10 Steps to Implementing Supportive
Communication (in house full of kids)
I do not at the moment hold a job
outside of my home; I take care of my five children fulltime, around the
clock. So when asked to describe ways to
integrate supportive communication in my present position I thought, are five
kids in one house really that much different than a staff of 20 in one office? I don’t believe they are. They both are looking to you for guidance and
support, they both compete for any amount of your attention and they both kind
of depend on you for survival (so to speak).
Whetten and Cameron (2011) outlined behavioral guidelines to help one
practice supportive communication, where they intended the guidelines to be
used in a professional setting I will be applying them to my “office” which is
my home.
Step one: Differentiate between
coaching situations and counseling ones.
Does the person involved need advice and direction or understanding and
recognition? This is a question I face
multiple times a day. Does the
child/employee need some input to help them in future situations or do they
simply need someone to listen to their issues and nod accordingly. This is an area I struggle with. I am a problem solver and that is how I see
things, as problems that need to be solved.
Sometimes my kids just want to cry and vent and just want me to listen.
Step two: Communicate congruently
by acknowledging your feelings without acting in a destructive way. Does what you are saying match what you are
feeling? This can be a tricky one; do
you really want to say exactly what is on your mind? Or are you better off
thinking of a way to communicate that feeling in an appropriate way. There are many times a day I want to say what
I am truly feeling or thinking, but it would not be in anyone’s best interest
if I did. So I have to take a step back
and think about what message I am actually trying to convey and word it in a
way that is respectful to all parties, even if the other party is screaming at
me about the sandwich being cut into triangles instead of rectangles.
Step there: Use descriptive not
evaluative statements. In other words
describe what occurred, reactions to the event, consequences from the event and
suggest alternatives. You wanted a
block, your sister had the block, you hit your sister for the block, you were
asked to step away from the situation and now you are without the block. The alternatives could be finding a different
block, waiting for her to finish with the block or find a different toy to play
with. Of course in an office setting I
would assume no one is hitting other people over a pen, but you never know.
Step four: Use problem-oriented
statements rather than people-oriented ones.
“Your choice to hit your sister was not a good one” verses “you are a
bad person for hitting your sister”. It
is always important not to label people based on their mistakes, but to offer
guidance through them. This can be a
difficult task, especially when viewing a situation through anger. It is not always best to react in the heat of
the moment but to step back and think about things with a clear head. I find myself correcting my kids when they
say things like “so and so is so mean”.
I try to point out that what they did might have been mean but that doesn’t
make them a bad person.
Step five: Use validating
statements and show your investment in the relationship by demonstrating your
respect for them. Respect goes both
ways, and I often hear parents (even myself) wondering why their kids do not
respect them. I have to remind myself
that in order for them to be respectful they need to be respected. The same goes for employees. A manager cannot expect to have a staff to
act a way when they are not shown that same behavior. This is especially important when giving
feedback; positive feedback should always be given first followed by any
negative critique. Kids are the same
way, they tend to only be told when they are wrong or misbehaving, it is just
as important to “catch them being good”.
This is a big one for me that needs work. I need to find more ways to point out the positive
instead of the negative.
Step six: Use specific rather than
global statements when trying to correct behavior. Focus on what a person can change rather than
factors that can’t. Imagine how
difficult it would be to have someone ask you to change an aspect you have no
control over. This happens a lot in my
house, I am asked to stop a sibling from doing whatever infraction of the
moment towards another sibling. I have
to stop and remind my kids that they can only control their behavior and not
that of others. Managers need to think
the same way. They need to focus on what
things their employees have control over and what they don’t and ask tasks accordingly.
Step seven: Use statements that
floe smoothly, ensure equal speaking opportunities and acknowledge what the
other people in the conversation are saying.
Managers sometimes have a tendency to think they have all the answers
and there is no need to listen to anyone else.
I would call these managers closed-minded. In a perfect world I would like to think that
I imply all these attributes to my conversations with my kids, but sadly I do
not always do that. I need to be better
at listening to what my kids are trying to say instead of thinking I have all
the answers.
Step eight: Own your own statements
and encourage others to also. This
starts with using personal words instead of impersonal ones. The “I” statement is the best form of this. It can be very easy to use the blanket phrase
“the company feels” when its actually you who feels that way. When I am feeling outnumbered I tend to use
the statement “your father and I” when I haven’t even spoken to their father
about the issue at hand. I think it
makes me feel like I have some power over what is going on if there are two of
us that feel a certain way and not just me.
I need to be better at owning how I feel and not bringing others into
it.
Step nine: Demonstrate supportive
listening, make eye contact and be responsive nonverbally. I think we have all had a conversation with a
boss where we felt like they were not giving 100 percent of their attention to
us, and it is frustrating. I know my
kids get frustrated when I am looking at my phone or watching TV when they are
trying to talk to me. I need to be
better at putting stuff down and listening to what they have to say, because
you never know when I will be something important. I think this would hold true for me as a
manager also.
Step ten: Implement a personal
management interview program with people whom you have responsibility. Building positive relationships is very
important in business, however I feel that it is often overlooked inside the
four walls of a work place. Lots of
people talk about networking and building relationships with outside agency’s
or companies, but what about the people inside, they are the ones that should
matter most. I can’t say that I am doing
a great job at this but we have been working on it, we have started family
meetings to try and bring our feelings and ideas together, help solve problems
and generally build better relationships with each other.
I found these guidelines to be very
helpful and insightful. I have not only
realized some things I need to do to make myself a better mother but I also see
areas where I could be a better leader.
And not surprisingly the areas overlap.
This has been an eye opening experience for me and one that I will be referring
back to often to gage my progress.
Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S.
(2011). Developing Management Skills (E. Svendsen
Ed. 8th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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