People Skills_How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts
Page 1
PEOPLE
SKILLS
How to Assert Yourself,
Listen to Others,
and Resolve Conflicts
Robert Bolton, Ph.D.
A TOUCHSTONE BOOK
PUBLISHED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY
Copyright © 1979 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form
First Touchstone Edition, 1986
Published by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Originally published by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Eric Newman
Manufactured in the United States of America
50 49 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 Pbk.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bolton, Robert.
People skills.
(A Touchstone book)
Reprint. Originally published: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, © 1979. (A Spectrum book)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Interpersonal relations.
2. Interpersonal communication.
I. Title.
HM132.B65 1986 302.3′4 86-6737
ISBN 0-671-62248-X Pbk.
ISBN 978-0671-62248-0
eISBN 978-1439-18834-7
TO DOT
My best friend,
closest companion, fun playmate.
Enabler of my various selves,
nurturer of my dreams. Marvelous wife—
sensitive, loving, and genuine
with me, our children, parents, and friends.
Effective in tasks that sustain our common life—
colleague, teacher, partner. I love it that when I am with you
I most often discover, choose, disclose
the selves I really am. I love my experience of you as
a life-ful, love-ful,
value-ful person.
Imperfect, changing, growing, becoming,
yet rooted, consistent—
a friend for all seasons.
You are “something else.”
Contents
Preface,
PART ONE
Introduction,
CHAPTER ONE
Skills for Bridging the Interpersonal Gap,
Communication: Humanity’s Supreme Achievement,
The Ineffectiveness of Most Communication,
The Ache of Loneliness,
So Much Lost Love,
A Key to Success at Work,
A Life-or-Death Matter,
You Can Change,
You Will Change!,
Managing Your Resistance to Learning,
Five Sets of Skills,
Summary,
CHAPTER TWO
Barriers to Communication,
Common Communication Spoilers,
Why Roadblocks Are High-Risk Responses,
Judging: the Major Roadblock,
Roadblock,
Sending Solutions Can Be a Problem!,
Avoiding the Other’s Concerns,
Roadblock Number Thirteen,
Summary,
PART TWO
Listening Skills,
CHAPTER THREE
Listening Is More Than Merely Hearing,
The Importance of Listening,
Listening Defined,
Listening Skill Clusters,
Attending Skills,
Following Skills,
Summary,
CHAPTER FOUR
Four Skills of Reflective Listening,
Reflective Responses Provide a Mirror to the Speaker.
Paraphrasing,
Reflecting Feelings,
Reflecting Meanings,
Summary,
CHAPTER FIVE
Why Reflective Responses Work,
Style and Structure in Listening,
Six Peculiarities of Human Communication,
Skepticism Is Best Dissolved by Action,
Summary,
CHAPTER SIX
Reading Body Language,
The Importance of Body Language,
Nonverbals: The Language of Feelings,
The “Leakage” of Masked Feelings,
Guidelines for Reading Body Language,
Reflect the Feelings Back to the Sender,
A Clear But Confusing Language,
Summary,
CHAPTER SEVEN
Improving Your Reflecting Skills,
Guidelines for Improved Listening,
Beyond Reflective Listening,
When to Listen Reflectively,
When Not to Listen Reflectively,
The Good News and the Bad News,
Summary,
PART THREE
Assertion Skills,
CHAPTER EIGHT
Three Approaches to Relationships,
Listening and Assertion: The Yin and Yang of Communication,
Methods for Developing Assertiveness,
The Need to Protect One’s Personal Space,
Impacting,
The Submission-Assertion-Aggression Continuum,
Payoffs and Penalties of Three Ways of Relating,
Choose for Yourself,
Summary,
CHAPTER NINE
Developing Three-Part Assertion Messages,
Verbal Assertion: The Third Option,
Three-Part Assertion Messages,
Effective and Ineffective Ways of Confrontation,
Writing Three-Part Assertion Messages,
A Voyage of Self-Discovery and Growth,
Summary,
CHAPTER TEN
Handling the Push-Push Back Phenomenon,
Surprise Attack,
The Human Tendency to Be Defensive,
The Upward Spiral of Increasing Defensiveness,
A Six-Step Assertion Process,
Summary,
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Increasing Your Assertive Options,
Many Varieties of Assertive Behavior,
“Natural” Assertions,
Self-Disclosure,
Descriptive Recognition,
Relationship Assertions,
Selective Inattention,
Withdrawal,
The Spectrum Response,
Options,
Natural and Logical Consequences,
Stop the Action; Accept the Feelings,
Say “No!,”
Modify the Environment,
The Danger of Going Overboard,
The Aura of Assertiveness,
Summary,
PART FOUR
Conflict Management Skills,
CHAPTER TWELVE
Conflict Prevention and Control,
Conflict Is Unavoidable,
Conflict is Disruptive and/or Destructive,
The Benefits of Conflict,
Realistic and Nonrealistic Conflict,
Personal Conflict Prevention and Control Methods,
Group/Organizational Prevention and Control Methods,
