Collaborative Communication
TOOL: “Collaborative Communication”
The goal of collaborative communication is moving from being in opposition on two sides of an issue to working as a team member to resolve a mutual problem.
To do this, you need to understand that there are at least two legitimate points of view, and that despite your differences you both want to find a collaborative solution. This will only be possible when you each understand and feel compassion for the other’s experience, and when you each feel you are fully being heard.
“Being heard” is actually one of the strongest predictors of marital satisfaction (citation). And it makes sense! When you feel heard by your partner, you feel cared for. You know s/he is paying attention to you, putting effort into listening and understanding your thoughts and feelings, and valuing your input. This is essential to being able to make shared decisions and find solutions to conflicts. If you don’t feel heard by your partner, you may instead infer that s/he doesn’t care enough to make an effort to understand your experience and is dismissing your input.
The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh once said,
“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.”
This is a chance to give each other that gift. And to really listen.
Instructions:
Set up a supportive context.
Let your partner know you’d like to discuss a particular subject about which you have a small disagreement.
I ask the couples I work with to choose an issue that is small enough they believe their partner could be flexible, but meaningful enough that resolving the issue would bring them closer. Practicing this skill with a small issue first makes it easier to use it later with more difficult problems.
Format for Communicating in a constructive way.
You will each have an opportunity to be a Speaker and a Listener. Being successful in both of these roles rests on the ability of each of you to tolerate differences through your caring for your partner (your bond), and by understanding that there is more than one perspective (a boundary).
Your shared goal is to help your partner feel that you are an ally, not an adversary, in reaching a collaborative solution.
Instructions to the Speaker:
The speaker’s responsibility is to set the tone for a collaborative exchange. Your goal is to express your perspective to your partner in a way that you will feel fully heard and understood.
1) Know how you perceive the situation and what you think and feel about the issue.
2) Express your experience, thoughts, and feelings in a clear, direct, and calm way that you believe your partner could hear. You can do this most effectively if you…
3) Make it clear that you are stating your point of view and that you are aware there is another perspective. And if you…
4) Open a dialogue that you feel lends itself to a collaborative solution, perhaps one you likely haven’t thought of yet. Do your best not to lobby for a specific outcome. Your aim is just to be heard and understood.
Instructions to the Listener
The Listener’s role is to complete the circle. Your goal is to fully hear and understand your partner’s perspective and reflect it back to them so that they feel heard.
1) Listen respectfully and attentively.
2) When the speaker has finished, mirror the content of the message to assure that the speaker has been heard. Then ask them if you got the message right. If you didn’t, let the speaker add what was missed.
3) Next, identify feelings associated with the message to assure the speaker has been emotionally understood. Ask the speaker if you got all of the feelings? If not, let the speaker fill in whatever was left out.
4) Join empathically to assure the speaker feels cared for. Make eye-contact or even reach out to him or her. When the speaker feels heard and understood by the listener, both of you will feel your mirror neurons locking in with each other, and you will feel an experience of being in sync.
This process can be transformative, as it may considerably shift or widen your perspective from what it was at the beginning. You are beginning to experience what it means to build a shared perspective.
Switch Roles. Now let the Speaker become the Listener and the Listener become the Speaker.
If the two of you are able to successfully complete this series of eight steps, you should now have some altered feelings and certainly broader points of view than the two conflicting perspectives you began with. Hopefully you will feel that you are no longer in opposition on two separate sides of an issue, but that you see the entire picture together, as a team, and if this is a conflict that requires a solution, you will feel ready to work together to find one.
Understand before disagreeing.
—Justice Stevens
Copyright Barbara B White Ph.D. 2008
