NAVIGATING TEAM DYNAMICS | LISTENING & EXPRESSING IN RELATIONSHIPS
Marion Giddy 18 July 2021
Working within a team, including leading or managing a team, adds additional layers of complexity to communication.
Communication requires climbing up and down logical levels of thought, and expressing ideas that are complex in a variety of different methods. From why, to how, to what, from global ideas and vision, down to specific steps and detail.
We then also need to integrate communication from multiple people, and merge ideas into a cohesive whole that allows us to take useful action together.
Communicating within teams, communities and groups, or any relationships, places us in the midst of a web of expectations, decisions, unknown information. It challenges us to find solutions in a way that suits multiple perspectives.
When we are working together towards a common objective, whether that be a project, a goal, or even simply finding consensus, we are required to listen well, speak clearly and achieve mutual understanding and agreement.
It is both complex, and potentially time-consuming, to successfully arrive at alignment and clarity when multiple people are involved.
Who wouldn’t want to increase their capacity to navigate communication with more ease, greater perspective, and less reactivity?
So what does growth look like, in effectively navigating complex communication and team dynamics?
Seeking Clarity - Becoming masters at identifying miscommunications and avoiding assumptions.
Such as:
Miscommunications with self
Misunderstandings with others
Misreading the context
What causes these breakdowns?
Essentially a lack of development in one or more of the three areas of listening, expression and sense making.
We can ask ourselves...
Firstly, can I listen:
To my own reactions, and can I recognise the difference between my truth, what feels true for others, and what is objectively true.
To assumptions, I’m making about others
To what others are actually saying, with their words and their body language, and use moments of resistance as a cue to explore and seek to understand what might be going on for them.
Development across these areas above forms part of our capacity to engage emotional intelligence.
Secondly, can I express:
Clearly and specifically, my own intentions & what feels true to me
The outcome that the team or group needs
The factors, thought processes or variables being considered
What I am seeing whilst also asking questions to understand ambiguity or find clarity
Finally, can I use sense-making skills:
Given all the information… then what?
Can I move beyond preference into what’s needed contextually, this time, in this situation?
Is it possible for me to integrate multiple perspectives & discern a clear path
These areas of expression and discernment rely on our own growth and development through areas of immaturity in learned communication or in thinking patterns that may limit our perspective.
Let’s explore the depth of a more complex example, starting with the first point above, Listening.
...
Let’s say I am talking with You.
And as I’m talking with You, I notice your body language, facial expressions, the words you say, and the tone you use.
And because I am looking AT you, I am viewing you as an object. (something I can see out there in the world). So unless I check-in, all I can see is your exterior, external behaviours.
If I don’t seek to understand your perspective (your interior), then I can only make assumptions about what you are thinking, feeling or experiencing on the inside that is driving your behaviours which I am noticing on the outside.
This isn’t listening, this is mind reading. “You did/said X, and that means Y.”
‘You must be really angry’ (assuming emotion)
‘I can tell you’re upset (assuming experience)
‘You probably think this.. (assuming thought)
‘You’re trying to… (assuming intention)
Or in a more significant form..
You did (this) because you think (that) about me/the situation, which makes you (this) kind of person.
(assumption leading to character judgements)
And we can add layer upon layer, with meaning, upon meaning and assumption, upon assumption.
Leading us sideways to a ‘logical conclusion’ which by degrees of difference may have become so far removed from the other person’s actual intention, that you are no longer even speaking about the same thing.
When we mind-read, or assume, what someone else is thinking, feeling or experiencing, we are always doing this through our own meaning making. We are putting ourselves in their shoes (based on the limited information we ‘know’ about them) and the logical mind will only be able to make connections based on ‘If I were them.. I would be thinking this…’
As such, our mind-reading about the other’s experience cannot ever be totally true. Reacting, or interacting from this place of distorted assumption, leads to reactivity, dis-connection and misunderstanding.
So to increase our capacity to truly be with reality & present to that other person, we must first learn to LISTEN to ourselves, and begin to notice our own thoughts and feelings and the states our body is experiencing.
In doing this, we are able to LISTEN to others and act from a place of space, where there is room, mentally and emotionally, to lean in and seek to understand another’s perspective.
From there, we can use discernment, and make sense of the situation, and choose the most useful, caring step forward, from a place of mutual understanding. In instances where that understanding isn’t in full agreement or alignment, we can at least know we are acting based on a more whole view of the situation.
As we start to develop our capacity to listen, we can then begin to express with more clarity, and enable space for more accurate sense-making to support our decision making, therefore increasing the effectiveness of actions within the overall system of our teams and relationships.
Join us for LISTEN starting on Tuesday 27th July for a 6-week course in deeper communication, and build your capacity for listening, expression and sense-making.