“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” –Peter F. Drucker
“I am lost, I don’t know what to do, she just doesn’t talk, it’s a dead end,” said my friend Aruna*. She sounded frustrated as she narrated her previous day interaction with her teenage daughter – Neha*. According to Aruna, her busy professional life had led to a communication break-down with Neha. She felt that Neha was moody, angry and withdrawn. Aruna was exasperated and desperately worried about Neha.
I believe many of us have experienced similar incidents/ feelings like Aruna in some of our relationships (either at work or in our personal life). We feel that people stop responding, talking, reacting and shut themselves off.
But, the fact is ‘silence is golden’.
‘We are always communicating’ is one of the NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) presuppositions. It means that we are always communicating either verbally or nonverbally.
Even the absence of a response is information.
One of the simplest definitions of communication is ‘the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium’. What we do is that we ignore ‘communication using some other medium’ and tend to focus only on the verbal mode of communication. Most of us believe that by choosing to stay silent, people are not communicating their feelings and thought. But, even by remaining silent, the message is conveyed.
Neha, by not talking/ responding to Aruna was probably giving a message that she wasn’t interested in talking or she didn’t know what to say or maybe she was angry.
Communication is not only expressed through words but also through tone and pitch of the voice, body language, eye movements, breathing patterns, head movements, hand gestures or even a simple sigh!. Nonverbal signals reveal a lot about other people’s thoughts and feelings.
What did Aruna do differently to re-initiate the communication with Neha?
I suggested a few pointers that helped her to rebuild her relationship with Neha in the long run.
Here are the pointers:
- To start with, being aware of the fact that Neha is always communicating or Neha cannot Not communicate.
- To check Neha’s emotional state before initiating a conversation.
- Build or being in rapport with Neha by paying attention and managing her own emotions and non-verbal communication. For Neha to be open and relaxed, it was important that Aruna was open and relaxed and it reflected in her body language, tone of voice and her words.
- Start a conversation with open ended questions – If there’s no response from Neha, then start answering for her.
I met Aruna after a week, she looked relieved. She mentioned that her relationship with her daughter was better and she was sure it would strengthen over a period of time. She narrated one conversation between her and Neha- it was something like this.
Aruna : “What’s the latest at school as of now?”
Neha : No answer and a shrug.
Aruna : “ Ok, let me guess, the exams are scheduled in next 2 months but, before that, there’s an essay competition and a Project tour? Aruna observed a slight nod at mention of the essay competition and the tour. That was her cue that Neha was responding.
Aruna started talking about how the project tours are exciting recalling her school days and then she got specific “Project tour is fine, but I guess preparing for the essay competition could be challenging for you”. Aruna knew that her daughter had awesome writing skill, but she still asked this question to trigger a conversation and it worked!
Neha – “Of course not, Essay competitions are fun, and you know that”.
Aruna – “Then what’s bothering you? Is it something do with your exams?”
Neha – Nodding her head she said, “Yes”. Aruna was relieved as Neha started conversing freely with her.
‘We are always communicating’, presupposition enables us to become more influential and effective communicator and allows us to build rapport and understand the individuals thus reducing conflicts and misunderstanding.
Thanks for reading this post. I hope you found it useful. For more articles on coaching and NLP, do read my previous articles.
* names changed for anonymity
References – http://www.mymotivational-nlp.com
