I Hear You Page 7

  A more validating response would be as follows:

  Dad: “I’m sorry, Trent. That was definitely a rough game.”

  Trent: “I can’t believe I couldn’t make one shot!”

  Dad: “You weren’t on you’re A-game tonight, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about that. I’d be just as frustrated. And I hope you realize that the loss isn’t entirely your fault.”

  Trent: “I know, but I just can’t believe I lost my cool like that.”

  Dad: “What do you mean?”

  Trent: “I let the other players get in my head!”

  Dad: “What happened?”

  Trent: “It was all because of that stupid first shot. The other team wouldn’t shut up about it for the whole game, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it! I felt humiliated.”

  Dad: “I’m sorry, Trent. That would be embarrassing. And frustrating to not be able to move past it.”

  Notice how Trent’s dad acknowledged the fact that Trent didn’t play well while also showing empathy. His response will likely align well with what Trent is saying to himself (i.e., “I didn’t play well and this sucks”), which helps him feel heard and validated. His dad was also able to gain some additional insight into why Trent didn’t play his best, and validate the fact that messing up like that in front of his peers would be a tough thing to shake.

  Maintaining honesty and sincerity in your validation not only improves its effectiveness, it also increases trust in the relationship. If your friend always told you you did a great job, even when it was obvious that you didn’t, you would learn to disregard his compliments. “He always says that,” you’d say to yourself, even when he really did think you did well.

  In contrast, if that same friend wasn’t afraid to tell you when he wasn’t impressed, a compliment from him would hold much more weight. You’d feel confident that he was being genuine, which would make the kudos that much sweeter.

  Being honest, yet tactful, in your validation is easier said than done, but it’s a worthy pursuit and pays dividends down the line.

  Step 2 Summary

  Validate their emotion. Once there’s a pause in the conversation or the other person is done sharing, validate them more fully. This is best done by 1) acknowledging the emotions they’ve expressed, and 2) offering justification for feeling those emotions.

  Validate, even if you disagree. Not only is it possible to validate someone you disagree with, it’s advantageous to do so. When you validate the other person, they become significantly more likely to listen to a differing opinion or advice. Once you show that you truly hear them, they will be much more likely to hear you.

  Not sure what the other person is feeling? Ask. A simple question such as “How are you feeling about all this?” or “I imagine you’re pretty upset?” is often enough to get the clarity you need to validate.

  If you can relate, consider letting them know. Use phrases such as “I can relate” or “I had a similar experience” instead of “I know exactly how you feel.” Be sure to turn the focus back to them after sharing your experience.

  If you can’t relate, let them know. Acknowledging that you haven’t been in someone else’s shoes and don’t know exactly how they feel can be incredibly validating.

  Tell the truth. Resist the urge to lie to make someone feel better. Instead, acknowledge the truth, validate their emotions, then provide comfort and assurance in step 3.

  STEP 3

  OFFER ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT

  (IF APPROPRIATE)

  “Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.”

  – Mahatma Gandhi

  Once you have listened to and validated the other person, you are in a good position to offer advice, feedback, or encouragement, if appropriate.

  What do I mean by appropriate? Not every situation will warrant feedback. In fact, most of your day-to-day validation opportunities will not. When you do have an opportunity to give advice, it’s important to first determine whether or not the other person is open to hearing it.

  Avoid Offering Unsolicited Advice

  It’s easy to assume that since someone is venting to you, they’re looking for advice. As we’ve discussed in earlier chapters, however, this is often not the case. Because of this, launching into unsolicited advice may cause the other person to close off, get irritated, or become defensive. Think back to a time when someone started telling you what to do when all you really needed was someone to hear you out. Been there? Most have. To prevent yourself from committing the same offense, use one of the following two methods to see if the other person is open to feedback.

  Approach #1: Ask What They Want from You

  If someone has shared a difficult emotion or experience with you but has not asked for help, say something like:

  “How can I help?”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  More often than not, they’ll ask for your thoughts. You may find, however, that your listening and validation was all they really needed. They may say, “Well, just having you listen has been helpful” or “You know what? I think I have it figured out. Thanks for letting me vent.” It’s amazing how quickly people can work through their issues when they feel heard and validated.

  Approach #2: Ask Permission to Share Your Thoughts

  If you would like to offer feedback and don’t want to leave it up to the other person to request it, try some variation of the following:

  “I have a few thoughts on that. May I share them?”

  “Would you like my opinion?”

  “May I tell you how I see it?”

  “Could I share my two cents?”

