by Alan Garner
You could say . . .
“You left your shirt in the bathroom again. This must be the eleventh time this week I’ve talked to you about this.”
“Thanks for putting your stockings in the hamper, Laura. Little things you do like that really help me a lot. Tell me what you want for dinner tonight and it’s yours.”
“What an idiot! How could you be so stupid as to fail three of your five subjects?”
“I’m glad you like English, Tony. Your teacher tells me you’re especially fond of Alexander Pope. May I see a poem of his you like?” (You could also praise whatever effort or progress he makes in the three subjects he failed.)
“What do you mean, ‘We’re going to the show.’ Am I some animal you drag around without even asking what I want to do?”
(On another occasion) “I’m glad you asked me where I want to go tonight, Don. It makes me feel that my opinion really counts with you.”
“Ugh! Another TV dinner!”
(On another occasion) “Veal cutlet! Thanks, Hon, I really go for home-cooked food. What’s your recipe for this?”
If someone never acts the way you wish, you can praise the behavior of others who do act in the desired fashion. Also, you can tell such a person what you want and, sometimes, even offer praise in advance for doing it, as illustrated by Melinda’s efforts to alter her husband’s way of giving a back rub:
When my husband would push too hard or rub me the wrong way [laughs]—I mean too vigorously— I used to put up with it as long as I could and then angrily shout, “Stop it!” He would freeze and stiffen up and it totally spoiled the mood. Then I tried being positive, saying things like, “I’d love it if you’d push just a little more gently.” Or, “That’s terrific. Now just a bit lower and more to the right. . . . Great!” Not only did I feel good because I started getting what I wanted, but he became more confident and spontaneous because he knew he was pleasing me.
It’s important that your verbal message be matched by your nonverbal message. Generally, this means using the SOFTEN behaviors outlined in the eleventh chapter. A wide variety of direct positives can be effectively delivered without words, as can be seen from this experience related by a retired engineer named Frank, whose granddaughter left him alone with her infant:
When Kim left to go shopping, the baby was sleeping. But wouldn’t you know it? Soon as she drove away, Joy started crying up a storm! I picked her up and held her close to my chest as I rocked back and forth and sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” over and over. I tried to really let her feel how much I loved her. After she’d quieted down, I picked her way up in the air and made a funny face. As usual, that got a laugh out of her. Then a tickle and a kiss on her big, fat tummy and we got down on all fours and started playing “Catch me if you can” when Kim walked in. Is this any way for an old man like me to act? You bet it is!
HOW TO MAKE YOUR DIRECT POSITIVES BELIEVABLE
It is advisable to be honest with your direct positives. If the other person suspects even once that you’re being dishonest, she is less likely to fully accept future compliments. Besides, by being dishonest, all you do is mislead people and increase the frequency of behavior you don’t really care for.
Still, it’s not enough to be honest and sincere. If your compliments are to be effective (and affective), the other person has to believe that they are honest and sincere. Being specific, mentioning the other person’s name, and smiling will certainly help in this regard. In addition, positives will be more believable if you do the following:
1. Start by paying only one compliment every few days to each of your friends and then slowly increase the frequency with which you praise them. If you’ve seldom had a kind word for anyone, even one positive remark will receive a great deal of notice.
2. Phrase your compliments conservatively at first. Sudden, lavish expressions of appreciation will surely arouse suspicion. Along these lines, one study suggests that it is best to refer to new acquaintances by name only occasionally.
3. Offer positives only when you don’t want anything. If you tell a coworker how intelligent and creative you find him and then ask for $5 until payday, it’s unlikely your praise will be prized.
4. Don’t always be positive; be negative about inconsequential matters. The comments of completely positive people are seldom accorded much credence. For example:
“Thanks for lending me your calculator, Jim. It wasn’t easy to figure out how to work it, but once I did, it was a big help in drawing up my estimates. Tell me, what does the sign on this button mean?”
5. Don’t return the same compliment to others that they have expresed to you. For example:
“I like your jacket.”
“I like your jacket too.”
Praise like this sounds perfunctory, as though it is being voiced merely in order to say something nice in return.
6. Favorably compare the person’s behavior, appearance, or possessions to others’. For example:
“Annette, this is the second month running you’ve been the store’s top seller. What’s your secret?” “Don, I think you have the best build of anyone at school. What do you do to keep in shape?” Compare these for probable impact with a compliment I received last week from a young lady I met while walking on the beach: “I like you . . . I like everyone!” On the other hand, you can go overboard with your comparisons. I recall how a woman once detailed at such great length why she found me unique that I began feeling like a freak.
OTHER POSITIVES YOU CAN USE
Third-Person Positives. These are compliments intended to ultimately reach someone other than the person you are addressing. You can deliver a third person positive by telling it to someone within earshot of the person to whom it is intended. Or, you can tell it to someone (like a best friend) who is likely to pass it on.
