The Conversations We Have With Ourselves

We Pay a Lot of Attention to What We Speak

We pay a lot of attention to what we speak, and how we speak, and very little to how we listen. 

When we are in conversations with others we think that we and they are a blank slate that are simply ready to receive any communication from us fully…

Nothing is further from the truth! While a conversation is going on in the foreground, i.e., what is actually being said out loud between people, we are engaged in an on-going conversation with ourselves in the background. In the background, there is always speaking with and to ourselves. 

The speaking is constant and, at times, very loud, commenting on everything. 

This "conversation with ourselves" is automatic and unstoppable. We don't have it, "it has us". 

The Good News...

If we start paying attention to our background conversations when we are on our own we will begin to discover an enormous amount of very useful stuff about ourselves. Stuff that we can build on, and stuff we can delete, just like we update our data files...yes, keep this, and scrap that...all so as to get more of what we want for ourselves out of life.

We will hear all the obvious stuff, by that I mean the stuff we already know about ourselves: our likes and dislikes, our opinions, our beliefs, our fears, our biases, and also what makes us happy, gives us joy, and gives us a sense of meaning.

What We Will Also Hear...

What we will also hear are a lot of conversations, and fragments of conversations, that are simply not true, and need to be corrected, or even eliminated.

Designing the life you really want starts with amplifying and editing our background conversations.

Many of the conversations we have with ourselves are simply not true. We told ourselves something, or more often, someone else told us something, which we believed and it is shaping us. Here are some typical examples:

• I'm not good enough...I am always falling short, screwing up, making mistakes
• I'll never get what I want, so what's the point of hoping and trying
• I am just not very good at...[fill in the blank]

Do An Inventory of Your Background Conversation

The deal then is is build on the conversations that serve you...they forward what you want to accomplish...your vision for yourself. And, eliminate the ones that don't serve you. The ones that don't make you happy, or even make you sad or depressed.

In subsequent posts we'll explore how to edit and rescript your background conversations. Your first job is to observe them and make notes...then we'll get to action editing, amplifying and re-scripting.

We All Have Background Conversations...But What Are They?

What's Your Background Conversation?

That is a useful question to start the process of encouraging people to be aware that they have a background conversation that, without prompting, they may not  think to share. 

And, if open, honest, and direct communications is our goal, we need to find ways to make it safe for people to say what's on their mind.

We have to be mindful though that we don't cross a threshold into being interrogators, after all, we are all entitled to our private thoughts...we don't have to share everything we think.

Having someone willing to share with us what they think...what they really think...is a function of our genuine curiosity to know what's on their mind when we ask.  Being willing to be completely open is a function of the level of affinity we share, and the level of trust that exists between us. 

When Background Conversations Naturally Become Foreground Conversations

When the relationships are good colleagues, friends, and family will share their background conversations with us in lots of different ways. For example we'll naturally ask:

• What do you think of the idea?
• What's on your mind...?
• You haven't said very much...anything you want to say?
• Any questions or reservations you'd like to share?
• Any feedback you'd like to give me?
• ...

And, when we are speaking...from an intention to be open, direct and unexpurgated...it becomes superfluous to announce what your background conversation is, because by virtue of the fact you are speaking, without prompting, it is not a background conversation anymore.

 As one person put it, "I noticed myself cringing when people announce that their "background conversation is...". "If the idea is to tell people what we are really thinking, perhaps the next evolutionary step in our communications with each other should be... to remove the boundary between our internal and external monologue."

Sharing Our Background Conversations a Prerequisite For Great Communications

How Familiar Is This Scene For You

You are in the middle of a conversation with someone, or even in a meeting with several people, and your background conversation kicks in...you know that conversation you have with yourself: 

• I wonder what she meant by...? 
• Oops, that idea didn't go over very well
• Why does he always want to debate every detail?
• I am wasting my time sitting in this meeting...

Yet you say nothing. And the uncertainties and nagging questions persist. You may even have a "meeting after the meeting" with colleagues and share opinions and assessments about your background conversations...each of you trying to figure out how accurate they were.

Yet, the only people who can tell you for sure aren't in the conversation.

How Come We Don't Just Ask?

• Anita, what did you mean exactly when you said...?
• Did my idea just bomb with all of you?
• Joe, what exactly is your concern with my proposal, it seems to me you have a lot of reservations?
• I don't see why I have been invited to this meeting...any objections if I leave?

Mostly We Are Not Paying Attention To Our Background Conversations As We Do To The Foreground Conversations

If we did we would be able to share our background conversations and, we would be able to ask others what their background conversations are...given we now know they have them.

We could even take a stab at speculation what they are. For example, instead of wondering what she meant, you could speculate and test what you think she meant. "So, are you saying we should cancel the project?" She will either validate your speculation or, she might reply, "No, I was thinking if we don't put more resources on the project we'll fail."

