Open Communication! Tips & Tricks!

Today, the mentor community had an awesome chat on open communication! We came up with an awesome list of tips, that I wanted to share with all of you!

ENJOY!

How to incorporate open communication into your life:

1) Avoid triangulation

2) If its a hard topic to discuss, overcoming fear is important to moving forward.

3) Remain judgement free. This helps you stay approachable!

4) If I'm not sure what to say, but I know I need to say something, I will write it out before hand, step away for a few minutes/an hour and then come back and see how I feel about what I wrote. This helps me process the most important points and gives me time to think through exactly what I need to say

5) Compliment sandwich, when it comes to giving feedback -- a compliment, something to work on, another compliment

6) If someone treats me poorly, I don't take it personally. I know I have strong communication and this person does not yet

7) Be ready to listen as much as you talk

8) Set some guidelines before you dive into the meat of the topic

9) DEARMAN technique: http://www.7cups.com/help-managing-emotions/

It's a really useful DBT technique for speaking with others. You first explain the situation as it happened -- objective to make sure you both know what you're referring to. Then you go into how you're feeling about that situation, talking about you, not them.

Then you go into what you want from the talk, what the goal is. Be clear and assertive in that. Then go into why this is good for both of you, how this works out for the better overall. Be calm, mindful, clear, confident, assertive. But also willing to negotiate. Like others said, it's a 2-way street, so let the other person talk and share their view and find something that works for you both and still reaches the goal

10) Staying focused/staying in the moment is important when communicating

11) Remember that we all see the world differently, we might have to adapt our communication style to fit someone else's world.

12) Not necessarily having an agenda when communicating also- being open to whatever they have to say. Being okay with hearing something uncomfortable

13) Adapting to different scenarios is important, like Sam says, but staying true to yourself and sticking to your beliefs is incredibly important, too. Somebody mentioned equality in chats before and it being a two-way street. You have to compromise, but so does the other person.

14) Non verbal communication- body language, facial expressions, etc.... Because your body language might be very different from what you are actually conveying with words.

15) Negotiation: What you think is the solution might not be what the other person sees as a solution. It may have costs that you didn't realize, or put additional stress or discomfort on the other person. Or maybe you benefit from it when they don't

If you're going to expect someone to go along with a plan, it should be one that they agree with, otherwise it isn't likely to work nearly as well. Because what you need or want is often different from what someone else needs, wants and is able to give to meet your and their goals. You need to figure out what's agreeable on both of your sides and come to a mutual understanding.

16) Compromise and collaboration mutually

17) It may be something you feel really opposed to personally but you cannot let that cloud your judgement while Listening