Dealing with Conflict (Part Three)

Barriers to effective communication

1. Criticising

2. Name-calling Judging

3. Diagnosing

Sender Message Receiver

Sender

Feedback

Message

Receiver

Message 

4. Praising objectively

5. Ordering

6. Threatening

7. Moralising Sending solutions

8. Excessive/inappropriate questioning

9. Advising

10. Diverting

11. Logical argument Avoiding other concerns

12. Reassuring

 

More barriers to effective communication

Our personal ‘cages - People have different perceptions of words and actions

Filtering information - Hearing only what you want to hear

Emotions blurring the message - Responding to body language

No common language being spoken

- Use of jargon

Conflicting verbal and non-verbal messages

- Ingnoring information that conflicts with what we know

Comparing this person to others - Evaluating the source of the information

Reading the other person’s mind - Looking for personal agenda

Rehearsing what you are going to say

- Not responding to questions

Judging - Determining your response before reviewing evidence

Identifying with the other person’s problems

- Demonstrating some bias

Rescuing - Asking leading questions

Sparring - Asking antagonising questions

Being right - Not being open to other views

 

Blocking phrases – road blocks to communication

1. Ordering, directing, commanding

- You take this

- You get me the ball

2. Warning, threatening

- If you do that one more time I’ll send you off

- Okay, now you’ve had it

3. Preaching, moralising

- Some people never seem to know when to stop

- I wish somebody would teach you a bit more respect

4. Advising

- Why don’t you try and play the game?

- How about getting your players on side?

5. Judging, criticising, blaming 

- I would have though you would have known better

6. Name calling, ridiculing, shaming 

- You clumsy idiot

- You ought to be ashamed of yourself

7. Interpreting, psychoanalysing, assuming

- How come you’re so penalty prone?

- You were just trying to get back at me for what I did last game 

8. Teaching, instructing 

- How would you like it if someone did that to you?

- I wonder if you know how much that annoys me

9. Rescuing, intervening 

- I guess I’ll have to stop you doing that

- You’ll look ridiculous to everyone if you make that error again

10. Expecting too much 

- It’s so obvious that you should read your rule book

- Other players remember to plan things before they do them

 

More blocking phrases Which of these phrases would you commonly use and how often would you use them?

1. No

2. Can’t (with a shake of the head and an air of finality)

3. That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard

4. Yeah, but if you did that – (poses extreme or unlikely result)

5. Our business is different. You can’t do that here

6. Our system isn’t set up to do it that way

7. We tried that years ago

8. Look, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks

9. That’s not in our area

10. We’ve done all right so far, why do we need to do this now?

11. I don’t see anything wrong with the way we are doing it now

12. That doesn’t sound too practical. Or That sounds too theoretical

13. We’ve never done anything like that before

14. You’re talking about changing the whole way we do things! 15. Let’s not get off on a tangent

16. Let’s get back to reality

17. We’ve got a deadline to meet, we don’t have time to fool around

18. It’s too expensive to do it that way

19. It’s not in the budget

20. They will never buy it

21. Let’s take that up some other time

22. Are you kidding?

23. Let’s set up a committee to look at it. Or We’ll deal with it next meeting

24. We’ll be a joke if we follow this path

25. I’ve got the whistle

26. I’m the boss