If We Want Conversations That Matter, That Make A Difference We Have To Share Our Background Conversations

How else will people know what we really think and feel. How will they know our expectations, our aspirations, or our concerns. 

And how else will we know what others think and feel, what their expectations are, what their aspirations or concerns are?

Absent this knowledge our conversations are shallow. I even go so far as to say they are inauthentic. We are not being completely truthful if we are withholding part of ourselves.

This withholding goes a long way in explaining why so many attempts at communication with people don't work out well. Why relationships don't work as well as they could. Why teams don't trust each other, and don't function as well as they could

How Come It Is So Hard To Listen, Really Listen When Someone Is Speaking To Us?

Because It Is Not Possible To Multitask

I know we all think we can can do more than one thing at a time...we can't, even though we think we can, and even when we say we can, we can't!

So what has multitasking got to do with really listening? More than we think...until we think.about what is going on when we are listening to someone speaking to us. Or, more accurately, when we think we are listening to someone speaking to us.

When we think about it we will discover we are always listening...the question is what are we listening to? 

So let's run an experiment. Stop reading, and be quiet for 60 seconds...time yourself...just sit and be quiet.

How long did it take for you to notice the conversation you were having with yourself? Something like this perhaps:

• What am I supposed to be doing exactly?
• What exactly is the experiment...just be quiet, is that all? Oh, I can do that...love peace and quite
• Jeez, 60 seconds is a long time...wow, 30 to go.

We soon begin to notice the conversations we are having with ourselves. And, it won't take long for us to we aware it is always there. As far as I can tell it is there when I wake up...at various times of the day, and around certain people it gets particularly loud, and it is still going as I go off to sleep.

 I call this conversation we have with ourselves our background conversation. As we start to pay attention we soon notice our background conversation has something to say about everything, and everyone.

We all have distinct themes to our background conversations, that said, we all seem to have some background conversations in common. For example:

• We make judgements...I like, I don't like; that's right, that not right; that true, that's not true...
• We make assessments...that's good, that not good; that will work, that won't work; she's competent, he is not competent...
• We evaluate every person, and every situation...

So, Back to the point: How come it is so hard to listen, really listen when someone is speaking to us? It is because when they start to speak...often even before they start to speak...our background conversation kicks in, judging, evaluating,  and assessing every thing they are saying.

And, because we can't multitask, we listen to a bit of what is being said to us, followed by listening to our background conversation about what is being said, then back to what is being said, and so on.

At best we listen to fragments usually the bits we like, the bits we agree with, the bits we think are true, and so on. The bits we don't like or don't agree with, the bits we don't think are true, we don't listen to. What we do instead...we either ignore what's being said (switch off even) or argue with it...often to ourselves in our background conversations.

If relationships are to really work we need to master a way of communicating that includes not just the foreground conversations, but also the background conversations.

More about that next.

Having Asked Our Questions...Let People Speak

Let People Speak...And Then Do What Is Hardest Of All For Most of Us...Listen

And I don't mean listen for answers...especially when there is a question on the table, and a problem to solve.

I also don't mean listen for what you like and filter out what you don't like...you know the knee jerk agree/disagree reflex we all have that only allows what we like and agree with to make it through to us.

No, I mean listen, it is one of the hardest things to do, in my experience, to just listen...with no judgements, no evaluations, no assessments. Just listen so as to really get another person's perspective...how come they think, feel, and believe as they do...?

Simon Sinek has some useful coaching for purposeful leaders be the last person to speak. 

When we know we are being listened to...magic happens, or atleast so it seems. We find ourselves saying things that we didn't even know we knew to say. We find ourselves expressing feelings, emotions and passions we didn't know we had...or atleast not to the extend we express them when we are really being listened to. 

Purposeful leaders get the importance of being listened to for a purpose to be fully expressed in the world. They also get how essential it is for everyone to have the experience that they are being listened to, if their self expression and passion is to see the light of day...the very self expression and passion that brings purpose to life.

The Power of Questions

Leaders Need to Ask More Questions

In the process practice giving up being the go to person...the answer provider in chief.

Ask questions to:

1. Evoke
2. Provoke
3. Elicit dialogue.

Ask questions that nature inquiry for the respondent, not answers for the questioner. 

A leaders job is to make people think; to encourage and support people to use their own best intelligence; to create an environment of autonomous decision-making.

Asking questions is an access to continuous learning. Especially questions that expose us to the risk of discovering invalid, even limiting, beliefs. And, questions that expose our areas of ignorance – the ancient Greeks considered ignorance to be a sacred space...it was the access to learning, growth, and discovery.

Great leaders relish questions, especially questions that:

1. Uncover our ignorance so we can replace not knowing with discoveries
2. Questions that reveal the faulty foundations of our decisions and actions
3. Questions that unconcealed the elephants in the room so that they can become topics of inquiry and new insights.