There is another poster entitled Self Revelations  that speaks about the importance of a leader being vulnerable enough to express his/her own thoughts and feelings in order to successfully bond with his/her followers.

This poster takes it a step further by addressing a proven formula for expressing those thoughts and feelings when they have the potential of creating defensiveness in the other person.  A thank you goes out to Kevin FitzMaurice for first sharing this with me:

“I feel ________ when you ___________ because I think it means ______________.”

The first blank is filled with a single word expression of an emotion (i.e. sad, glad, discouraged, enthusiastic, motivated, etc.).  See the poster entitled Attachment Theory for a rather thorough listing of emotions to expand your own emotional vocabulary.

The second blank is the action of the other person that you desire to discuss.

The third blank is about your interpretation of their action that produces your emotion.  As author and speaker Brene Brown would say it, here we share with the other “the story we tell ourself.”  The mind’s need for closure is so strong that in the absence of all the details, we create a story we tell ourselves about the actions, thoughts, and motives of another.

Notice how this formula causes the speaker to retain ownership of his/her own emotions.  Nobody made them feel the way they feel (i.e. “You make me mad.”).  By starting the sentence with the power of “I” instead of “You,” it helps manage the defensiveness of the other person since the sentence has been made less accusative.

The behavior of the other person is definitively stated so that there can be no doubt about what’s being addressed, and yet the focus of the sentence is on the last blank in which the speaker attempts to get the listener to understand how his/her mind works in interpreting the meaning of the action.  Using such a formula the next time you need to address unproductive behavior actually might result in a fruitful discussion.

Categories: Communications, Conflict Management, Self Responsibility