road are the same for both types of communicator drivers, each type prefers their select talk lanes to travel in. Cross abruptly into the opposite talk lane, and you will hear honking horns and screeching tires, and see some non-verbal hand gestures that indicate driver Emotional I.Q.

Before You Dig In, Say Thanks For Everything

As a communications trainer for organizations and companies, and a veteran marital and family psychologist, I’ve heard tremendous accounts of altruism, praiseworthy efforts in the face of defeat, unexpected successes and unbelievable turnabouts that defy all scientific logic when good communication is welcomed and the winds of change are embraced. That’s why I say as a motivational speaker: “Good talk isn’t cheap but priceless!” … “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth then pull its teeth!” … “The grass is always greenest where you take care of it!” “Thanks to YOU…our world is a far better place!”

BUT I’M NOT BEING THANKFUL ENOUGH

Whenever you say, “But I complain too much and I should be more thankful for what I’ve got!” you lose that loving feeling that makes the world go ’round. What I’ve also heard once too often is, “I didn’t appreciate what I had until it was gone!” It doesn’t have to be that way. Thanksgiving is a day to appreciate who you are and how you feel in context with loving who you are and the life you leading. Thus, Thanksgiving comes every day of the year!

THE MEALTIME BLESSING

The mealtime blessing is a way to appreciate what you’ve got and where it came from. Take a few moments to give thanks before digging into the scrumptious meal awaiting you:

We give thanks for our children, and the child in all of us, who can never be stopped from growing and changing.

We give thanks to one another for standing behind us when, as individuals, we might have failed to find the courage to stand up for ourselves.

We give thanks for the little things each of us has done to encourage politeness, niceness, caring, respect and dignity in our home.

We give thanks for the special intimacy that exists between husband and wife, and hope that the fire of this romance will always burn bright.

We give thanks for our adolescents’ and young adults’ aspirations, ambitions and realistic plans to improve their lives and add to our family heritage.

We give thanks for our health and the health of our elder family members, from whose wisdom we benefit daily.

We give thanks for neighbors who lend a helping hand when unexpected problems crop up.

We give thanks for America, a prosperous and proud country that pays the cost of our freedom.

We give thanks for the diversity of people who populate this vast planet.

We give thanks for the life we have together and the life we add back into our communities.

We warmly give thanks to one another seated around this table and enjoy partaking of this meal in the spirit of abiding respect and love.

These are but a few of the marvelous blessings I know you appreciate and feast on every day of the year. Celebrate your life!

THANKS TO YOU

Communicate, change, grow and give thanks. Because THANKS TO YOU…our world is a far better place!

Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a keynote speaker and author of “Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along with Anyone.” Dennis lives and works in Dayton, Ohio, and is a husband and father of three daughters in addition to being a licensed clinical psychologist.