3 tips for understanding the picture inside a person's head

Great listeners listen for the ‘theme’ in what a person is saying. They then ‘play back’ the message to check they have understood the meaning. This is vital whether you are working as a coach, making clear contracts with a customer, listening to your partner or whatever. A key skill in this process is being able to see the world from the other person’s point of view. Let’s explore one approach to achieving this goal.

* You can understand the picture inside a person’s head.

Words can mean different things to different people. So it is vital to understand a situation from the other person’s view. Here is an exercise that is used on workshops to illustrate how the same message can be interpreted in different ways. You ask the participants to close their eyes and then give the following instructions.

“Imagine a field in the country. In the field there is a horse. It is up to you what colour the horse is - brown, black, white or whatever. There may be other animals around. There might be a farmhouse or other buildings nearby. It is up to you what kind of day it is. The horse runs around the field, jumps over a fence and runs away into the distance. You can open your eyes now. Form pairs and each spend 30 seconds describing your picture.”

Calling people together, you ask: “What colour what the horse?” People answer: ‘brown’, ‘black’, ‘white’ or whatever. So you ask: “What is the right colour?” Blank stares. So you say:

“Every person’s picture is right for them. You would think it was crazy if you saw a black horse and I said you got the wrong colour - it was white. But have you ever been in that situation? You think you have made an agreement with somebody. But then, when you follow-up afterwards, they say you have got the wrong picture.”

Let’s return to the art of listening to another person. Try tackling the exercise on this theme. First, think of a situation where you want to be a good listener – perhaps with your manager, with your partner or wherever. Second, describe the specific things that you can do to understand the ‘picture inside their head’ - the feeling they have, the situation from their point of view. Try completing the following sentences.

The specific situation where I want to be a good listener is:

*

The specific things I can do to understand the ‘picture inside the person’s head’ are:

*


* You can ‘play back’ your understanding to check you have the same picture.

Good communication calls for double-checking your understanding of the other person’s view. For example:

Imagine your boss says they want something done ‘as quickly as possible’. Does this mean when you have finished your present task, when you have time or immediately? (They probably want it done yesterday!)

Imagine a person says they want you to ‘encourage’ them. Do they mean to praise them all the time, give positive but realistic feedback or make suggestions about how they can improve?

Imagine your partner says they want you to change your behaviour. Do you understand the actions they want you to stop – and what they want you to do instead in the future?

Let’s return to the situation in which you want to be a good listener. Try completing the following sentence.

The specific things I can do to double-check I have understood the picture inside the person’s head are:

*

* You can make sure that everybody continues to share the same picture.

Circumstances can change and so can seemingly agreed pictures. Sometimes people tell you about the changes; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people think they have communicated the changes; but they haven’t. Good communicators develop the discipline of checking-out that everybody still has the same picture.

Imagine you have taken a brief from a difficult client who continually changes their mind. When presenting back the work to the client, you can position it by saying: “Before I show the work, let’s just go back to the brief we agreed. If circumstances have changed, that is okay. But here is what we have done so far according to the brief.” You can then build from a common understanding.

Let’s return to the situation where you want to be a good listener. How can you stay connected, be aware of any changes and make sure everybody still has the same picture? Try completing the following sentence.

The specific things I can do to make sure that everybody continues to share the same picture are:

*

Clear communication is a key component of healthy relationships - be these with customers, colleagues, friends or family. One way to achieve this is by continuing to ‘check-out the colour of the horse’. You will then have the basis for continuing to build good relationships.

You can find more tools on this theme at:

http://www.thestrengthsway.com/