If you have yet to read the first three steps of the Auxano Communication Approach©, please take a moment and read my previous three posts. It’s important that each step is taken before advancing to the next.
The last step toward better communication in your relationships is:
Step 4: Seek more information.
To most effectively accomplish this step, do what author and professor Brené Brown calls “passionate listening.” Attempt to tune out external distractions and internal mental meanderings as you seek to discover objective facts about the situation, the other person, and the other person’s take on the situation.
One of the most effective (and often most difficult) ways to do this is to refrain from thinking about your own response while the other person is still talking. Again, Brown has wise words on this:
When I really listen rather than thinking and formulating my response as people are talking, the entire conversation takes on a new cadence. It’s slower and there’s more white space between exchanges. It’s a little weird at first, but it’s also very powerful (“Passionate Listening”).
In The Stories We Tell Ourselves, I present one way for my clients to add more “white space” to their conversations:
Visualize placing [your] thoughts on a shelf for a few minutes. [You’ll] know where to find them later, but for the moment, they need to be somewhere just out of reach. [You] should listen with interest and seek to truly understand what the speaker is saying.
This takes practice, and I encourage you to try it the next time you’re speaking—and listening—to someone with whom you’re in conflict.
And if this final step of the Auxano Communication Approach© fails to result in a positive outcome for the relationship, go back to Step 1 in due time and repeat the process. Eventually, you ought to see, hear, and experience a breakthrough that will take that relationship to a new, deeper, and more authentic level.
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