Posts in category: PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Talk IT Out for a Change? What do you think?

IN case you’ve ever felt frustrated with your boss, of whatever gender, here is some straight talk in this crooked world from a THINKER and a DOER…and a beloved reader. (You will find many more stimulating reader ideas as we travel along together on the talk road less traveled.)

Hey, Dennis.

I don’t know if it’s age, wisdom that comes with age, or the fact that I’ve raised two teen-agers and lived to tell about it, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to just keep my mouth shut around here at work.

Do all egotistical CEOs love themselves so much that they can’t see how shallow they are sometimes????? Sometimes, they seem like junior high boys, slapping each other’s butts for the tiniest little accomplishments…and then they give themselves a raise or a new title or something, while the rest of us sit here, working our butts off for…reduced benefits and higher insurance premiums! Sigh…

Opening up communication lines in a relationship

Talk isn’t cheap. It’s priceless! But how many truly value it for what it is?

For example, do you ever experience closed-off communication in a relationship? Who doesn’t?

When lines of communication are cut, do you shut up and shut down, as many people are prone to do? Jeepers.

The hard-hitting truth: Couples or teams who fail to communicate…fail. Similarly, coworkers who fail to communicate…fail.

How do you express a complaint about something you would like to see changed without sending the conversation in a totally different direction or tripping over your own words? How do you talk through a resentment so that you can stop stewing about it? How do you speak up assertively and provide vital negative feedback without ending up in a ditch by ‘jive talking’? In truth, what you say should move talks forward, not stall them out or fuel a heated debate.

MISCOMMUNICATING…WE HAVE A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Like bad driving, negative talkers miscommunicate in patterned ways that make it all but impossible to solve problems and bring about productive change. My now, don’t we all have an awful lot of excuses to avoid the work of personal change and effective communication?

YOU CAN CLEAN UP YOUR SIDE OF THE TALK STREET

But you can clean up your side of the talk street because open communication is in your hands 50% of the time. Indeed, there are effective ways you can “talk back” respectfully to a co-communicator who tries to drive you off the two-way communication highway by honking, distracting you verbally or resorting to petty annoyances that honk you off. When someone else detours your efforts at facilitating communication, you walk away feeling as if you’ve made the same complaint for the 1,000th time to ears that are plugged with cotton.

TALKING BACK ASSERTIVELY

Let’s walk through the process of “talking back assertively” to someone who typically derails the conversation. Let’s pretend you are talking back in straight ways to the following six crooked transactions:

Maximum listening skills-hearing beyond words to understand the unspoken feelings and purposes that exist beneath them-protect and nourish successful relationships.

Being happy and confident comes more from within than it comes from without. Even if it doesn’t pay to be real-be the real you. After all, you gain confidence when you choose to be a real person with real emotions while considering your life to be a wonder-filled work in progress.