If it is so Good to Talk, Why is it so Hard? , livre ebook

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108 pages

English

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Communication is the key to success in life - both personally and professionally. Focuses on the neurophysiological roots of poor communication and how to address them.Helps to develop important skills to use in conversation.'Talk to them.' 'Have the conversation.' 'You have to tell them.'We have probably all been there, whether it was the advice of someone close to us, or our own inner voice.It is always good advice, but some conversations are hard. We just cannot get the words out. Or we try our best but someone gets angry, or defensive, and it all goes horribly wrong. Maybe we think we got our point across, but it turns out that no-one was listening. Or, perhaps, that was us?What would life be like if feeling understood - by your family, by your colleagues, by your friends, even by those you strongly disagree with - was a regular experience?If it is so Good to Talk, Why is it so Hard? brings together the latest neuroscientific research, ancient wisdom and the author's own experience of helping families through their hardest conversations. It explores why those shutters come down so easily and, through a series of guided reflections, shows us how we can rediscover the power of conversation.

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Gestion et management

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 avril 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838599171
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 2019 Ian A. Marsh

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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To Rosy
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part I: Conversation
1. Keeping company
2. Rules and Responsibilities
3 When I use a word...
4. Text and context

Part II: Barriers
5. The ‘E-word’
6. Safety first
7. Perception is everything
8. Remembrance of things past
9. Meet the ancestors

Part III: Bridges
10. Give me the child until he is seven
11. Being there
12. Being here
13. Beginner’s mind
14. That could be me
15. The ‘L-word’
16. One husband, five wives
17. Save as draft – delete
18. Practice makes…

Part IV: Community
19. Belonging
20. Glue and grease

Afterword
Reflections
Appendix 1: Universal emotions and labels for them
Appendix 2: Who’s Who
Notes
Bibliography
Endnotes
Acknowledgements
There are many people without whose appearance in my life this book would never have happened. Sadly, some of them are no longer with us. Others I only ever interacted with online, or through their own writing. Many of the most important – all the clients I have worked with, and learned so much from over the years – must, for obvious reasons, forever remain anonymous.
Those whom I can acknowledge openly are, in the order of their appearance in the story of my life: Roselyn Fell, Michael Carter, Malcolm Gammie, David Tandy, John Rowe, David Jenner, William Ury, Edmund Granski, John Ding Teah Chean, David Richbell, Joanna Kalowski, Daniel Siegel, and Carol Seah.
I must also thank Christian Stewart, Riccardo Abbate, Kecia Barkawi-Hauser and Alexander Barkawi for reading and commenting on various sections of the book in draft. Any remaining errors are, of course, mine alone.
When I began, I could not have known how good a case study the writer–editor conversation would have made. Heartfelt thanks to Lisa Cordaro for her wisdom and patience throughout the conversation that turned manuscript into book-in-waiting.
Huge thanks also to all at Troubador who have helped turn book-in-waiting into book-in-hand: to Heidi Hurst, not only for managing the whole process but also for giving the book its “look”, both choosing and setting the type; to Chelsea Taylor for her work on the cover design; and to Kat Rooke for reading the proofs. Between them, they have given my text its context.
Last but no means least, huge thanks also to Wendy Baskett for providing the part of the book I was taught long ago to read first in non-fiction; its index. You’ll notice that the index has been removed for the ebook version, as the interactive ebook format renders it unnecessary - as the amount of text on the screen will vary depending on how large or small the reader has set the font size on their device, page numbers will be different for everyone. If you are looking for a specific term or phrase, simply use the search function on your mobile phone, tablet, or e-reader.