  When you ask permission before sharing your opinion, you show respect for the other person, their emotions, and the fact that they are smart and capable in their own right. If they do give you permission to offer feedback, they are far more likely to listen with an open mind—even if it ends up being difficult to hear. If they don’t give you permission, respect that and save for the advice for another time.

  There Are Exceptions to the Rule

  While asking permission to give advice is recommended in nearly every situation, there will be times when giving unsolicited feedback is appropriate, if not necessary. The following two situations are common exceptions, but are by no means the only ones. Keep the “ask permission” principle in mind, but evaluate each situation as it arises.

  Exception #1: When Teaching Children

  Parents have a responsibility to protect, support, and teach their children whether those children want feedback or not. While it is still valuable to listen to and validate children before giving counsel, it is not necessary to obtain permission from your four-year-old before you suggest she not touch the hot stove. Similarly, if your teenager is getting into trouble, you have a responsibility to warn them about their behavior whether they ask for your advice or not.

  This doesn’t mean you can’t ask for a child’s permission. Even for young children, asking permission to share your thoughts gives them an opportunity to request help of their own free will, which often makes them more receptive. If they say no, you can always choose to offer it anyway.

  When it comes to giving advice to adult children (i.e., eighteen-plus years old, married, and/or living on their own), it is best to ask. Doing so demonstrates respect and trust and can go a long way in establishing a healthy relationship.

  Exception #2: When the Complaint or Anger is Directed Toward You

  A second exception to this principle is when the other person is angry with or making accusations about you. In these situations, you may need to clarify the situation, your intentions, or your position, whether or not they ask you to.

  Even in these tense situations, you can still validate the other person by using steps 1 and 2 (Listen Empathically and Validate the Emotion). Helping them feel heard, even if you disagree with what they’re saying, can go a long way in easing the tension in the convers
ation. It also increases the likelihood that they’ll listen to your side of the story. It never hurts to ask permission to share your viewpoint (e.g., “I see things differently. May I explain?”), but if the answer is no, you may decide to share it anyway. Because these situations can be especially difficult, let’s take a look at an example.

  Say you’re at work and a colleague from another department approaches you, clearly upset. Your team had been asked to help create some materials for a meeting with one of his clients and had been working hard to reach a near-impossible deadline. The night before, the VP (your colleague’s boss) reached out to you directly to let you know that, due to a change in the client’s schedule, your team now had an extra week to prepare. Your coworker never got the memo, however, and was still expecting the presentation.

  Coworker: “I told you I needed that presentation yesterday and my inbox is still empty! I thought I made it clear that this meeting is crucial to maintaining our business! How am I supposed to do my job if you can’t deliver on deadline?”

  Whoa. You and your team pushed aside every other project to get this presentation done and would have delivered had his boss not given you an extension. Unless you have an inhuman ability to remain calm under any circumstance, your blood is probably already at a boil and you can’t wait to set your coworker straight.

  While lashing back out and putting your coworker in his place may feel wonderful in the moment, it’s not going to do any favors for your relationship. If you implement steps 1 through 3 instead (even though that’s probably the last thing you want to do), you will have a better chance at resolving the situation in a positive way.

  Now, the main issue in this example is a simple lack of communication between your coworker and his boss, so the sooner you can clear that up the better. Step 1 (Listening Empathically) in this situation won’t mean just sitting there while your coworker goes on and on about how incompetent he thinks you are. Instead, it can mean asking a simple question:

  You: “Did you know that your boss called me last night and told us to hold off?”

  Asking a question instead of shooting back with an accusation or personal jab is a great way to help your coworker realize that he doesn’t have all the information while still keeping your cool. It also provides a check on your own assumptions to make sure you haven’t jumped to any conclusions.

  Coworker: “What? No—what did he say?”

  You: “He told me the client had a last-minute change of plans and won’t be able to make it until next week. He said you wouldn’t need the report until next Thursday.”

  At this point, your coworker is likely feeling more than a little embarrassed. You can use step 2 (Validate the Emotion) to validate his initial frustration, and then go straight into step 3 (Giving Feedback) to clearly express your own anger or frustration. To be clear, I am not suggesting that you justify his outburst or take his accusations lying down. His reaction, while understandable given his ignorance, was still disrespectful. You have every right to stand up for yourself and your team and do not need his permission to do so. Here’s how that might look:

  Coworker: “Oh . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  You: “I get why you would be upset if you felt like we had completely ignored a deadline. And, I really don’t appreciate you jumping to conclusions and storming in here when my team and I have been busting our butts for you. Next time, please make sure you have all of the information before accusing me or others on the team of being incompetent.”

