7 deadly sins of communication–part 1

A psychiatrist named William Glasser identified seven habits that damage and undermine effective communication.  They each have a positive counterpart, the things we can do to promote good, healthy communication and relationships.  They are:-

I think this list is pretty useful and self explanatory on its own, but it maybe helpful to explore it a little further.  No one likes to be on the receiving end of the first list, and most of us would deny doing it to others.  I suspect our intentions may often be positive, but under stress, our behaviours can let us down and what emerges either is, or feels like, these negative things.

You may feel it is either justified or needful to point out what is wrong with something or someone.  However, the key is not only how you do that that but also in your intentions behind this.  If you do so to hurt them (perhaps because you feel they hurt you), because you are frustrated, stressed or angry, or simply to make yourself feel better than them, then it will always come over as negative and as soon as they feel this, they then will only either block out what you are saying or defend against it.  Not only do your intentions have to be positive, but your language must also signal and reinforce this.

I will further explore this over the following days, so stay tuned…

Tags: bad habits, Communication, good habits

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2015 at 13:59 and is filed under Communication, Hints, Tips & Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.