Hi, everybody. I’ve been doing this work for the best part of 20 years or so. And one of the first models I ever learned around communication and in this world of relational skills that we want to develop. Now, remember, we’ve talked about developing your professional skills or your domain of knowledge, but what distinguishes the better performance is their ability to use relational skills.
One of the first models I ever learned was called the Filters Model. No, if we just have a look at this, if somebody says something, a concept called X and it comes across the universe, we think it’s going to land in that other person’s head is X. And very often it doesn’t, that it’s something completely different. And the reason is, is because we have a series of filters when we communicate with people. And those filters do very much, what happens when I make a cup of tea in the morning.
Now, I make it in a tea pot and I use a tea strainer. It takes out what I don’t want, and lets in what I do want. So when I’m communicating with somebody, I need to make sure that I’ve got my filters aligned so that the communication that I’m giving or receiving is actually true to what the dialogue should be. So for instance, let’s have an example, your current experiences are the ones that we’re most conscious of. Now, I remember back when my daughter Claire was about 16 and we were sitting on the lounge one night and my wife Lou said to Claire, “Darling, can you make us a cup of tea? We’re tired.”
So Claire went out and I truly swear that she slammed the cups down on the bench, she nearly ripped the pantry door off. I went in and said, “What’s the matter Claire?” And she said, “You heard her, dad. She’s a control freak. She’s always bossing me around.” Now, what Lou said was, “Can you make us cup of tea?” But by the time it was filtered, it came across as here’s my mother controlling me, and telling me what to do again.
So your current experiences do that. Another one is our beliefs. A belief is like an idea with a judgment attached. I’m working with a wonderful young team leader called Tenille up in North Queensland. And I said to Tenille, “Tenille, tell me about somebody that’s difficult for you to communicate with.” And she went … Let’s make up a name but Gary. And I said, “So tell me about Gary.” And she said, “Oh, Brian, he’s an idiot. He’s just an idiot.” And I said, “Well, how about we take out the ‘Gary’s an idiot’ and put in ‘Gary’s okay’, see what happens.”
Few days later, she sent me an email saying, “Brian, you wouldn’t believe it. The idiot had a good idea.” And so when we have a belief about somebody, got to be careful that it’s accurate, otherwise we might be going into a meeting with somebody and having our biases and our preconceived ideas about somebody getting in the way of the communication.
A third one is around values. If you have a clash of values with somebody, it’s very difficult to communicate at a really intimate and true level. An example of might be that when I was back in my teaching days, I was talking to my friend Gab, had morning tea and she was very energized. I said, “What’s going on today, Gab?” And she said, “Oh, it’s my daughter’s birthday party. She’s 16.” And I said, “Oh, that’s good. You having a party at home?” She said, “No. In our family, what we do is when our children turn 16, they move out. She’s moving into a unit in town this week and it’s really great for Tony and I, because we get some freedom. That’s really good for them as well because they get to learn some independence and they can look after themselves instead of just being a baby.”
And for me, I’m thinking, I couldn’t parent like that. But another lady came up and said, “Gab, that’s fantastic. That’s what we do with our kids too. It just makes them so grown up so quickly. It’s fantastic. And it gives us free time as well.” Clash of values, hard to hear things, but the one that’s the most insidious or least conscious that we know about is what we call our fundamental operating context. And basically that means, how am I thinking about myself today? So for instance, if I’m thinking about myself, if I’m okay and I get some developmental feedback or even some criticism, but if I’m going on okay, I’ll probably use it as, “Oh, well, there’s a way for me to get better.” If I’m feeling not good enough today, that feedback might really hit me to the heart and I might end up feeling really discouraged or lack confidence.
So what our filters do is they distort information. They delete the bits that we don’t want to hear. They nominalize, which means give it a name and try to put it in a box or generalize it, make it like everything else. So when you’re communicating, be really, really clear about the things that you’re saying, and my tip to you is this, when you’re talking to a staff member or you’re talking to a client, just ask them to rewind and reply. So tell me again, what was this discussion about today? What’s the critical things that I need to do? What do you need to do? And we’ll replay that, so that for instance it will be. So from today’s discussion, what I need to do is to go and get that documentation sorted out for you. What I need you to do is go back and find the deeds to the house and bring them into the office. Is that all clear? So beware of your filters.