Make Time To Talk
You will get tips galore to pump up your spirits when they have been flattened by the sharp nail of “bad” communication here. My pick of the top 12 listening/talking skills to drive skillfully and sanely on the two-way communicator highway are:
- Listen with three ears
- Don’t confuse critical feedback with personal criticism
- Treat people you dislike kindly
- Like change
- Ask open-ended questions…then LISTEN
- When you need to say goodbye…say why
- Keep your word
- Repeat what you think you heard
- Go the extra (S)mile when you feel down
- Tell the emotional truth without censorship or shame
- Adopt the strengths of your opposite communicator type
- Respect that “chatter is cheap” while “talk is expensive”
If your talks are full of conflict, “warm and fuzzy feelings” you’re accustomed to at work will be replaced by cold shoulders, and the “warm and fuzzies” at home will evolve into turned backs in bed.
And like it or not: When a cold wind blows through the home of work or the home of love…we seek warmer fires to comfort ourselves by.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a communications psychologist from Dayton, Ohio, and and the author of TALK TO ME: Communication moves to get along with anyone