  Notice here how you can listen to, validate, and inform your coworker in only a few sentences. The response goes straight from validation to feedback and bypasses the request for permission. In situations where the other person’s complaint or anger is directed toward you, it can be appropriate—even necessary—to quickly and clearly share your side of the story.

  Key Principles: Giving Feedback

  Once you are in a position to give feedback, advice, or assurance, use the following principles to do so effectively.

  Lead with a Validating Statement

  When sharing your perspective or giving advice, lead with one more validating statement before jumping in:

  “I totally get why you would feel that way. Here’s how I see it.”

  “I’m angry just listening to you tell me about it! Have you considered talking to him?”

  If the person becomes defensive, return to steps 1 and 2 and validate the emotion. If they’ve given you permission to share your thoughts but you can tell they’re not really open to hearing them, simply leave it at step 2 and let them know you’re always willing to listen. (Assuming, of course, you are. If not, you can simply wish them well.)

  Watch Out for “Buts”

  This simple principle will not only improve the delivery of your feedback, it will significantly improve the quality of your day-to-day conversations. When used to connect two phrases in a sentence, “but” effectively dismisses the first phrase altogether. When giving validation, it can instantly undo all your hard work.

  For example, imagine you get a haircut and a friend of yours walks up to you and says:

  “I really like what you’ve done to your hair, but . . .”

  What is she going to say next? You don’t know for sure, but it will probably be something negative. She “likes it but . . .” At this point, you’ve likely forgotten the compliment and are fixated on what will come next.

  Now imagine she says:

  “I really like what you’ve done with your hair, and . . .”

  Now what? What’s coming next? You still don’t know, but you do know that she likes your new ‘do. She could say just about anything she wants, and it wouldn’t detract from the fact that she “really likes what you’ve done with your hair.”

  She could even say, “. . . and I liked it better the way you had it before.” That’s probably not what you wanted to hear, but it’s still far easier to take. You’re likely to think to yourself, “Even though she liked my hair better the other way, I’m glad she likes it this way too.” (Not that your happiness depends on what other people think of you, but that’s a topic for another book.)

  When we say, “I get that you’re frustrated but I don’t think he meant to hurt you,” we diminish the impact of the first half of the sentence—the validating part—and all the other person hears is “he didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Make an effort to replace “but” with “and” and you’ll be amazed at how it frees you up to speak candidly while maintaining trust and safety in the conversation.

  Lead with “I” Instead of “You”

  A common mistake people make when giving difficult feedback is launching in with direct “you” statements such as:

  “You’re wrong.”

  “This is your fault.”

  “You don’t work as hard as the others.”

  This isn’t necessarily an issue when giving praise (e.g., “you’re right,” “you did a great job,” etc.) but when giving less-than-pleasant feedback, it can feel aggressive and abrasive.

  Notice how, by leading with “I” (or a form of “I”), the same feedback becomes much easier to hold:

  “I disagree.”

  “I feel like this may actually be your fault.”

  “It feels like you don’t work as hard as the others.”

  Leading with “I” emphasizes the fact that you’re sharing your perspective and prevents the feedback from feeling like an accusation. This simple adjustment softens the blow of negative feedback, reducing the likelihood that the recipient will become defensive. If you were to say to your coworker, “You were insensitive yesterday,” you’re probably going to get into an argument. What is or isn’t considered “insensitive,” after all, could be up for debate.

  If you instead say, “I felt like you were insensitive yesterday” or, even better, “I felt embarrassed when you pointed out my mistakes to everyone yesterday,” it keeps the focus on you. You are sharing how your coworker’s comment affecte
d you, rather than accusing him of being a mean person.

  “I” statements can be as soft or direct as you need them to be. They work well when giving feedback to everyone from a significant other to a direct report at work. Examples include:

  “I feel like you aren’t listening.”

  “I feel unappreciated when you say that.”

  “I don’t think that is a wise move.”

  “I’ve noticed that you do this often.”

  Avoid Absolutes

  Absolutes are terms such as “always,” “never,” “constantly,” etc. If your feedback includes an observation of a habit or tendency, it can be tempting to say “you always do this” or “you never do that!”

  Aside from the fact that each of these statements leads with “you” instead of “I,” they are abrasive because they are absolute. While it may be true that the other person has a hard time listening to others, it’s highly unlikely that they never do. Surely they listen when the doctor reads them their lab results or when their friend is suggesting movies to see. Claiming that someone “always” does something is equally false.