This theme / idea has recurred across my podcast listening over the past few weeks.
In this podcast from David McRaney interviewing Charles Duhigg, they talk about the different kinds of conversations:
- facts
- emotions
(and a few others I didn’t write down).
You need to work out what level of conversation you want / your conversation partner wants to be at. If I’m at the level of facts / fixes, “My job sucks”, then I want to exchange facts and look for fixes, but if I’m at an emotional level, I want to have you listen to me emote about my boss, rather than offer fixes. I heard a similar idea from Dax Shepherd on Armchair Expert – again, i didn’t write it down but it’s “do you want to hugs, heart or help?” or similar. Clearly you can bring your own needs to the conversation, and sometimes it helps to express yours / ask for theirs.
And the idea of Looping for Understanding:
- Ask a (deep) question (how do you feel about what you do, rather than what do you do?)
- Listen
- Paraphrase (be sure not to mimic)
- Ask “Did I get that right?” (and if not, get clarification, loop back)