Praise delivered publicly in this manner is even more believable and even more valuable than praise delivered privately. Last Thursday, I experienced the power of a third-person positive when I told the brother of an old friend named Ira that I was delighted that Ira still finds time to drop by now and then, despite his burgeoning success as an actor. Ira phoned that night to tell me how tremendously pleased he was with what I had said about him and to invite me to a dinner party.
Relayed Positives: This compliment involves someone mentioning that he likes the behavior, appearance, or possessions of another and your passing on the message. As with direct positives, it’s a good idea to follow these up with a question.
Indirect Positives: In this type of compliment, your words or actions signal admiration, although that admiration is not expressed directly. For example, when you ask a woman for advice, you are indirectly telling her that you value her judgment. When you ask a man for his name, or refer to him by name, you are indirectly signaling that he is significant to you. According to Robert Saudek, who worked with him on the TV series Profiles in Courage, President Kennedy’s manner indirectly conveyed respect:
He made you think he had nothing else to do except ask you questions and listen—with extraordinary concentration—to your answers. You knew that for the time being he had blotted out both the past and the future.
Here are some examples of indirect compliments, supplied to me by students:
JOYCE: Last Saturday, my husband told me, “I want to spend the weekend just with you.” We brought the kids to my aunt and took a long, leisurely drive up the coast to Monterey. Every couple of hours, we stopped to walk along the beach hand-in-hand or to eat at some little roadside restaurant—and sometimes just to kiss.
ART: Steve, a friend from high school, calls to wish me a happy birthday every year. For the past couple of years, he’s been the only one who’s remembered—and boy, am I glad!
VIRGINIA: My son brought me flowers one time—and it wasn’t even my birthday!
CAROL: One smoggy day while I was sitting around coughing, my big brother wheeled up in his sports car, said, “Get in,” and whisked me away to Skyli
ne Park on the top of Mt. Wilson. Now I know how Cinderella felt!
MONA: Sandy, a friend from—oh, let’s just say from when I was young—would take out this lovely shawl and start knitting it whenever I was over. I asked her who it was for, but she just said she didn’t know. Then, one day she handed it to me and said, “This is for you because I love you.” Well, I started to cry and we hugged each other and, oh, I’ll just never forget it.
ALAN (your author): On the morning of a difficult and important seminar I was teaching for government employees, a friend named Bob Badal came over especially to prepare my breakfast. It was no ordinary breakfast! He brought New York steaks, brown eggs, several types of imported cheese, strawberries, and fresh-squeezed orange juice! I was overwhelmed and feel, to this day, that his gesture told me more about how much he values me and our friendship than he could ever have expressed with words.
HOW TO EFFECTIVELY RECEIVE POSITIVES
When you start paying others more compliments, you will in all probability start receiving more yourself. If you want these positive exchanges to continue, it’s important that you help those who compliment you to feel good about speaking openly. If you turn away, deny their compliments, or change the subject, it’s unlikely that will happen.
On the other hand, if you look a man in the eye and respond positively, he is likely to feel gratified. Now, if he has skillfully followed his compliment with a question, all you need do is smile, thank him, and answer. If he hasn’t, you can smile, thank him—and perhaps even tell him how you feel about the compliment. Here are some sample responses contributed by students:
JAMES: When my wife told me what a good father I am for taking so much time to play with the girls, I hugged her and said, “I’m glad you see how hard I’m trying. My dad never spent much time with me and I’m making a special effort not to make that mistake.”
CARLA: A neighbor told me, “Your car looks nice,” and I replied, “Thanks, Ann. I washed and waxed it all morning and your noticing makes me feel great!”
BEVERLY: My sister said something like, “I love this room. It seems like it would be such a cheerful place to wake up in.” And I said, “Thanks, Eve. I designed it with exactly that thought in mind!”
CHAPTER THREE
Listening So Others Will Talk
ACTIVE LISTENING
Active listening is a remarkable way of responding that encourages others to continue speaking while enabling you to be certain that you understand what they are saying. To effectively use this skill, you need first to grasp what happens when someone speaks to you.
Interpersonal communication begins intrapersonally. Someone has a feeling or idea to express to you. In order to convey his message, he must first put it into verbal and nonverbal codes that you will understand. What codes he selects, what words and gestures and tone of voice he uses to convey his meaning, will be determined by his purpose, the situation, and his relationship with you, as well as by such factors as his age, status, education, cultural background and emotional state. The process of translating mental ideas and feelings into messages is called encoding.
Suppose, for example, that you are playing a Barbra Streisand tape for a friend. He’s enjoying the music, but wants it softer. You can’t read his mind, so to let you know, he encodes his feelings and shouts above the tape, “TURN IT DOWN!”
Once delivered, the message passes through a channel (normally the airspace between you or a telephone wire). Other sounds in the channel will often distort the message. In this example, Barbra Streisand’s loud singing may produce quite a bit of distortion, and the message your ears pick up may be very different from what was sent.
