Laura: "I would like to make a change in the process to improve it."
Me: "We’ve always done it this way, it's been working fine. I don’t see why we need to change it now."
Laura: "I understand."
(Said coldly, with absolutely no understanding in tone of voice)
I was coaching Laura how to acknowledge others. As she practiced scenarios that were challenging for her, like the one above, her words were right, but her tone destroyed her acknowledgement.
Your tone of voice is MUCH more important than your words. Your tone of voice reflects what you're really thinking and you can't fake it.
I asked Laura, "You said you understand. DO you understand?"
Laura laughed and said, "No! I can't understand it!"
I said, "How come?" Laura said, "I think what they’re saying is a really stupid reason."
I said, "Oh! You’re too busy disagreeing to understand!"
Laura laughed and said, "Precisely!”
And this is what happens between people. When they don’t agree, they withdraw their understanding.
In communication, REAL communication, satisfying, communication, communication that's really working well, agreement is NOT required. Understanding always is.
Without understanding, the wheels fall off the car.
Most people not only don’t know the difference between agreement and understanding, they get hopelessly tangled up between them. They think if they understand, they have to agree. They don’t want to understand because they don’t agree. They think if they tell the person they understand, the other person will take advantage of them. And, most of all, they are focused on making the other person agree with them. They skip understanding altogether. It causes a real mess in human relations.
You can check any dictionary, Understand by definition simply means you understand. Understanding contains NO judgement. It’s simply your full perception. It means that you can see it from the other person’s point of view, you get what they’re saying. You can follow their logic. I’m not saying it’s YOUR logic. I’m saying you can follow their logic. You get it.
Saying, “I understand him. He just wants to get ahead.” is judgement, not understanding.
Refusing to understand when you disagree will only get you into trouble.
People LOVE to be understood, just about more than they love anything. People like talking to someone who understands them. They don’t like talking to people who don’t understand them. I’ve delivered our programs in 53 countries and this is true in every single one of them.
People like talking to me because I really understand them. It’s not because I agree with them, because I often don’t. I spend a lot of my time shifting other people’s viewpoints and getting them to see what I see and they end up agreeing with me. But I know HOW to do it and because I really understand them, they’re WILLING to see it from my viewpoint. Once they are WILLING to see it from your viewpoint, the conversation shifts and you have a whole different, much more satisfying conversation. And, if you have a good point, they can suddenly see it, and that leads to agreement.
It’s pretty simple really. People aren’t that complicated.
But people get into conflict or difficult situations because they don’t know enough about the power and magic of understanding. There is no more powerful force in the universe.
It really does come down to your willingness to understand when you disagree. It’s a high level skill.
I took Laura through some communication exercises that really taxed her, practicing understanding things she doesn’t agree with. The first 3 were really hard. Then she was gradually able to expand her viewpoint to ALSO see it from the other person’s point of view.
Once she could also see life from another person’s point of view, whether or not she agrees with them, there was no going back. She understood. Simply understanding was like looking at the world with new eyes. And she now has the ability to talk to ANYONE.
When Laura did this, everything about her changed. Her body language, her eyes, the tone of voice, her warmth. It was amazing because all the stress went out of her. And NOW when Laura said, “Yeah, I CAN really understand that.” You could really feel it, it was sincere, it was genuine, it was irresistible.
Now Laura can talk about her point of view. Now she can SAFELY disagree … and not blow the conversation up and create conflict. Now she can disagree and create an exceptional relationships and extraordinary outcomes at the same time. This is the essence of being causative.
Laura became the most persuasive woman in her department. They’re putting her in the middle of the most challenging conversations because, “No one can handle them like Laura can.”
Understanding is something you’re born with. We’ve been carefully taught not to do it (a subject for a different article). But it’s an ability you have that you can recover. It’s something you can remember. Possibly the words “seeing through the eyes of a child” have special meaning for you.
The point is, it is something you can learn to recover. It is THE key to experiencing a future where everything is possible.
What would happen if you decided to truly understand, even when you disagree? My sincerest wish is that you get the opportunity to experience the answer to that question.
Be the cause!