If you do happen to dip back into the book in print at a later stage and make use of the index, I do hope you’ll appreciate Wendy’s talents.
Introduction
The Chinese philosopher Laozi 1 famously said that ‘the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’.. 2 So it must. Take no action and, believe it or not, nothing will happen. But written Chinese, being ideographic, never has one clear and fixed meaning, and what Laozi wrote can be equally well translated as saying that the journey ‘begins beneath one’s feet’. Start from where you are, not from where you would prefer to start – and so we should.
Most of us probably regard ourselves as pretty good communicators. After all, we do it every day, and have been doing it since we first opened our eyes, looked up into our mother’s face and told her in no uncertain way – but without a single word – that we needed her to care for us for a little while: actually, for quite a long while! For most of us, that works out pretty well, but what of our later conversations? What do those we talk to think? Do we even bother to check? Or do we take it for granted, like breathing: something that happens rather than something we do – a skill.
I have spent much of my professional life working with families who choose to complicate their relationships as spouses, parents and children, siblings or cousins, with those of business partners, employer and employee, investor and investee and so on. By and large, these people are smart, well-educated and successful – financially at least. They can, and do, finish one another’s sentences without thinking, yet there are still things – usually things that are really (if not existentially) important to them – that they just cannot bring themselves to talk about. They may love one another dearly, but they just cannot help pressing each other’s ‘hot buttons’.
If smart, well-educated people who love one another, and who spend both their working and their family time together, struggle to have meaningful conversations about the things that matter most to them, what hope is there for the rest of us? What hope for those of us who live in much looser communities, let alone for communication with strangers or, heaven forfend, those we might see as enemies?
In Part II we will explore what modern neuroscience has to tell us about why poor interpersonal communication is actually the typical human experience. I have to say here that I am no scientist. I come to this from the field of conflict, first as a litigator, then as a mediator, and now as a teacher, coach and facilitator. Along the way I was introduced to the work of Daniel Siegel, who pioneered the field of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), which explores the ways in which relationships and the brain interact to shape our mental lives. Looking for common findings across disciplines, IPNB seeks to balance subjective experience with science: to be consistent with science, but not to be constrained by it. 3
I could not put Siegel’s book Mindsight 4 down (although to be fair, I was on a 13-hour flight at the time!). I had so many lightbulb moments on that flight: so many explanations of things that I had lived and worked through, which now seemed to make much more sense. For me, it was the beginning of a fascinating journey further into the science around what I do for a living.
I have to say too that the science presented here is not the result of a comprehensive review of all the available literature on the subject – far from it. My process began with my studies of IPNB, and rippled out as interesting references led to Amazon order (or Google Scholar search), which led to more interesting footnotes, and so on. Have I simply fallen prey to confirmation bias (see Chapter 8)? Maybe, although I have made a conscious effort not to do so. Having said all that, while the science is interesting in and of itself, what is most telling for me is when modern science, ancient wisdom and direct personal experience coincide.
Other views of all this are, of course, available – and may turn out to be right. What we ‘know’ with such certainty today so often turns out to be ‘not quite right’ tomorrow. Even Newton’s laws of motion and Einstein’s theories of relativity turned out to be just special cases.5 As the Dalai Lama has said of Buddhist psychology,6 if science shows it to be wrong, it will have to change.7
In Part III I will explain what we can all do on a daily basis to develop habits of mind – in fact, to rewire our brains – to keep our social circuitry turned on and tuned in to those around us, greatly increasing our ability to make ourselves (and those we talk with) feel both heard and properly understood. The ideas presented here originally grew out of my work with families in conflict, and have been refined over time in light of both science and further experience.
Finally, in Part IV I will discuss what we can do to develop a prosocial, pro-communication, sense of community – a predisposition in our families, and in the other groups we belong to – in order to create a space in which we can have the conversations we need to have more skilfully. A space where disagreement does not mean putting our relationships on the line.
Given its subject matter, this book can do no other than seek to be a conversation between author and reader. To that end, it is written in the first person and addresses the reader throughout in the second. On reflection, though, I have removed the many contractions (I’ll, couldn’t, should’ve, etc.) that peppered my first draft, as they pepper the colloquial English of 21st-century England. The rest of the English-speaking world does not necessarily share them, nor those for whom English is not their first language. I have, necessarily, retained them in quotations.
I have wrestled long and hard wi