Further distortion inevitably occurs when you decode the message, assigning meaning to the verbal and nonverbal signs you have received. Out of the approximately 40,000 impulses your toes, ears, eyes, hands, and the rest of you receive each second, you can only pick out a few to focus your attention on. What you pick is heavily influenced by such factors as your expectations, needs, beliefs, interests, attitudes, experience, and knowledge. According to Sathré, Olson, and Whitney, in Let’s Talk, “It has been said that we hear half of what is said, we listen to half of that, and we remember half of that.”4 We all tend to hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. As Fritz Perls, the founder of the Gestalt therapy movement, put it:
The pictures of the world do not enter us automatically, but selectively. We don’t see, we look for, search, scan for something. We don’t hear all the sounds of the world, we listen.5
For this reason, the message intended by the sender is often far different from the one you create from the available signs. Your impression often doesn’t come close to equaling the other person’s intention.
In our example, if you correctly interpreted the sender’s message, you would conclude only that he wanted the music turned lower. But if you interpreted it to mean, “I’m angry at you,” you might well respond inappropriately. Message are often decoded incorrectly, with neither party ever knowing there has been a misunderstanding.
This is why active listening is so important. Instead of assuming that your impressions are correct and responding accordingly, with this skill you will be able to make certain that you have decoded accurately.
“You’re angry at me,” you might say in this example. “Is that right?”
“No,” the sender would probably reply. “I just want the music turned lower.”
Active listening, then, is telling the sender what his message means to you. It enables the sender to know that you are listening while enabling you to have your impression either confirmed or clarified.
Here are some other examples of active listening:
1. CLOE: never get a transfer. MARIE: You’re feeling really frustrated. (Active Listening.) CLOE: Yeah. Everyplace I go they tell me to leave a resume. And then they never call. MARIE: You think you’re getting the runaround. (Active Listening.) CLOE: Exactly. If they haven’t got any jobs, why don’t they just say so?
2. HUSBAND: I don’t want you to play cards tonight WIFE: You don’t like me having fun without you. (Active Listening.) HUSBAND: It’s not that. It’s just that I don’t want to be alone tonight.
3. SUE ELLEN: I want to go home. BURT: You’re not enjoying yourself. (Active Listening.) SUE ELLEN: Right. Maybe if the tour guide quit pushing us around every five minutes, it would be better. BURT: You’d rather he gave us more free time. SUE ELLEN: Yes. I think I’ll tell him so right now.
4. DONNA: We never go anyplace. JOE: You’re bored and want us to take a trip. (Active Listening.) DONNA: Yeah. For years we’ve said we’d go see the country when we retired. Now let’s go do it!
5. Active listening once saved my relationship with a female friend. The third time we got together, while strolling hand-in-hand, I told her how much I looked forward to taking her skiing come winter. She looked away and replied, “Well, maybe we won’t still know each other by then.”
I decoded her message to mean that she didn’t want to go on seeing me. But rather than accepting that impression as fact and turning cold toward her (in which case she might have concluded that I was rejecting her), I used active listening: “Are you saying you don’t want to see me anymore?” I asked.
Her reply was a smile and a hug and, “No, silly. That’s just my roundabout way of saying that I want you to spend more time with me!”
WHEN AND HOW TO USE ACTIVE LISTENING
Active listening is especially useful in two general situations:
1. When you are not certain you understand what the other person means.
2. When an important or emotionally charged message is being sent. Senders will often cue you to the fact that they are saying something particularly significant by:
a. directly referring to it as worthy of notice (“The first thing you need to do is. . . .” “It’s vital for you to understand that. . . .”)
b. repeating a message several times.
c. placing a point
first or last.
d. pausing or waiting for eye contact before speaking.
e. preceding the message with “ahhh”
f. speaking more loudly or softly than usual.
g. speaking more slowly than usual.
When you employ active listening, concentrate on reflecting the feelings others express, the content, or both, depending upon what you think you may have misunderstood and what you consider most important. To arrive at your statement, silently ask yourself:
“What is he feeling?”
“What message is she trying to convey?”
In feeding back your tentative conclusion, you will usually begin with the word “you” and you may wish to prompt a direct reply by adding at the end, “Am I right?” That way, if your conclusion was right, you’ll know it and if it wasn’t, the sender’s response will usually speak directly to the misunderstanding.
ACTIVE LISTENING
DEMONSTRATES YOUR ACCEPTANCE
If you were to find yourself in each of these problem situations, which of these three responses do you think would be most helpful:
1. A child you know cuts her finger and begins to cry. a. “That’s not such a very big cut.”
b. “Stop crying! It doesn’t hurt that bad.”
c. “Your finger really hurts a lot.”
2. A close friend confides, “My boss said I’m not working fast enough and he’ll fire me if I don’t shape up.”
a. “I guess you’d better put your nose to the grindstone.”
b. “You shouldn’t let him get you down. You can always get another job.”
c. “Sounds like your job means a lot to you and you’d hate to lose it.”
3. A neighbor laments, “Well, it looks like I’ve exhausted all my alternatives. I’m going to have to invite my mother to move in with me.”