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Ksusha

What life hacks help you to solve difficult situations when communicating with people?

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Communication between people can be very difficult: someone will catch something wrong, someone is thinking something, so conflict situations occur. Can you share your life hacks of effective communication with colleagues/partners/clients so that there would be no misunderstandings and the work proceeds well.

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Christian Lowe
A big hack I've learned for preventing miscommunications is to verbally check my assumptions. When someone does something I don't understand or that seems slightly rude I say: "You did or said 'X', which I interpret to mean 'Y'. Can you tell me if my assumption is correct?" It's worked wonders for dispelling miscommunications in both my professional and personal life, and it's even helped me learn a lot about my own hidden biases
Piotr Borkowicz
if there are some decisions that you don't agree on and each of you is betting against the other, it's a good idea to just go to lunch with the person and ask about the past and their motivations and all the things that might have influenced their decision, ask them how they came to that conclusion. The employee's past matters a lot and will allow you to be more empathetic and understand their opinion. It may not be possible to apply this tactic to every situation, but it works for me. If you're not on a collegial level, it's a good idea to do a retro of the project, tell which things worked and which didn't, and use the START/STOP/CONTINUE templates in the direct feedback
Ksusha
@peter_borkowicz thank you for the answer. Yeah, I agree it's important always to ask "why?why do you think that way?" and discuss the situation in details
Ksusha
@peter_borkowicz do you read any books/listen to podcasts/watch youtube videos about psychology and relations between people?
Piotr Borkowicz
@ksusha_golovchenko Yeah, I've read a few books and I can recommend you the following channels on YT: Pursuit of Wonder, Einzelgänger, Psych2GO, The School of Life
Paul Mit
My tip is to take a pause and turn yourself off from the cycle of conflict. Step aside, think, sleep, and come back with a calm head and heart.
Ksusha
@mituhin great! how do you manage to take a pause? because most of the time emotions go first and people wish to express that
Paul Mit
@ksusha_golovchenko you are right, this is the most hardest thing. You need to take 10 breaths and make this decision :)
Michael Xing
Ask questions to make sure you know what the other person is talking about before you go any further!
DCodes
@mrmuke Hey Michael! I'm currently looking for feedback on Make A Card, a tool to quickly create minimal virtual event cards: https://www.makeacard.info/
Michael Xing
@dcodes Sure, would be happy to! Could we also get feedback on Spade (we just relaunched today)?
Michael Xing
@dcodes Woahh, they look and feel awesome - definitely bookmarking this! Traditional zoom invitations pale in comparison.
DCodes
@mrmuke Enjoyed the YouTube promo! I like how you showed a real life usecase of how to use Spade! Nice job!
Giuseppe Di Nuccio
Active listening and really putting ourselves in others' shoes is the way to do it. There's a great book I suggest: "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss. It's about Negotation techniques and approaches, and it definitely teaches how to talk and interact with people even in life-critical situations, that apply perfectly to business context.
Ksusha
@giuseppe_di_nuccio thank you, im looking for literature about relationships/psychology/ business communications now. Maybe you have other books?
Giuseppe Di Nuccio
@ksusha_golovchenko Then here couple of suggestions (but there are plenty of excellent books if you start searching for): - "How to win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie - it's an- evergreen classic - "Pre-suasion" by Robert Cialdini - a pillar in the persuasive psychology - "Ogilvy on Advertising" by David Ogilvy - if you want to start in the Ads world - "Impossible to Ignore" by Carmen Simon - an awesome book with a lot of research As said, the list would be endless, choose one domain and then start exploring that area ;)
Rehan Choudhry
Empathy. A long time ago I was taught that a big reason of why any given person shows up a certain way (good or bad) is because of what's going on in their world outside of that particular situation. We are all carrying baggage with us into every conversation and interaction. Carry a deep sense of empathy for what others are facing is always a helpful way to reframe difficult situations for me.
Ksusha
@rehan_choudhry1 yeah, empathy is extremely important!
Utku Uzun
I believe that first thing is listening and second thing is listening to understand. Not listening to prepare your answer. As long as two people are willing to understand each other, it'll be a good conversation.
Andrejus Musatovas
The most important thing is to find a common language with a person and find common goals and interests. As a result, understand what your interlocutor needs, how you can help him. I work in the interests of the interlocutor, and only then for my personal purposes.