The Dangers of Conflict Prevention and Control,
Summary,
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Handling the Emotional Components of Conflict,
Focus on the Emotions First,
The Conflict Resolution Method,
Th
e Conflict Resolution Method in Action,
Four Ways to Use the Conflict Resolution Method,
Preparation for the Encounter,
Evaluating the Conflict,
Expected Outcomes of the Conflict Resolution Method,
Summary,
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Collaborative Problem Solving: Seeking an Elegant Solution,
Three Kinds of Conflict,
Alternatives to Collaborative Problem Solving,
Seeking an Elegant Solution Through Collaborative Problem Solving,
Six Steps of the Collaborative Problem-Solving Method,
What This Problem-Solving Method Communicates,
Collaborative Problem-Solving in Action,
Handling the Crucial Preliminaries,
What Do I Do When Collaborative Problem Solving Doesn’t Work?,
Applications of Collaborative Problem Solving,
Summary,
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Three Essentials for Effective Communication,
In Communication, Skills Alone Are Insufficient,
Genuineness,
Nonpossessive Love,
Empathy,
Implementation of the Core Attitudes,
AFTERWORD
Four Steps to Improved Communication,
A Quantified Commitment to Use the Skills,
Select Appropriate Situations,
Undaunted by Occasional Failure,
Prepare Others for the Change,
Skill Training,
Notes,
Index,
Preface
“‘Tis the good reader that makes the book,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. That truth applies especially to this type of book. A reader who only wants to toy with a few ideas will gain little from this volume. It is written for people with a strong enough desire to improve their relationships that they will experiment with the approaches to communication outlined in the following pages. It will do little good merely to read this book. However, those who persistently and creatively use these skills in their daily lives will notice significant changes in their relationships.
Effective communication is not something that has come easily to me. I suppose that if I had been especially capable in interpersonal communication from my childhood on, I would never have studied it so tenaciously. It was because communication was a problem for me that I researched it, tried out what I learned, taught it, and wrote about it.
I feel better qualified to teach these skills precisely because they do not come easily for me. I have struggled through many of the same impasses that block the typical learner from developing more fruitful ways of relating. Perhaps because of some of these initial deficits I can help you to overcome many of the pitfalls to learning and using these skills.
The writing of this book has gone on amidst the absorbing and incessant demands of managing a consulting firm. There are undoubtedly many advantages to writing in an unhurried, undemanding schedule. The daily pressure of an active business and teaching life, however, may be more of an advantage than a disadvantage. The skills have been used and tested daily in the hurly-burly of life as the book was written over a six-year period.
I write these pages with confidence that they will be of great benefit to the reader who applies them. Several thousand copies of earlier editions have been read by participants of our Communication Skills workshops. Literally hundreds who have read early editions of this book have written to say that these approaches to interpersonal relationships have worked for them and have greatly enriched their lives. Many say the book not only changed their ideas about human interaction, but it also helped them change their behaviors and enhance their relationships. This expanded volume should be even more useful.
This book, which began as a journey into myself and a study of how my interactions with people could be improved, was nourished by the thinking, research, teaching, and writing of Thomas Gordon, Carl Rogers, Allen Ivey, Gerard Egan, and Robert Carkhuff. The references in the “Notes” section indicate many of the other authors who have contributed to my understanding of interpersonal communication. Sometimes, when I am reading, the way a person has phrased his truth is as important to me as the truth itself. The wording is like a powerful painting that I would like to put on the wall. I want to share the statement with other people, not just for its truth, but also because the way it is worded somehow has a special meaning for me. So, sprinkled throughout these pages, you will find many quotations that resonate with my experience, taste, and values.
The concepts in this book have been discussed at length with colleagues at Ridge Consultants, especially Dot Bolton and Ed Lisbe. Their thinking and phrasing have contributed much to the book.
