How to Evoke the Desired Response in Any Conversation

We’ve all been there:  You say something to someone and you do not get the response you were hoping to receive in return.  How does this happen and how can you deliver your message in a way that the other person can hear?

There are a few elements that every effective conversation needs in order to be clear and connecting.  Here’s what you can do on your end to help facilitate the desired results:

Know what you want

Whenever we send a verbal message to someone, we are usually looking for something.  Knowing what you are looking for is the first step.  Typically we want such things as compassion, acknowledgment, understanding, agreement, understanding or some form of connection by the other person to what we are saying.

But often when our messages are delivered, the receiver responds with frustration, defensiveness, aloofness, awkwardness, argument or a general sense of being disconnected from our intended meaning.

Taking a moment to connect with ourselves around what we want when speaking to another person will drastically affect the way we deliver our message.

Think of what YOU would want to hear

Before I learned NVC, I held the expectation that whatever I said would be decoded and deciphered by the person I was talking to.  I find this expectation to be widely held amongst my clients when we first begin our work together.  People say things like, “Well, he/she should just know what I mean.”

In a perfect world, it would work like that.  You could vent and spew out words and the other person would totally ‘get’ what you meant without having a reaction of their own.  But no matter how well you know someone or have the ability to hear the meaning underlying their words, we are all human beings subject to our own emotional reactions and interpretations.

When delivering a verbal (or non-verbal) message to someone, it’s important to think of how you would want to hear the same message, and take responsibility for how it’s delivered.  As a general rule, it’s not the other person’s responsibility to decode what you are saying.

Speak from the heart

Whether it’s a conversation in passing in the hallway at work or with an upset friend on the phone, speaking from your heart – from what’s really alive inside of you – tends to be an effective way to deliver your message in a way that evokes the desired response from the person with whom you are speaking.

Speaking from your heart is void of judgment or evaluation.  Speaking from your heart is an act of taking responsibility for your experience and speaks in terms of your feelings and needs and creates opportunity for compassion and connection.

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Remember, how you deliver your message has everything to do with the reaction/response that you receive.  If you’re interested in learning more about the language of NVC, go here.  And for private NVC or Conflict Coaching and Mediation services, contact me.  I offer a variety of flexible NVC training and conflict resolution services.

With Kind Regards,

Jenna

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Jenna Chandler is a NVC Practitioner and Conflict Mediator in San Rafael, Ca providing private sessions, group coaching, workshops, customized communication trainings and on-site conflict mediation for individuals, couples and businesses to create a collaborative and real-life approach to working through your specific communication patterns and conflicts to create understanding and connection.

Jenna works on the belief that effective communication is a critical component to every successful and satisfying relationship and when used effectively, becomes both a process of discovering what is important to us and a tool to create our lives and relationships in harmony with what we value.

jenna@clarityandconnection.com

www.clarityandconnection.com

415.815.8176

1930 4th St #1 San Rafael, Ca 94901