DCodes
@andrejus_musatovas Hey Andrejus! I'm currently looking for feedback on Make A Card, a tool to create minimal virtual event cards: https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Alan Nowogrodski
Breathing...and not talking until I'm ready to be calm.
Leyla Aliyeva
Use lots of kindness, when dealing with difficult people, the gut reaction is to be difficult right back. When it feels like someone is attacking you, your first thought is to defend yourself. I’ve been there and still get caught up in that when I don’t slow down and take a pause. What I have found in almost every difficult situation is kindness goes a lot further than being difficult. When two people are being difficult with each other, the situation tends to escalate to a point where nothing will get accomplished. On the other hand, when you use lots of kindness with a difficult person many times, it diffuses the situation and you get more of what you want. This is one of the top techniques for dealing with difficult people.
Amelia Charlie
Listening is 50% of communication; if you do this wrong, you fail big time! What to do: Listen until the person finished speaking, wait 2–3 seconds, then reply listen to everything that is said, and don't skip the uninteresting parts, so listening carefully and answering the statement will help you a lot.
Amelia Charlie
@assi_mahmood Abuse increases as rage do. No gains are made, but you do lose. Although abusive behavior is never acceptable, if someone continues to act that way, I avoid them
Sakshi Gahlawat
I try to keep myself calm under difficult situations and sort things out peacefully.
Clarisse Jouassain
Start by a disclaimer if we are not sure about the shape or the sentence
Bhavna Singh
Communication at times turn up into the argument and which eventually results in problem understanding the situation in right way. My hack in these scenarios is basically to listen what other is saying patiently, and after the other person spills out everything then slightly placing my words and make them comfortable enough to listen what I have to say, this way both can listen to each other view point and then come to the conclusion.
Brian Sparker
1. Make sure that you are clear about what you want to say. This may seem like common sense, but it is actually something that many people struggle with. Before speaking up, take the time to think about what you want to say and how best to say it. 2. Avoid using jargon or technical language unless everyone involved understands it. Even if you are confident that you know what the other person means, there is always a risk of misinterpretation when using specialized terminology incorrectly or without explanation. 3."Be aware of your body language." Gestures and facial expressions can often send just as strong a message as words do - sometimes even stronger! Be mindful of your posture and movements when interacting with others; try not cross your arms or legs if those positions tend be closed off or defensive in nature.."
Joshua Poddoku
Ask more questions and listen to the person more than you speak. This can avoid such situations. But if something is misunderstood then here are few ways that probably might help to build the trust or solve the conflict: - Add more perspective to your thoughts - Don't force the other person to agree - Ask questions and clarify without delaying - Be realistic! - Little things always matter - Give back something to fill the gap - Start the communication you want to back again
Zoon Zookla
Getting feedback. I just explained something--have some expectations on what is understood--I make sure I ask what has been understood.
Pornsawan K
In my mind, communication is tough because of the meaning each other is different sometimes. So, when I communicated with my partner, I always tried to repeat and explain more when we didn't see one goal. Even if my partner and I didn't agree with that but we were never angry with each other. Just trying to talk as much as possible.
Fedor Zhdanov
A couple which are probably most useful: 1. "The space between the stimulus and the response." (from the well known book). If something triggers you, you always have the choice to react or to calm down and respond. Second is better in the vast majority of the situations. 2. To communicate, you need to find a meaningful common ground, which both parties share.
Ksusha
@fedorzh what about unlived emotions? before I drowned out my emotions, but then my psychologist said that could be dangerous for mental health
Fedor Zhdanov
@ksusha_golovchenko I'd say that work is not for exposing emotions; maybe in private life things can be a bit different. Also, you can analyze your emotional response later, and relive it, no need to shuffle it down the drain. Just not in the moment
Gauri Apte
For me, may be the fear of losing my point in a discussion holds me back from actually listening to what the other person is saying in a heated discussion. So what I do is, I assure myself that I had a point and I tried to put it on the table, it doesn't have to be right or wrong. point is I tried, which calms me down immidietly. Once you get a hold of situation, you can find better ways to take the discussion forward.