Special thanks too are due to the students in our communication-skills workshops who have contributed to my understanding. They have come from all walks of life: managers, salespeople, secretaries, teachers, health-care professionals, customer-relations personnel, construction workers, supervisors, psychologists, lawyers, members of the clergy, and many others. As they struggled to develop their communication skills, I found easier ways to teach these methods. As participants wrestled to apply the skills to particular situations, I discovered inadequacies in the theory and methods and was able to develop more helpful constructs. Many of the examples in the book come from their experiences. Names and some details have been disguised to preserve anonymity.
Many institutions have aided the development of this program. A cooperative venture with the College of Saint Rose, in Albany, New York, enabled thousands of educators to take graduate courses in which the methods taught in this book could be learned and applied in their daily work. Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, governmental agencies, religious orders, hospitals, universities, counseling centers, and other organizations afforded us the opportunity to teach these skills to people from a wide variety of backgrounds. The feedback we have received has helped sharpen the presentation in this book. It has also confirmed the importance of these skills and their relevance to a myriad of work situations as well as to family and other personal relationships.
Laura Weeks was of great help in the research of portions of this book and in polishing the phrasing of some sections. Pat Freeborn also polished the language in some of the chapters. Dot Bolton read the entire volume and made numerous improvements both large and small, and Ed Lisbe did the same with several key chapters.
Having traced just a portion of my indebtedness, it may seem strange that I still think of this as “my” book. The simile used by the author of one of the earliest English manuals of botany conveys my feelings very accurately:
Some of [my readers] will say, seeing that I graunte that I have gathered this book of so many writers, that I offer unto you a heap of other mennis laboures, and nothing of mine owne…. To whome I answere that if the honeye that the bees gather out of so many floure of herbes, shrubbes and trees, that are growing in other mennis meadows, feldes, and closes may justelye be called the bee’s honeye…. so may I call that I have learned and gathered of so many autores … my booke.1
In spite of the strong stimulus of others on my methods of communication and my thoughts about it, I, of course, am responsible for the material in these pages.
Until we develop a satisfactory set of unisex pronouns, the issue of whether to refer to a person in general as “he” or as “he/she” is one that must be settled. I was unhappy with either option. So all general references to human beings are made in feminine terms in the even-numbered chapters and in masculine terms in the odd-numbered chapters.
Some of the people familiar with the content of this volume say that Chapter Fifteen, “Three Essentials for Effective Communication,” should be read first. Others say that it should be read in the middle of the book. Others believe that it should be read last. If at some point it seems to you that the book is too focused on methods of communication and not the spirit that infuses interactions with life, take a detour through Chapter Fifteen
before continuing.
My wish for you, the reader, is that the skills taught in this book will benefit you as much as they have benefitted me.
PART ONE
Introduction
As a result of a person’s socialization, he has already acquired some interpersonal skills. However, one’s level of functioning in terms of these skills can be raised. Everyone has a vast capacity for being more understanding, respectful, warm, genuine, open, direct, and concrete in his human relationships. With a sound body of theoretical knowledge, appropriate models, and numerous opportunities for personal experiencing, the process of becoming more fully human can be greatly accelerated.1
—George Gazda, educator
CHAPTER ONE
Skills for Bridging
the Interpersonal Gap
I wish I had some way to make a bridge from man to man…. Man is all we’ve got.1
—Cross Daman in Richard Wright’s Outsider
COMMUNICATION: HUMANITY’S
SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT
When one person communicates to another through the medium of language something takes place between them that is found nowhere else in nature. This ability to turn meaningless grunts into spoken and written words constitutes humanity’s most important distinction. Language has made possible the development of those characteristics that differentiate Homo sapiens from all other creatures. No wonder the German philosopher Karl Jaspers claims, “Man’s supreme achievement in the world is communication from personality to personality.”2
THE INEFFECTIVENESS
OF MOST COMMUNICATION
Although interpersonal communication is humanity’s greatest accomplishment, the average person does not communicate well. One of the ironies of modern civilization is that, though mechanical means of communication have been developed beyond the wildest flight of the imagination, people often find it difficult to communicate face-to-face. In this age of technological marvels we can bounce messages off the moon and land space probes on Mars, but we find it difficult to relate to those we love.
I have become increasingly aware of the inadequacy of most communication. In our society it is rare for persons to share what really matters—the tender, shy, reluctant feelings, the sensitive, fragile, intense disclosures. It is equally rare for persons to listen intently enough to really understand what another is saying. Sometimes people fix their gaze on a friend who is talking and allow their minds to wander off to other matters. Sometimes, while the friend speaks, they pretend to listen but are merely marking time, formulating what they will say as soon as they discover a way to begin talking. Nathan Miller caustically remarked that “conversation in the United States is a competitive exercise in which the first person to draw a breath is declared the listener.”