15 Sep 2010
Relationships aren’t complicated – we just make them that way
Understanding takes work
A few weeks ago I wrote a series of posts about conflict resolution.
At the moment I am really enjoying leading a workshop on Stephen Covey’s “the 8th Habit”, and I came across a part that seemed to both enforce what I was writing earlier and develop it further.
One sentence seemed to jump off the page:
“My experience is that if people really try to understand each other, they will, in most, but not all cases, come to agree with each other. Why? Because over 90 percent of all communication problems are caused by differences in either semantics or perceptions”.
What do you think about that statement?
I think its probably true but its really hard to test it’s validity, because unless I have done the work to really understand the person or people I am having conflict with, then the normal and easy option is to find a label for them, such as “trouble maker”, “divisive” or simply “wrong”.
Covey says:
‘Whenever people listen to each other with true empathy, that is, within the other’s frame of reference, both semantic and perceptual problems dissolve…..
This is because they’re listening from within the other’s frame of reference. They’re sensing how the other defines words and terms, or how the other interprets meaning and data. This puts them on the same song sheet, using the same language, which then enables them to get on with with problem solving on the other 10 percent of the genuine disagreements.
The spirit of this mutual understanding is so affirming, so healing, so bonding that when people do discuss their disagreements, they do it in agreeable ways and usually are able to solve them either through synergy or a form of compromise”.
What Covey says backs up a lot of what I was writing in the series of posts on conflict resolution.
There can be a cheap kind of fellowship that is found through the avoidance of conflict, or there can be a kind of self righteous triumphancy that looks for a fight, but Covey (and the articles I wrote) point to a different way.
Relationships don’t have to be complicated… we just make them that way.