Communication blockers — being “over”
Overdoing in communication
There are several communication blockers that may spoil our team meetings. They often attack in doles which makes them more powerful and disruptive. The most common are:
WHEN I MAY BE SEEN AS BEING “OVER”?
The most common “overs” are: over-rationalizing, being over-emotional, overgeneralizing, and over-detailing.
Overgeneralizing is when the person simplifies things too much or is treating past events as unavoidable happening in the future. The words which may make us be seen as overgeneralizing are “always”, and “never”. Those words are being seen as aggressive.
When someone starts their sentence with: “Why do you ALWAYS…” or “You NEVER…” — you kind of know there is gonna be a fight… “Why did you…. THIS TIME” or “THIS TIME you haven’t…” — don’t sound that aggressive, why?
When we are using a generalization like “always” or “never”, the addressed person may feel predetermined, inevitable, and powerless. This takes away some of the freedom that the other person has. Plus it’s ineffective because there ALWAYS be this “one time” when the person behaved differently, so your argumentation will be neglected.
A: "You never pick up your socks from the floor!" -> overgeneralization
B: "That's not true, I've picked my socks up last week!"
A: "Ok, that was one pair, and what about the rest?!"
B: "That doesn't matter, I've picked them up once so I'm right and you're wrong!" -> redefinitionThe moment you use the word “always” or “never” in your argumentation — you lose. It’s not worth it.
Over detailing.
Going into the details is not objectively wrong, it may be useful to have in your team a person who is able to pick up the inconsistency and dig deeper. This is a very valid skill. Used regardless of the need or context it may become a communication blocker and a waste of time.
Being rational is a valid skill as well. Very useful in keeping us on the ground and concentrated on the most important matter. In some cases, it can hamstring creativity, so it’s worth learning how to let it go. Brainstorming sessions are one of the examples when we shouldn’t be too rational (in their first part — idea generation). Allow others to bring all their ideas to the table without discounting them, that will help to build a safe and creative space for speaking up. Sometimes we need to say the obvious out loud to be able to open our minds and dig deeper.
Being over-emotional may have a few flavors: reacting aggressively, being sulk, and sometimes showing too much excitement.
Aggressive reactions and being sulk are most usually the result of taking things too personally. When our idea is being discussed some of us may feel personally attacked, either because we are (for e.g. the person who is dismissing the idea is actually attacking us instead of the idea) or because we do care about the idea deeply and really believe in it. It may be hard to learn how to be emotionally detached from our ideas and at the same time stay fully engaged in defending them, it’s an art that’s worth learning.
DO WE NEED TO CONTROL OUR EMOTIONS AT WORK?
When one shows “too radical” emotions at work “too often” one may be taken as “too much” and yes, unfortunately, we may even be seen as too positive! It really depends on the culture we work in. It’s difficult to bring our true self to work and at the same time not to react in our “normal way”. It almost feels unfair.
Should we tune our emotional reaction at work?
On one hand, we should be able to bring our true selves and feel comfortable manifesting our feelings at work on the other we need to remember that there are some limits… In your working environment (if you are not Steve Jobs) no one will accept if you’d react aggressively or treat others with disdain. People may also not feel comfortable if you start crying when your idea won’t get chosen. Even if this is how you’d feel like reacting.
Being yourself at work helps you to focus on the work instead of wasting bandwidth on thinking “how should you behave” or “how would you like to be seen”.
In reality, though not all workplaces are fully accepting, people can think of stereotypes. Allowing ourselves on being “too” emotional we risk being judged as “less professional”.
I will leave this question open for you to answer… LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENT!
This article was firstly published on my blog teambooster
