OK, I confess. When I was a uni student in the 1980’s I used to race home from my final lecture (just like the rest of the dorm students) to catch the “Days of Our Lives”. My lasting impressions are: the drapes always seemed to be drawn in the houses and the Lawry organ music gave it a silent movie atmosphere. But there was one very important lesson in all the soapy episodes if you were paying attention. It had to do with communication. Most of the problems the characters found themselves in had to do with NOT saying something rather than what they did say.
If only Rachel had told John that she was pregnant ..
If only Thorn said he had seen Ashley being comforted by Dallas (and jumped to a terrible conclusion) …
Anyways you get the drift. Not being open and honest can lead to drama but not to good teams or to good decisions. And I am very interested in having good decisions made.
I am preparing to facilitate a decision-making working party at school. It is my first time facilitating at school and the Situation-that-needs-attention (SITNA) is complex. I gave a presentation to the working group a fortnight ago about the 6 Step Core Decision Making Model as outlined by Harvey, Bearley and Corkrum in The Practical Decision-Maker. (This model was part of our course studies). The group has agreed to working through this model. In the first step, Mind-Set, the group is asked to address the circumstances and state of the situation. Getting the context right is my priority at this first meeting. The The Practical Decision-Maker authors state:
Often, you must deal with concerns about conflict, openness, trust, and communication as part of establishing a mind-set that is supportive of problem solving. (Harvey, Bearley and Corkrum, 2001, 21)
And I know this will be true so I am re-readng everything I own about effective communication and conflict management.
The soaps provided a good lesson about honest communication, other communication/conflict resolution gems I’ve revisited are from (a great book with an unfortunate title) Dealing with People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring out the Best in People at Their Worst –
- Poor communication/negative remarks often have positive intent – look for the underlying good purpose that was meant and acknowledge it ( don’t know what it is? make one up – communicator will either agree or make their good intent clear) Egs. want to get something done right, want acknowledgement for something done, want support.
- State your own positive intent. Tell people why you are telling them something before telling them. Directs more positive attention to your message.
- Whenever a discussion starts to degenerate into conflict, try to ascertain the reasons why people are for or against something.
I read on …
___________________________________________
Brinkman, R. and Kirschner, Rick. (1994). Dealing with people you can’t stand: How to bring out the best in people at their worst. McGraw Hill: New York.
Harvey, TR, Bearley, Wl & Corkrum, SM. (2001) “Core steps in decision making”, in The practical decision maker: A handbook for decision making and problem solving in organizations, The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, MD and London, pp. 17-34.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3208/2687076170_97c61fe8d6_m.jpg
